PM Modi Urges 10-year National Pledge to Shed Colonial Mindset 

Syllabus: GS1/Modern History

Context

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged a national resolve to shed the Macaulay mindset, launching a 10-year mission to reverse the colonial-era impact of the 1835 education overhaul.

About

• In every country people take pride in their historical heritage, while post-Independence India witnessed efforts to disown its own legacy.
• PM Modi noted that nations such as Japan and South Korea did adopt Western ideas but remained rooted in their own languages. This was a balance India’s new education policy also seeks to encourage.
• PM Modi asserted that the evils and societal afflictions introduced by Macaulay must be eradicated in the coming decade.

What is the “Colonial Mindset”?

• The cumulative effect of British rule created a mindset marked by:
  • Admiration for Western norms, governance, knowledge, and lifestyle;
  • Undervaluation of Indian culture, language, scientific traditions;
  • Dependence on external validation;
  • Internalisation of racial and cultural inferiority.

Background

• Education in pre-colonial India was characterised by a segmentation along religious and caste lines, under the Gurukul system. 
  • The Gurukul system favoured traditional knowledge and spiritual development. 
  • Women, lower castes and other underprivileged people were often barred from accessing education.
• Initially, the East India Company assumed only minimal responsibility for education in India.
  • However, individual officials such as Warren Hastings, Sir William Jones, and Jonathan Duncan were deeply interested in India’s ancient and medieval knowledge systems. 
  • Their initiatives led to the establishment of early Oriental institutions—most notably the Calcutta Madrasa (1781), the Asiatic Society of Calcutta (1784), and the Sanskrit College at Benares (1791). These were personal scholarly efforts rather than a formal educational policy of the Company.

Downward Filtration Theory

• Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) was a British historian, politician, and member of the Governor-General’s Council in India.
• Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education (1835): Macaulay advocated for the creation of a pool of Indians capable of serving British interests. 
  • This group would be Indian by blood and colour, but English by tastes, opinions, morals and intellect. 
  • Entry into this group would be limited to only a few Indians, who would then educate the rest of the population according to Macaulay’s controversial Downward Filtration Theory.
• Post Direct Crown Rule: After the British Crown took over from the Company following the revolt of 1857, Viceroy Lord Mayo made an assessment of India’s educational policy.
  • He found that the British were educating a few hundred Babus at a great expense, who would then do nothing toward extending knowledge to the millions.
  • Viceroy Lord Mayo prioritised the recommendations of the 1854 ‘Wood’s Despatch,’ which called for the spread of education in both English and vernacular languages.

How British Rule Created a Colonial Mindset in India?

• Imposition of English Education: Education promoted Western sciences and humanities while delegitimising Indian knowledge systems, languages, and philosophies.
  • Produced an elite class that saw British culture as superior and Indian traditions as “backward.”
• Undermining of Indian Institutions & Traditions: Ancient Indian systems of governance, jurisprudence, village self-rule, and indigenous medicine were portrayed as irrational, outdated, or superstitious.
• Racial Hierarchy and Social Conditioning: The British propagated the idea of the “White Man’s Burden,” portraying themselves as racially superior and Indians as incapable of self-rule.
  • Segregation in clubs, rail compartments, and residential areas reinforced racial superiority.
• Westernized Urban Culture: Urban Indians began to equate English language, dress, manners, social behaviour with modernity and prestige.
  • Access to jobs, courts, and higher education became linked to English literacy, marginalizing vernacular cultures.
• Economic Policies Leading to Psychological Dependency: Deindustrialisation and drain of wealth impoverished India, making British technology, capital, and institutions appear indispensable.
  • Indians began to see economic progress only through Western models, undermining indigenous entrepreneurship.

Government of India’s Initiatives

• Reforming Colonial Laws & Criminal Justice System: Indian Penal Code was replaced by Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), CrPC as Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and Indian Evidence Act to Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA).
  • The aim is to shift from colonial “ruler’s policing” to citizen-centric justice.
• National Education Policy (NEP) 2020: It moves away from Macaulay’s rote-learning model.
  • Emphasises on Indian knowledge systems (IKS), classical languages, and critical thinking.
  • Promotes mother-tongue/ regional language as medium of instruction.
• New Curriculum Framework (2023): It has integrated Indian philosophy, culture, mathematics, sciences into school textbooks.
• International Yoga Day: The UN General Assembly in 2014, unanimously adopted a resolution for observing 21st June every year as the International Day of Yoga.
• Global Recognition: The Ministry of Ayush and the World Health Organization has established the World’s first and the only Global Traditional Medicine Centre (WHO GTMC) in Jamnagar, India.
• Promoting Regional Language: Greater use of Indian languages in Parliament, judiciary, and government administration.
• Mission Karmayogi (2020): Moving bureaucracy from colonial command-control culture to citizen-centric service orientation.

Source: IE