The Decolonization of Educational Culture: The Case of India

Author(s): Joseph W. Elder

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 15, No. 3, Papers from the Comparative and
International Education Society Conference, San Diego, California, March 21-23, 1971 (Oct.,
1971), pp. 288-295
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and International Education
Society
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THE

DECOLONIZATION
THE

OF EDUCATIONAL
CASE OF INDIA

CULTURE:

JOSEPH W. ELDER
THE PROBLEM

UNDERTHETYPICAL
colonial arrangement, the metropolitan power exercises control over its colonies' educational culture, i.e., the information, beliefs, and
exhortations designed for transmission through the colonies' school system.
Frequently, in drafting the curriculum and syllabi, the metropolitan power transmits generous quantities of its domestic curriculum and syllabi to its colonies.
Thus, in the early 1900's schoolboys in India and Nigeria were learning the intricacies of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and memorizing the lists of English
kings through the wars of succession, while schoolboys in French Indochina or
West Africa were studying passages from Moliere and Victor Hugo and pointing out on maps of Paris the correct locations of the Louvre and Notre Dame.
When a colony achieves political independence, one of the many tasks it
must subsequently accomplish is the "decolonization" of its educational culture. This "decolonization" typically means rewriting the curriculum and syllabi, if only to accomplish the minimum of changing the "law-breaking insurgents" to the "nation's heroes" in the struggle for independence. Typically it
extends beyond the minimum, involving a replacement of the metropolitan
power's information, beliefs, and exhortations with those of the newly-independent nation. Enmeshed in this replacement are the new nation's definitions
of its historical and current relationships specifically to its ex-metropolitan
power but more generally to the West.
This paper focuses on two aspects of the decolonization of educational culture: 1. How does a recently-independent nation present to its young its experiences under Western colonialism? 2. How does such a nation define for its
young its post-independence relations with the West?
THE METHODOLOGY

The findings reported in this paper are based on a content analysis of 744
lessons in the language textbooks from two sections of India.' Instead of
choosing language textbooks, I might have chosen the history and social studII am deeply thankful to the following persons who labored long and carefully to provide
English translations of the Hindi and Tamil textbooks: Kausalya Hart, Victor Jesudason and Melba Jesudason, A. R. Saiyed and Vibha Saiyed, Vijai P. Singh, Bam Dev Sharda and Chanderkanta
Sharda. On the basis of their translations, I was able to carry out the following process of content
analysis: I read each of the 744 Lessons and assigned it to one of the following seven categories:
1. Pre-colonial: Historical (actual events and persons in India's history); 2. Pre-colonial: Mythical (legends, tales, and myths); Colonial (describing events that took place in India during the
period of European and especially British domination); 4. Post-Independence: National (describ288

October 1971

DECOLONIZATION: INDIA

ies textbooks, and an exhaustive treatment of the decolonization of educational

culture should certainly include them. But the language textbooks seemed to
provide a more open-ended arena for the presentation of educational culture.
These textbooks are designed to train students in language comprehension and
usage; the subject matter with which they deal is of secondary importance. It is
precisely for this reason I felt the subject matter might be revealing. Any unusual personal idiosyncracies of textbook writers are muted by the fact the state
ministries of education must approve all textbooks before classroom adoption.
The final product is somewhat like a joint projective test, with the textbook
writers and members of the state ministries of education deciding what subject
matter will and will not appear in the language textbooks.
The materials I analyzed were the 1962-63 and 1970-71 language textbooks
for grades two through ten2 in the cities of Lucknow, the capital of the Hindispeaking state of Uttar Pradesh, and the city of Madurai, the cultural capital
(albeit Madras is the political capital) of the state of Tamil Nadu. The purpose
in choosing two different sections of India was to try to control for regional
variations. The Hindi and Tamil cultures differ in important respects. If-despite their differences--they present common patterns of decolonization, they
might reflect general decolonization processes.3 The purpose in choosing two
time periods was to see if any substantial changes occurred during eight yearsing events, persons, or sites of all-India significanceafter 1947, when India became independent);
5. Post-Independence:Regional (describing events, persons, or sites of regional significance
within India after 1947);6. Foreign (describingevents, persons, sites, etc. from countries outside
India); 7. Miscellaneous(stories, prayers,proverbs,sermons, descriptions of natural phenomena,
etc.).

