Rethinking Language, Identity, and Education in the Postcolonial setting

Colonial Divides and Civilisational Continuities

The task is to dismantle colonial false divisions (religion, language, region) and reorient Indian education towards its own multifaceted wisdom

By Nandini Bhautoo

In 1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay laid the foundation for what would become one of the most enduring legacies of British colonialism in India: the anglicization of education. His infamous “Minute on Indian Education” argued for producing a class of people “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” This was not merely about language — it was an epistemic project to sever Indians from their cultural roots, philosophical traditions, and civilizational ethos. The result was an engineered alienation: a new elite educated in English who viewed their own traditions as inferior, irrational, or outdated.

Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian Education” laid the groundwork for the anglicization of Indian education, aiming to create a class “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, opinions, morals, and intellect.” Pic – Genuises Club

Macaulay’s intervention must be understood not as an isolated policy but as part of a larger colonial strategy of “divide and rule.” Scholars like Gyanendra Pandey, in The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, have demonstrated how colonial administration actively fabricated the narrative of irreconcilable religious communities. Communal identities, rather than being age-old antagonisms, were shaped and sharpened under British governance to better segment and manage a diverse population. Census categories, religious personal laws, and the privileging of communal leadership over shared civic identity fostered a communal consciousness that would eventually fracture into tragic episodes of violence.

But perhaps even more insidious was the creation of the North-South divide, a political and cultural chasm not strongly reflected in traditional practice but deeply embedded in colonial historiography and later, in nationalist politics. In their groundbreaking work Breaking India, Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan unpack how this constructed schism delegitimized the South as “Dravidian” and “non-Vedic,” and disconnected it from the spiritual and civilizational core of India. The result was a distorted imagination: a North identified with Sanskrit and orthodoxy, and a South seen as heterodox and linguistically alien.

This narrative falls apart under closer scrutiny of history and practice. The Vijayanagara Empire, for instance, was one of the greatest patrons of Hinduism, drawing from the Agama traditions and integrating Vaishnavite and Shaivite streams into a temple-centered public life. The Chola dynasty before them had already left behind a remarkable legacy of temple-building, sacred architecture, and maritime cultural exchange deeply tied to dharmic ideals. The continuity of Hindu spiritual heritage is evident in figures like Adi Shankaracharya, who travelled the length and breadth of the subcontinent, establishing mathas that linked the philosophical thought of the Upanishads to the living traditions of the South, including the Sangam corpus and the Agastya tradition.

South India’s sacred geography — from the hill temples of Tirupati to the Tamil hymns of the Alvars and Nayanmars — has always been integrated with the pan-Indic spiritual vision. It is the colonial framework that falsely bifurcated this unity. The motive was simple: a divided culture is easier to govern.

Unfortunately, the postcolonial Indian diaspora internalized many of these divides. In Mauritius, for example, Raj Virahsawmy’s creation of the Tamil-Telegu-Marathi Party in the 1970s re-inscribed regional linguistic differences, even as earlier generations had fought for Hindi as a unifying language of education. As documented by L.P. Ramyead, the Hindi language struggle was less about North India and more about cultural cohesion in a diasporic context where ancestral roots spanned different regions of India. Yet these colonial distinctions endured, resulting in a double bind: Oriental languages were sidelined within educational systems, and their traditional inheritors became increasingly blind to the civilisational unity that underpins their diversity.

Even today, regionalism continues to obscure the deeper cultural and philosophical continuities of Indian civilization. But the arts, paradoxically, keep revealing what politics has concealed. The opulent storytelling in Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, based on Kalki Krishnamurthy’s mid-20th-century novels, exemplifies the grandeur, complexity, and continuity of Tamil civilisational thought. The film is not merely entertainment — it is a reminder of a deep, living heritage whose spiritual and political resonance defies colonial categorizations.

The Case for a Renewed Curriculum

We stand today at a crossroads. The shadow of colonial education continues to linger, not only in the language of instruction but in the structure of thought. To overcome this, there is a need to revisit and reclaim complex historical inheritance — not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a foundation for a renewed curriculum that looks both to the past and the future.

Such a curriculum should:

• Integrate civilizational studies into early education, encompassing the Sangam texts, Vedas, Agamas, and contributions from all regions of India.
• Emphasize thematic integration, such as using ancient ecological practices (as described in Tamil and Sanskrit texts) to address contemporary environmental crises.
• Link economic and philosophical traditions, such as artha-shastra and dharma-niti, to modern discussions of geopolitics and ethical economics.
• Foster civic identity beyond religious or regional boxes, rooted in India’s shared cultural-spiritual heritage.
• Elevate regional languages and literatures not in competition, but in concert — seeing them as different expressions of a unified civilizational ethos.

The aim is not homogenization, but harmony.

Beyond the Colonial Bind

Although many contemporary Mauritians refuse the hyphenated identity, privileging an exclusivist definition of Mauritian citizenship which erases and negates historical links beyond the immediate geography of the island, history and its legacies are there to stay.

It is paradoxical that activists are trying to revive ties with other ancestral cultures while attempting to negate the continuation of a living tradition which India represents. It is a living civilization with spiritual, cultural, and linguistic continuities that defy the narrow categories imposed by colonial administrators and perpetuated by postcolonial inertia. The task ahead is twofold: to expose and dismantle the false binaries of religion, language, and region that were colonial constructs, and to cultivate a curriculum that reorients Indian education toward its own multidimensional wisdom.

If we succeed, we will not only heal historical wounds but equip future generations with the clarity, rootedness, and vision needed to navigate a complex world — firmly grounded in the timeless spirit of a reclaimed inheritance with eyes firmly fixed on the future.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 23 May 2025