Why Macaulay strove to bring in English as the medium of education to India should be understood from this background. Moreover, there is another issue that may need some explaining. Once English came to the Indian educational scene, British classical writings also slowly entered into the mainstream education. Such writers as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Oscar Wilde, R L Stevenson, Arthur Conon Doyle and so many other English writers were to become household names among the English educated class over here, over the years.
Even though it would be argued that the local land had a great literary legacy, the fact is that the local literary traditions were more or less reflective of the extremely draconian feudal social system in the society. When one says the words feudal and draconian etc. the understanding one may get would be comparable to the English feudal social system. However, the fact is that the local feudal system was quite different from the English feudal system, and had no component of refinement or intellectual bearing in it. It was purely oppressive and existed on human suppression by means of demeaning words and usages.
Reading the writings of the British classical writers was a very enlightening experience for the local educated persons. Yet, they simply were quite small in number, and also due to their newly acquired intellectual bearing, could only exist in the social system as different individuals, standing apart from the purely feudal-intelligent local person.
For conveying to the local man, the difference that English makes in a man was not possible. For, they lived in another world, where the complete social logic was different. The local social logic was simply to suppress the lower man.
Any attempt to give the lower man a leeway to improve was stark idiotism, for he would surely come on top and suppress the benefactor. For, he also understood the social code in that manner. A man who gave knowledge, information, technical skills, technological information, opportunity to learn and develop etc. to another individual, who is essentially a social competitor, is seen as an idiot and nitwit by the Indian society. For, no sane person would do that. Only the English individuals and the English nations have been so foolish, in the whole history of mankind.
English classical literature was literally transporting the local man to a higher plane of social living and interaction. Even such novels as Oliver Twist, which ostensibly shows the negative sides of England, were writings that showed a higher human individuality than could be conceived upon a local man of whatever social status. The ability to read such books was a capacity to internalise something purely divine, ethereal and totally an outside-this-world experience.
To a limited extent, it must be admitted that the English-educated Indian could have irked the English man. For, they rose above the others, and could strive to claim equality with the British. They would want this connection desperately, to ward off the claims of equality from the other un-educated Indians.
The British who lived in this geographical area were quite aware of the power of impact that the different levels of words had. For example, the power of impact of the word Nee (lowest You), as against that of Ningal, Thangal (Sar) etc. Similarly the crushing power of the word Aval (lowest She), as against the words Ayaal and Avar/Adheham.
This eerie reality was quite beyond the comprehension of the stay-at-home Britons. They conceptualised on this geographical area in a manner similar to that in England. It was an intellectual error of astronomical proportions.
For, it was to lead to an intellectual understanding that the British rule in India was harming the local populace. Actually, it was doing the reverse, to the vast majority of people here. Again, it must be stressed that there was a painful side to the development that was being extended to the lower class people here. It was more or less sidelining the higher class people, who were in most cases the higher caste also. For in those days, it was quite difficult to differentiate between caste and class. Higher caste had higher levels of refinement and less crudeness, in verbal and non-verbal codes and gestures, at least amongst themselves. This sentence cannot be explained easily in English, for again the crudeness has to be explained in the context of the crudeness in the words and its meanings and sound.
The issue here was: The same lower caste/class people who would, the moment they become higher, trample those who had gone under them with snubbing and crushing verbal codes, were being lifted up above the higher castes. It so happened that in some areas, the lower castes enjoyed the English education that grew up in the liberal English atmosphere of the British rule. For example, my own caste people in a place called Tellichery got a never-before-in-history opportunity to study in a school and learn good English. This caste was a lower caste group, with all its crudeness. This crudeness was more or less inflicted on their own people by such words as Nee, Chekkan, Pennu, Oal (Aval), Oan (Avan), Ayittingal (Avattakal) {them folk; lower word) and such words. Moreover, to those they did not give respect, naturally the mood was to be taunting and disgusting.