2 Both the Hindi and the Tamil first

grade textbooks concentrated heavily on teaching letters
and isolated words. Hence, it was not possible to perform a content analysis on them. Furthermore, in
1962-63, the 10th grade Hindi textbook was entirely poetry, and in 1970-71 both the 9th and the
10th grade Hindi textbooks were entirely poetry. In view of the characteristically devotional tone of
much of the poetry, I decided these textbooks comprised a different genre of writing and eliminated them from the content analysis. And in 1970-71 the 9th and 10th grade Tamil books were
unavailable for my analysis. In short, the content analysis included only the following textbooks:
Tamil 1962-63: Grades 2 through 10; Tamil 1970-71: Grades 2 through 8; Hindi 1962-63: Grades 2
through 9; Hindi 1970-71: Grades 2 through 8.
3 In Lucknow the same textbooks were used in grades 2 through 5 in 1970-71 as were used in 196263. In Madurai the same textbooks were used in grade 2 both times. The figure of 744
Lessons includes no double counting. If the Lessons are counted twice when used both time
periods,
the total comes to 888. The following table compares the Lessons in the Hindi and Tamil textbooks.
Note the similarity in the proportions:
Hindi
Tamil

1. Pre-colonial: Historical
2. Pre-colonial: Mythical
3. Colonial
4. Post-Independence: National
5. Post-Independence: Regional
6. Foreign
7. Miscellaneous

ComparativeEducationReview

(n=470)
9%
20%
7%
12%
7%
12%
33%

(n=418)
14%
15%
7%
7%
6%
11%
40%

100%

100%

289

JOSEPH W. ELDER

years interrupted by India's brief but bitter wars with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965.4
THE

PRESENTATION

OF THE WESTERN

COLONIAL

EXPERIENCE

Similarities in Hindi and Tamil Textbooks

Carryovers of Colonial Materials. The British presence has not yet completely disappeared from India's educational culture. Indian school children
still read the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella,
and Aesop's Fables (albeit with accompanying illustrations suggesting these
stories might have taken place in India). Britain's Greco-Roman heritage lingers in the accounts of the Trojan Horse, Romulus and Remus, the Marathon
Race, King Midas, and Horatius at the Bridge. And Britain's Judeo-Christian
heritage is apparent in the legends of King Solomon, the Prodigal Son, Androcles
and the Lion, and Santa Claus. In the higher grades, Indian students are exposed
to Jim Corbett's account of a tiger hunt, the candlestick scene from Les Miserables, and an abridged version of The Merchant of Venice. Such Western literary renditions fill only a small fraction (3%) of the total number of Lessons.
In addition, another 4% present biographies of Westerners, which will be dealt
with in a later section. And another 4% describe Western countries, Western
achievements, etc. All told, 11%of the Lessons deal with strictly Western subjects, reflecting probably a rather dramatic decolonization.
De-emphasis of the Colonial Period and Emphasis on the Pre-Colonial and
Post-Independence Periods. Someone reading the Hindi and Tamil textbooks
might almost miss the fact that India was a colony of Britain for a century and
a half. No more than 7%of the Lessons deal with events that occurred during
the British raj prior to India's Independence. To the extent the colonial era is
presented at all, it is most frequently presented in the context of Gandhi's leadership of the struggle for freedom. Two per cent of the Lessons deal with
Gandhi as "father of the nation," "leader of the country," "India's saintly
leader," etc. Other heroes in the struggle for independence from Britain include
the Queen of Jhansi (who died fighting the British in 1858), Veerapandya Kattabomman (who fought the British in South India), Swami Vivekananda (a
4The following table compares the Lessons in the 1962-63 and 1970-71 textbooks.
Again, note the similarityin the proportions:
1962-63
1970-71
(n=485)
(n=403)
1. Pre-colonial: Historical
14%
9%
2. Pre-colonial: Mythical
18%
18%
3. Colonial
7%
7%
4. Post-Independence: National
9%
11%
5. Post-Independence: Regional
8%
4%
6. Foreign
11%
12%
7. Miscellaneous
34%
39%
101%
290

