Black Skin, White Masked: Deconstruction of the Colonial Mind

 

 

 

Vaidyanath Nishant

Research Scholar,

Department of English,

Sikkim University

 

 

 

Abstract

Postcolonialism opened a new arena for debate and discourse by challenging the West. The existing notion about the colonised were being debated and the colonised began writing back. Within postcolonial writings, there are many debatable areas. This paper tries to debate the notion developed in Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks.

 

Key Words

Postcolonialism, Chinua Achebe, Heart of Darkness.

 

 

An older man going the same way as I turned and remarked to me how very young they came these days. I agreed. Then he asked me if I was a student too. I said no, I was a teacher. What did I teach? African literature. Now that was funny, he said, because he knew a fellow who taught the same thing, or perhaps it was African history, in a certain Community College not far from here. It always surprised him, he went on to say, because he never had thought of Africa as having that kind of stuff, you know. By this time I was walking much faster.” (Achebe: 1961)[i]

 

Chinua Achebe had encountered such an episode during his years as a teacher in Massachusetts. Even two decades after winning independence from the European power players, Achebe had to deal with such questions. It is not surprising though, as the world still continues to call Africa as the Third World or a post-colonial continent. The European nations colonised lots of countries around the world during the post-Industrialization period. The demand for raw materials and markets for the finished goods, as well as labour power, resulted in the exploitation the people in South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. The white man took upon himself the ‘burden’ of ‘civilizing the uncivilized’. With knowledge only of his own culture, he looked at every other culture as something inferior and thus, uncivilized. This paper would try to break down the notions of the white mind, which is a result of years of social construction, through which the colonised subject has been treated and portrayed in literature. In a way, a ‘common sense’ has been created over the years, which tries to justify the ‘white man’s burden’.

            Edward Said, in his book Orientalism, explains the European’s construction of the East as what the West is not. According to him, orientalism is the ontological and epistemological distinction made between the orient and the occident. It is a process of learning to manipulate the East in order to form a proper hegemony. It creates a binary, and in this way, projects the West as the superior entity. Chinua Achebe too writes in the same lines in his essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’”, when he says that the white tries to set Africa up as a foil to Europe. They try to project Europe as the most illuminated place and the rest of the place as dark corners. The colonizer hence walks around with a candle, spreading light and warmth to the rest of the world. Achebe criticises Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which was published in 1902, a novel about a white man’s trip through the Congo Basin and his encounter with one such dark corner on this earth. According to Achebe, this novel projects the Western desire and need to the fullest.

Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as “the other world,” the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality.” (Achebe: 1961)[ii]

 

Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1959), was written as a response to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Things Fall Apart was written against the notion of Africa as a primordial and cultureless foil for Europe. Achebe took it upon himself to rewrite the written and accepted views on Africa. His is the voice echoing African sentiments. The novel is set in the 1890s, when the first sets of colonisers were breaching into the lives of the Africans. It was around this time that Marlow too takes his journey through the Congo basin. Things Fall Apart represents the indigenous African culture and way of life that is disrupted suddenly with the coming of the colonisers, first in the form of missionaries and then as repressive forces. The novel further deals with the clash between tradition and modernity; between the European colonial government and the Igbo community. Achebe shatters the stereotypical notions constructed by the white man and gives the Igbo culture its due respect. Through this novel he shatters the notion that the Africans were very primordial and uncivilized, an image that the white man had cleverly crafted for his own benefits. Achebe is more against the white man’s mind rather than his skin. It is the ideology that he attacks and not the individual. But the individual is a part of the society or an accepted culture.

