Debate on Medium of Education and Role of Macaulay

Very soon a debate arose about the choice to be made with regard to the medium of education in India on which the company’s government was to spend. There were impassioned debates between the votaries of Oriental and English systems.

Things started drifting in favour of English education when Bentinck took over as the Governor General of India in 1828. T.B. Macaulay was appointed as the Law Member in his Council in 1834. Macaulay was a great advocate of English education. He was made President of the General Committee of Public Instruction.

Supporters of English based education or Anglicists, led by Lord Macaulay, emerged victorious. Macaulay issued his minutes on Indian education on February 2, 1835. This message became the guiding principle for introduction of English education in India. The government resolved that its aim in future would be promotion of European literature and sciences through the medium of English language.

In future, all funds spent by the Company on education would be for this purpose alone. This shift meant that now English education in India would become an important medium for the import of western knowledge.

Macaulay was of the opinion that support to English education in India would create "a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste." It was presumed that this class would eventually become strong pillars of the British Raj in India. It was expected that these Indians, trained through English education, would learn western morality and ethics.

When incorporated into the structure of colonial rule, these Indians would help to strengthen the British domination of India. This was the "downward filtration" theory. This kind of education was not meant for the masses but for the learned and affluent few in India. This theory assumed that ethics of English education would percolate down to the masses through these Indians. These trained Indians, when acting as teachers, could act as the medium through which elementary education would percolate downward in regional languages.

Macaulay was convinced that with limited funds, it would be impossible to attempt to educate the masses. It is better that a few English educated Indians act as "class of interpreters". This class, by enriching vernacular languages and literature, would help western sciences and literature reach the masses. This would enable British rulers to spread western morality to Indian masses at a much less public expenditure. This theory also saw education as a means to enable Indians to occupy subordinate positions and function as clerks, etc. in the Company’s bureaucracy.