100%
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DECOLONIZATION: INDIA

Hindu missionary who preached in the United States and Europe), and Pandit
Madan Malaviya (who founded Banaras Hindu University to counter the westernizing influence of British-directed universities). The British are mentioned
in these Lessons.
But certain Lessons dealing with persons who lived during the same period do not even mention the British, for example, the biographies of Tamil
scholars such as Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, Vedanayagam Pillai, Somesundara Bharatiya, and Pandidurai Thevar. In certain instances, British contributions to India go noticeably unmentioned. For example, a Tamil Lesson describing irrigation projects in India leaves out the large Periyar dam built by
the British that diverts water from amply-wet Kerala to periodically-dry Tamil
Nadu. And in certain instances prominent Indians who played an important
historical part in India's adoption of Western elements are left unmentioned.
For example, the nineteenth century Bengali intellectual, Rammohun Roy,
sometimes referred to by Western historians as the "Father of Modern India,"
is not presented in any of the Hindi or Tamil textbooks. His leadership in the
struggle to abolish sati (widow self-immolation) and his advocacy of an English-medium education may have made him an awkward figure to handle in
the textbooks. It is almost as if the British period is a source of embarrassment
for the textbook writers and the ministries of education, to be mentioned as the
setting for India's acts of courage, or not to be mentioned at all.
Where there is a scarcity of materials on India's colonial period, an abundance
of the Lessons (31%) deal with India's pre-colonial legacy. Of this, the greater
proportion (18%) consist of materials drawn from India's religious epics and
mythology. The Hindi textbooks most frequently present excerpts from Valmiki's and Tulsidasa's Ramayana (the banishment of Rama, the brotherly obedience of Bharat, Sita's devotion to her husband, Lakshman's loyalty to his
brother, Sita's abduction, and the final war in Ceylon culminating in Sita's rescue and reunion with Rama), the Mahabharata (Yudhistira's gambling away
of his kingdom, his wealth, and his wife, Arjuna's historic discussion with
his charioteer Krishna on the brink of the Great War), and the life stories of
Lord Buddha. The Tamil textbooks draw most heavily from the Tirukkural (a
Tamil scripture dating to the 4th or 5th century A.D. attributed to the
poet
Tiruvalluvar), the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram (the beauty, chastity, and faithfulness of the ideal wife Kannaki, the helplessness of her husband Kovalan in
the presence of the courtesan Matavi), and Kampan's Tamil version of the Ramayana. The pre-colonial stories are augmented by prayers, hymns of praise,
and religious sermons drawn from the classical heritage.
The remaining Lessons dealing with India's pre-colonial legacy
(13%) concern historical rather than mythical events. Such Lessons describe the emperors
Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka, Harsha, Babur, Humayun, Akbar, and Shivaji;
the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa-Hsien's 5th century tour of India, historical
sites such as the Buddhist university at Nalanda, the Ajanta Caves, Ankor Wat
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291

JOSEPH W. ELDER

in Cambodia, the Taj Mahal, the Courtrallam waterfalls, and the Chidambaram temples; great teachers, wits and literary figures like Kumarjiv (who carried Buddhism to China), Ilango Adigal (princely author of the Cilappatikaram), Tiruvalluvar (who composed the Tirukkural), Kalidasa (the most eminent Sanskrit poet and playwright), Chekkilar (poet in the Chola court), Tulsidas (who composed the Hindi version of the Ramayana), Tenali Raman (witty
jester in the Vijayanagar court), Kabir (poet who sought the mutual tolerance
of Hindus and Muslims), and Avvaiyar (poet in the court of Adhiyaman); the
traditional bases of festivals such as Holi, Diwali, Pongal, and Thirukarthigai;
and lesser historical figures such as Prince Parri of Parambu, Rajasekara Pandyan of Madurai, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Guru Gobind Singh of the Punjab,
Maharana Pratab of Rajasthan, the loyal Marathi general Ibrahim Gardi, and
Rani Durgavati, who committed suicide when she saw her army being overrun
by Akbar's forces.