In the novel, Oknonkwo, the protagonist, constantly is in war with the colonisers. He is deeply affected when his own son, Nyowe, converts to Christianity. Christianity was again used as a tool to propagate the colonial agendas. When the missionaries first come, they seem to be tolerant toward the native forms of religion and belief. But the tolerance soon fades away and the traditional society is divided into two sections: the modernised natives, following Christianity and then the others who were following their indigenous forms of religion and fighting against the colonisers. When Enoch, a convert, unmasks the egwugwu during the annual ceremony to honour the earth deity, it is considered equal to killing the ancient spirit. The natives burn his house and the Church to take revenge. This marks the beginning of the clash between the colonisers and the colonized. Achebe has cleverly used the image of locusts in the novel in order to portray the visiting colonisers who destroy their entire lives and go away. With the coming of the English, the existing culture was being questioned. The white man began to impose his culture, questioning the existing culture. Ngugi wa’ Thiongo, in his essay Decolonising the Mind, writes about how the colonisers brought in English education and thus killed all existing forms of education. The coming of the new language, suppressed the existing forms of communication. Along with language, culture too died. A land, rich with folklore and mythologies was now becoming yet another backyard of Europe, but inferior to Europe. Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, is about a Nigerian youth, educated and working in Europe who faces a dilemma being a misfit  in his native place, after his return,  just as he could not be at home in  Europe being coloured. Things Fall Apart represents the decay of an existing rich culture due to the dominance of another culture that claims to be superior. Gabriel Garcia Marquez too emphasizes on this aspect in his Nobel Acceptance Speech, The Solitude of Latin America (1982) He argues against the white man’s claim of finding the others strange. Every culture is rich and superior in its own ways. The white man failed to accept this and thus went about prophesising his own culture above others. The novel ends with the colonizers winning over the native leaders, and thus establishing their superiority through power.

Achebe portrays the African culture as a culture with its own significance and beauty, which the white mind had failed to see. In his essay, he begins with the comparison drawn by Conrad between the rivers, namely, Thames and Congo. One represents peace and tranquillity whereas the latter represents darkness and fear. The Congo River is portrayed as the anti-thesis of river Thames. The development of such a binary is an act of the white man’s mind, which has been constructed over the years. Conrad, a white man above all, too succumbs to such stereotypical views and hence represents Africa, just as the white man wants in his novel. As Marlow, his protagonist travels into Africa, his first impression is something to be read, internalized, criticized and re-constructed:

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet… We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, … we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign -- and no memories.” (Conrad: 2001, p.57)

 

 

The very eyes and mind of the white man is questionable here. The usage of words like ‘frenzy’ in order to describe existing, yet ‘unexplored’ land and the terming of the native as a ‘prehistoric’ man proves the ignorance of the white mind. The white mind here considers ignorance as bliss as it helps him in asserting its superiority. The greedy Englishman took this journey not because he was in the dire need of it, but for the sake of it. And now that he was here, anything that was new to him seemed either prehistoric or alien. The above passage is filled with binaries that the white mind has been fed with and is continuously feeding on.

The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there -- there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly and the men were .... No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it -- this suspicion of their not being inhuman. (Conrad: 2001, p.58)

Conrad here was about to mention that the natives were not even human beings, but he stops himself. This land for him was pre-historic and unearthly. Just because the trees that grew around him were not the ones seen back at home, he felt this place did not belong to earth. This once again proves how narrow minded and ignorant the white man was. Conrad finally makes the colonial mind’s confession when he uses the word ‘ugly’ in order to describe the native man. The passage carries subversively, the atrocities of the colonizers against the natives. They were treated as animals, chained and made to obey orders.

Achebe deduces the white man’s mind, his needs and desires through the quoted passage above. The word ‘ugly’ conforms to the western idea of the natives.  And Conrad himself accepted that his novel cannot be just kept aside as fiction when he claimed that his novel was an experience: “but it is experience pushed a little (and only a very little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and bosoms of the readers.” (Heart of Darkness) Marlow actually holds the very legitimate views that any European is expected to have. If he fell apart from such an ideological grid, he would be lost and not accepted in his very own society. When Kurtz became intimate with the natives, he was portrayed as a mad man who has lost his sanity, from the point of view of the western writer/reader. He became more of an animal than a man. Marlow, however does not allow his emotions to predominate him.. Conrad strikes another binary when he describes the two women in Kurtz’s life. His native mistress is portrayed as raw and emotionless as she stands on the banks of the river as a dying Kurtz is taken away. But his lover back home is very faint, dressed in black and breaks down as silently and in a ‘civilized’ manner when she hears the news of Kurtz’s death.  More interesting is Conrad’s description of a native. He portrays a native as the following, “A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms. . ” (Conrad: 2001, p.109). The racist in Conrad comes out best possibly here.  But many of these aspects were overlooked when this novel was published as these were commonly accepted notions during that period. The black native was indeed an alien to the ‘civilized’ white. Conrad’s novel is not just an example of his mind-set, but it is a product of a society of a particular period, which accepted this novel, read and celebrated it.

