While delivering the Ramnath Goenka Lecture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a ten-year pledge to root out the “colonial mindset.” In ten years, he noted, it will be 200 years since Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay introduced English-medium education in India. According to Modi, “Macaulay’s project was to reshape Indian thought by dismantling indigenous knowledge systems and enforcing colonial education,” thereby creating Indians who were “Indian in appearance but British in thought.” This, he argued, broke India’s self-confidence and created a sense of inferiority (Indian Express, November 18, 2025).

Modi’s remarks reflect the wider ideological thrust of the RSS and Hindutva nationalism. For decades, this ideological stream has emphasized the “atrocities” of Muslim rulers, portraying them as destroyers of Hindu temples and culture. More recently, however, Hindutva thinkers have shifted focus toward blaming “coloniality” — the mindset and cultural imprint left by British rule — for India’s present-day challenges.

This argument comes from a school of thought whose ideological ancestors largely kept aloof when Indian masses, led by Mahatma Gandhi and others, fought the colonial state at every level.

Competing Views Of Macaulay’s Legacy

Interestingly, while Modi blames Macaulay for India’s “ills,” many Dalit thinkers, such as Chandrabhan Prasad, credit Macaulay with laying the educational foundations that eventually enabled struggles for dignity and equality for Dalits and other marginalized groups.

Hindutva proponents assume that British-introduced culture traveled in a straight line. Yet their own ideological model borrows heavily from European forms of nationalism based on language or religion. India’s evolution was far more complex. English education did introduce modern liberal values and opened new spaces for sections previously denied access to knowledge — notably Dalits and women. In the older Gurukul system, education was restricted almost exclusively to upper-caste men.

India’s traditional knowledge — from Sushruta, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, the Lokayat tradition, and Bhaskara — did enrich society and advance scientific understanding. But this knowledge remained tightly controlled by elite groups, restricting power and wealth to a few.

It is true that Macaulay sought to create clerical manpower for the British Empire. Equally true, figures such as Rudyard Kipling justified colonialism by portraying it as the “white man’s burden.” Yet the same English-language education also produced the nationalists who challenged and ultimately dismantled colonial rule — Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Jawaharlal Nehru among them. Nehru later captured India’s aspirations in his landmark “Tryst with Destiny” speech.

Colonial Education Reinvention of Indian Identity

Did English suppress regional languages? History suggests otherwise. The expansion of education strengthened regional languages as well. Lokmanya Tilak (Kesari, Maratha) and Gandhi (Navjivan) launched influential newspapers in Marathi and Gujarati respectively. Literary giants such as Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali} and Munshi Premchand (Hindi) flourished during this very period.

British scholars also helped rediscover India’s ancient heritage. As Swaminathan Aiyar (TOI, November 2025) notes, the British set up the Archaeological Survey of India under Alexander Cunningham. Excavations from Taxila to Nalanda revived global awareness of India’s civilizational achievements — even if unintentionally.

Indian thinkers never accepted British policies wholesale. Leaders such as Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and R.C. Dutt mounted strong intellectual critiques. The freedom movement was the ultimate rejection of British colonialism. English, ironically, became a tool of this resistance — evolving into an “Indianized” language wielded by writers like Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, and Kiran Desai.

Modern knowledge systems grew richer through engagement with global ideas. After linguistic reorganization, regional languages and traditional knowledge found greater space. Yet India’s engagement with global thought also challenged deeply rooted caste and gender hierarchies. Modern education — despite its imperfections — opened pathways to equality and justice for historically marginalized groups.

An interesting contrast highlights the complexity of colonial legacies: in an Oxford debate, Shashi Tharoor forcefully detailed the economic plunder of India under British rule. Months later, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking in England, acknowledged the British role in introducing modern administration and education. Both perspectives hold truth.

Reviving Tradition Or Rewriting History?

The crucial point is that colonialism inadvertently helped lay the foundation for modern liberal values and administrative reforms. These values underpinned the freedom movement, where Indians of all religions joined hands to overthrow British rule.

In contrast, early ideological predecessors of Hindutva nationalism explicitly distanced themselves from the anti-colonial struggle. Shamsul Islam highlights a striking statement attributed to M.S. Golwalkar: “Hindus, don’t waste your energy fighting the British. Save your energy to fight our internal enemies — Muslims, Christians, and Communists.” This worldview prioritized communal antagonism over anti-colonial resistance.

Why, then, are Hindutva ideologues today so invested in attacking “coloniality” and glorifying “traditional knowledge systems”? The New Education Policy reflects this shift. Hindutva nationalism is deeply rooted in the traditional social order — including caste and gender hierarchies — which were shaken, though not eliminated, by the freedom movement and the Indian Constitution.

Opposing Macaulay and Western knowledge systems becomes a convenient pathway to re-legitimize older social hierarchies under the guise of cultural revival.

Civilizations, however, do not move in straight lines. Human progress has always emerged from what might be called an “alliance of civilizations” — a continuous interaction of ideas that pushes societies toward greater justice and equality.

(The author is a former professor at IIT Bombay and Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. Views expressed are personal and not necessarily shared by editors of SAM. He can be reached at ram.puniyani@gmail.com/Youtube Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Twitter )