Differences in Hindi and Tamil Textbooks

At this point an interesting difference appears between the Hindi and
Tamil textbooks. The Hindi pre-colonial heroes tend to be political--kings,
queens, generals, and heads of state-whose, main virtues include a belief in
God, tolerance for all faiths, great courage, and a willingness to sacrifice themselves for their country. No fewer than 41 Lessons of the total 360 Hindi Lessons
present such heroes (contrasted with 36 religious or literary scholar-teacher heroes). The villains in the Hindi textbooks are the godless, the religiously intolerant, the fearful, and the selfish. To the extent the West is featured in these
stories, the West is the object against which India's heroes direct their activities. Under these circumstances it is difficult for the Hindi textbooks to present
Western heroes for their Indian readers. Only 11 (3%) of the 360 Hindi Lessons
describe foreign heroes. Jesus Christ, the prophet Mohammed, and the Muslim saint Abdul Qadir are presented as evidence of religious tolerance. Columbus, Vasco de Gama, James Watt, and the Wright brothers are shown as examples of perseverance. Florence Nightingale and Abraham Lincoln are examples
of sacrificial service, and Tolstoy and C. S. Andrews are presented as friends and
allies of Gandhi.
The Tamil pre-colonial heroes, on the other hand, tend to be scholarspoets, religious teachers, literary patrons, musicians, and artists-whose main
virtues include a denunciation of caste differences and a dedication to the development of learning in general and Tamil culture in any of its forms in particular. No fewer than 40 of the total 384 Lessons present such cultural heroes
(contrasted with 26 political, head-of-state heroes, 14 of whom were missing in
the 1962-63 textbooks). The villains in the Tamil textbooks are the unlearned,
those disrespectful of the learned, those who have allowed Tamil culture to
slip from its original place of prominence in India, and those who sully Tamil
292

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DECOLONIZATION: INDIA

with Sanskrit or English adoptions. This Tamil emphasis on learning and culture makes it easier to include foreign heroes. To the extent foreigners, too, are
dedicated to learning, they are suitable models for India's young. Twenty-one
(5%)of the 384 Tamil Lessons (nearly twice as many as in the Hindi Lessons)
deal with foreign heroes, including scientists and inventors like Galileo, Louis
Pasteur, James Y. Simpson the anesthetist, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford;
explorers such as Marco Polo, Magellan, Captain James Cook, David Livingstone, and Sir Edmund Hillary; and literary figures like William Cooper and
George Bernard Shaw. Even one Lesson dealing with Napoleon stresses the
hours he used to spend studying in the library or conducting his voluminous
correspondence. Lessons are devoted to religious figures-Christ, Mohammed,
and Albert Schweitzer. A special Lesson is given to Joseph C. Besche, an Italian Catholic missionary, who came to South India, fell in love with Tamil culture, and authored the oft-quoted Tamil Christian Thembavani. The fact that
the Tamil textbooks stress cultural heroes means they can more easily draw figures from the West. The Hindi textbooks' stress on political heroes limits the
models they can draw from the West.
Moving from the pre-colonial to the post-Independence contents of the
textbooks, 17%of the 744 Lessons deal with post-Independence phenomena. In
this category one finds the lives of India's first and second prime ministers,
Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri, and her first president, Dr. Rajendra
Prasad. Nineteen Lessons present the National Anthem and the flag; other Lessons extol bravery, self-sacrifice for the nation, and national progress. They describe India as the Mother, and as the Temple of All Faiths. Additional Lessons
present accounts of modern India-her dams and hydroelectric projects, her
steel mills, her airlines, and the pageantry of Republic Day ceremonies in New
Delhi. National plans for village development are described, as are Vinoba
Bhave's non-violent sarvodaya programs for land-redistribution and cottage industries. One Lesson gives an account of India's field hockey victory in the
Helsinki World Olympics. Various Lessons describe the beauties and characteristics of different sections of India such as Assam, Orissa, Kashmir, and Kerala, major Indian cities like Delhi, Banaras, Allahabad, Kanpur, Madras, and
Madurai, as well as various aspects of life in India's villages. India is presented
as a land full of rich potential, one that has progressed and will continue to
progress toward a promising future for all her citizens, Hindu, Muslim, and
Christian, high caste and low caste.
THE DEFINITION