Edward Said criticizes writers like Conrad and Forster who represented the colonies through the white man’s eyes in a way the white man wanted and desired it. In fact, William Jones in his translation of Kalidasa’s Shakuntala distorts the whole text by making it suitable for the English audiences’ palette. Said writes in his book Culture and Imperialism (1993), “This imperial attitude is, I believe, beautifully captured in the complicated and rich narrative form of Conrad’s great novella Heart of Darkness, written between 1898 and 1899.” The novel served as a manifesto to the imperialistic agenda that was coming into play during this period. It provided as a perfect read for the European reader who got what he expected. This novel served the basic argument that of representing Africa as how the West wanted the world to see and render and thus supporting the Western world’s argument of Africa being inferior.

 

Bibliography:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy); Everyman’s Library;                                 Possneck; 2010

Achebe, Chinua.  An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’; 1961                                                                                                (Web)

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness; Rupa Classics; New Delhi; 2001

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks; Grove Press; New York; 2008

  ----------------The Wretched of Earth; Penguin Books; London; 2001.

Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism; Vintage Books; New York; 1994

 ---------------- Orientalism; Vintage Books; New York; 1979

Thiong'o, Ngugi Wa. Decolonozing the Mind: The Politics of Language; London; 1986

 

  

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[i] Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'" Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977. Rpt. in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, background and Sources Criticism. 1961. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough, London: W. W Norton and Co., 1988, pp.251-261 http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html (25-03-16)

[ii] Ibid.

On Secularism

The term secularism, in the Indian context, means equidistance of the state from all religious identities. It is to be specifically noted that this definition is applicable only to India because of one factor that differentiates India from many other countries (i.e.) India is a multi-religious country. In a sense, the definition of secularism for India is an adaptation of the definition in the West – that the state I separated from religion. India is a country where people belonging to various religions live together enjoying equal rights and freedom irrespective of their religion.

Going back to the time when the world was ruled by various emperors and kings, when the term secular did not exist and the kings who were supposed to be the superior, when the kings were the representatives of God and legitimized by the temples or respective worship place. In Europe there were many kingdoms. The Roman Empire was one of the most powerful and the religion followed then was Christianity. The church and the king were working together. The year 1453 is one of the most important dates in history as it was the year which witnessed the origin of many changes. “The fall of Constantinople” had occurred. Constantinople was a kingdom in present day Turkey and was the capital city set up by Constantine, the Roman Emperor. It was called the sick man of Europe as it had people of many religions living together and not like the other empires where Christianity was the major religion of the people. The only land route to Asia was through Constantinople. Now that Constantinople had been captured, the European powers had to find a new route as most of their trade was with the Asian countries. Thus the industrial revolution happened. The famous saying, necessity is the mother of invention had its meaning cleared. The fall of the Roman Empire was during the same period. It was now when King Henry wanted to marry a second time and according to the bible it was not allowed. So, he rebelled against the church and then came the splitting up of the State from the Church. They became two different separate ruling powers. The state thus ruled over the common man, the followers of the King. This was easily possible in the European countries as Christianity was the most prevalent religion.

In India there was a period of transition, but the situation was different. As we all know India is a multi-religious country unlike the European countries. India is the birth land for many religions. The feeling of a nation and nationalism started in the aftermath of colonization. The leaders realized that unity was required to fight against the British. But in India, Hinduism happened to be the religion of the majority and all other religions were recognised as minorities. So to achieve unity or nationalism, one had to achieve secularism first. So, in the 1880s, the Congress started bringing in new policies like giving protection and recognition to the upper and middle class Muslims who were considered as the leaders among other Muslims. This was not a great success as the Muslims demanded reservation (as they were minorities) in proportion to their total population.