OF POST-INDEPENDENCE

RELATIONS

WITH

THE WEST

A strict content analysis of Lessons provides little evidence for how the
Hindi and Tamil textbooks define India's post-Independence relations with the
West. Aside from several Lessons describing the United Nations Organization, no Lessons deal specifically with India's foreign relations. However, comments interspersed among other materials seem to express three themes:
ComparativeEducationReview

293

JOSEPH W. ELDER

The West is Still Responsible for Lingering Difficulties in India

Lessons dealing with cottage industries stress the importance of India's
being free from the need for foreign goods. One Lesson, describing the manufacture of chocolates and biscuits, tells how foreign countries bought oil cakes
and ragi (a millet) from India at a nominal price, converted them into chocolates and biscuits, and sold them back to India at a large profit, thus draining
wealth from India. The Lesson asks, "How much is our ignorance and the
Westerners' intelligence?" Another Lesson, discussing child welfare, stresses
how British legislation generated the decline of the joint family system, the
backbone of Indian society, with a consequent rise in vagrancy, desertion, and
juvenile delinquency. Furthermore, institutions established to relieve the problems, funded from abroad and directed by foreigners or foreign-trained Indians
"were not suitable for our country and never had any lasting effect in the minds
of the people of our land." In a Lesson on the growth of the Tamil language,
foreigners are blamed for the fact that Tamil, once "the language spoken
throughout India," has been reduced to a language spoken in only the southernmost regions today. The West is also blamed for wasting the world's resources.
One Lesson describing how calcium can be recovered from smoke and used to
manufacture telephones and television sets declares, "In a year, in England,
calcium worth fifteen million rupees is wasted in the chimneys. If they stop
this waste, the world will enjoy the fine arts."
The West is an Audience Whose Approval is Sought
Frequently in Lessons, when an important achievement has been wrought
by an Indian citizen, the final accolade is that "even in foreign lands so-and-so's
accomplishments are known and respected." India's early knowledge of astronomy is seen as winning admiration in the West. Artistic and technological
achievements of ancient India, such as her irrigation systems, are certified by
those foreigners who came to India and were amazed at what they saw. Tiruvalluvar, the poet, is repeatedly described in the Tamil textbooks as one whose
teachings are respected in the West. The same is true in the Hindi textbooks for
Swami Vivekananda and the respect he earned for India in the West. And Jagdish Chandra Bose the botanist, C. V. Raman who worked on light theories, R. C.
Roy the chemist, and G. D. Naidu the agricultural engineer are described as "scientists who discovered wonders which were applauded by the whole world."
The West is a Model for "Progress"-Both

Technical and Social

Most of the Lessons dealing with scientific or technological phenomena

hold up the West implicitly as the place where innovations first occurred. Only later were they borrowed by India. This pattern is repeated in those Lessons
describing printing and the printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph and
wireless, the airplane, the cinema and film-making, and atomic energy. The
294

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DECOLONIZATION: INDIA

West invented; India adopted. Even the Boy Scout movement is seen as originating in the West and eventually being brought into India.
Western farm practices are held up as models for India to emulate. Different
Lessons praise Russian, Danish, Swiss, British, and American farmers, their industry, their absence of holidays, and their application of the latest scientific
techniques to their farming. One Lesson describes the cleanliness, order, and
efficiency of Switzerland. Another tells of full employment and low-cost holiday resorts in the Soviet Union. And one deals with the customs of people in
different nations, including the personal freedoms insisted upon by Americans,
the hobbies of Europeans and Australians, and the corporate rather than individual charities of the Swedes. That Lesson even states that Westerners sleep
less than Indians; this may contribute to their advancement. One Lesson goes
so far as to state that Westerners develop greater powers of memorization than
Indians, and this may contribute to the West's relative advancement and India's
relative backwardness.
CONCLUSIONS

In some respects the Tamil and Hindi textbooks reveal an impressive amount
of decolonization. They stress the cultural glories of India prior to her colonization, pass lightly over the period of colonial rule, and focus on the challenges
and accomplishments of Independent India. But in a more subtle way, beneath
the decolonized surface, the Indian textbooks transmit to their students an
awareness of a West that is still technologically superior, still to be blamed,
still to be emulated, and still to be sought for approval.

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