Another incident which is a noted one in the Hindu- Muslim unity is the Khilafat movement and Gandhiji’s role in it. The Khilafat movement was a protest against the European countries which had occupied Turkey and overthrew the Muslim sultan Khalifa. The Muslims around condemned this act of the Europeans and wanted them to restore Khalifa to take control over the Muslims’ sacred places. The Khilafat movement in 1919-1920 was against this action of the Europeans. This is when Gandhiji, who was a national leader and a follower of Hinduism, took a step forward and began the Non-Cooperation movement along with the Khilafat movement joining hands with the Muslims. The Muslim leaders were very happy with Gandhiji’s action and thus everyone stood united during the Non-Cooperation movement, fighting against the British.

But soon it was realized that there was unity only among the leaders and not the people of the two communities. And when things went sour among the leaders it had an immediate and greater impact on the common people. The communal violence in 1924 in the North-West Frontier Province brought out the harsh reality. If religious unity as stated above was present in the hearts of every single individual, such an incident would not have occurred. But the Montague-Chelmsford reforms (1919) and elections to representative bodies that provided for communal representation served as the provocation for this disunity. This British policy of divide and rule, however, had to be challenged by the national movement. Thus secularism became a national aim.

Though secularism was achieved to an extent, after independence communalism was reborn. The secular nation of India had faced partition on communal basis which later led to the inclusion of Articles especially on this issue (Articles 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29) in the Constitution of India. These provisions in the constitution provide religious freedom to every citizen of this country.  According to these provisions the state does not interfere in the internal issues of any religion, but it interferes and checks that no religious sentiments are hurt. In other words, no discrimination on the basis of religion in any public affair. But at the same time you can find particular minority institutions, which is provided by the same constitution, in order to give them importance and security in the society.

The articles mentioned above are stated below:

Article 25: Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.

 (1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion.

(2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation any existing law or prevent the State from making any law-

(a) Regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practise;

(b) Providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus.

Article 26: Freedom to manage religious affairs.

 Subject to public order, morality and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right-

(a) To establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes;

(b) To manage its own affairs in matters of religion;

(c) To own and acquire movable and immovable property; and

(d) To administer such property in accordance with law.

Article 27: Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.

 No person shall be compelled to pay any taxes, the proceeds of which are specifically appropriated in payment of expenses for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious denomination.

Article 28: Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions.

(1) No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly          maintained out of State funds.

(2) Nothing in clause (1) shall apply to an educational institution which is administered by the State but has been established under any endowment or trust which requires that religious instruction shall be imparted in such institution.

(3) No person attending any educational institution by the State or receiving aid out of State funds shall be required to take part in any religious instruction that may be imparted in such institution or to attend any religious worship that may be conducted in such institution or in any premises attached thereto unless such person or, if such person is a minor, his guardian has given his consent thereto.

Article 29: Protection of interests of minorities.

(1) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.

 (2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.

Incidents that shook every soul: major communal violence in India:

November 1984:

Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, violent mobs began organised attacks on members belonging to the Sikh community in Delhi, Meerut and many others towns in Northern India. The violence went on for three days and left more than 3500 people (all Sikhs) dead and property worth crores of rupees destroyed.

Ayodhya:

            It happened on the 6^th of December, 1992 in Uttar Pradesh. A historical monument was destroyed by many lunatics. The Babri Masjid was a 450 year old monument and as the name mention it was the worship place of Muslims. On the above mentioned day hundreds of “kar sevaks” rushed into this religious complex and brought it down. This was followed by violence against members of the Muslim community in many towns. There were a few instances of retaliatory violence too.

Manoharpur, Orissa

            In a shocking incident, an Australian missionary, Graham Steines, who was involved in rendering relief to the leprosy patients in rural Orissa was burnt to death along with his two sons. The killer, Dara Singh, was caught and it was found that he was a member of a Hindu fundamentalist organisation.

Gujarat, 2002.

            On February 28, 2002, a group of kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya died after the coach in which they were traveling was set on fire at the Godhra railway station in Gujarat. For a few weeks after that day, most parts of Gujarat was engulfed in violence against the Muslim community. It left over 3500 people dead and property worth several crores destroyed. 

NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON AGRICULTURE

According to the Dictionary of Economics by John Black globalization is defined as, “The process by which the whole world becomes a single market. This means that goods and services, capital, and labour are traded on a worldwide basis, and information and the results of the research flow readily between countries. The rise of cheap sea transport and the telegram contributed to this process in the 19^th century. Cheap air travel, the telephone, and the computer, together with the rising importance of multinational companies and general relaxation of controls on trade and international investment, continued the process in the 20^th century. It is possible that the rise of the internet and the start, which has been made, on liberalizing international trade in services will continue this movement in the 21^st century. The world has still a very long way to go, however, before its economy is fully globalized. In particular, international mobility of labour is tightly restricted and poor transport and communications in most less developed countries (LDCs) mean that only the economies of the richer and more economic countries are at all seriously globalized.”

Through this paper, I will be discussing the negative impacts of globalization on agriculture. Globalization has had a major impact on agriculture. It has affected agriculture and hence life in many ways. We have witnessed three waves or phases of globalization so far. The first wave occurred between 1870 and 1914. During this period there was lot of migrations. The investment in the developing countries tripled during this period. About 60 million people migrated from Europe (primarily its less developed parts) to North America and other parts of New World. Similar flow of people from densely populated China, India to less densely populated Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. was seen. The total labour flow during this period was 10 percent of the world population. But, though the global per capita income rose, it was not fast enough to catch up with the growth of poor population.  Among the globalizing countries there was a convergence in income per capita, driven primarily by migration. And, thus began an inequality among the countries of the world. The first wave fell with the two major wars and the Great Depression. The inequality among the countries kept increasing. Hence, the gap between the haves and have nots kept increasing.

The second wave happened between 1950 and 1980. During the second wave the world witnessed the integration of the rich countries and this resulted in the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor nations. Globalization was supposed to bring an end to all these issues, but it had a reverse effect and ended up affecting the common man. The rich remained rich and led a decent life. It was the poor who had to sacrifice something every time something new came up.

Since 1980 to the present day, we have been living in the third wave of globalization. The rich, developing countries were able to invest a lot and with the help of technology and communication in the other poor nations. This helped them prosper economically. The poor nations also did develop little, but their dependency on the rich countries always remained and was increasing too. Globalization reduced poverty by a large number since 1980, but the gap always remained there.

In simple words, during globalization, there was mechanization of the world. As facilities started improving, people wanted to make more and more out of it. The people were not happy with themselves. But in this chase, they forgot to realize that nature has its own limitations. And wherever the tried to interrupt with nature, they have all witnessed destruction.

During this third wave, we have seen the most destruction. There was a bad situation during the first two waves. But it did not witness destruction as much as the third wave is doing. During this period, there were a large number of farmer suicide cases. The reason for this were many, but the end of the thread always lead to one big factor, globalization. It was during this period that the new economic policy was implemented. It was also roughly around the same time that the Green revolution took place. During this many new methodologies of agriculture were adopted. The need for this arose because the consumption rate increased and more than that, the greed of the people. The farmers were left with no other option other than adapt to these new methodologies. They were stuck in this whirlpool of competitions of MNCs, increase of demand, less output, etc. Due to many such factors, the farmers had no other option other than to adapt themselves. Many new machineries and fertilizers were introduced. Due to rising demand, the farmers had to use them in order to get a high yield. But all these had a very adverse effect on the agriculture sector.

One of the major reasons for farmer suicides was indebtedness. When all these new machineries and fertilizers came into market, the farmers had to borrow money from money lenders and banks. The money lenders were also too smart and they increased the interest according to the demand. The farmers who had land and could afford to get loans, managed to get a loan and start using the modern methodologies of agriculture. The mentality of the people had totally changed now. It was only profit oriented. And the poorer farmers among them had a bad hit. They could neither afford to invest in new machineries nor get a loan to get fertilizers. Hence, they were totally struck with nothing to do. Many shopkeepers now started giving away fertilizers on credit. And after all these, when they faced a crop failure, due to natural reasons, they were left with nothing but lots of loan to repay. In the earlier days too there were many crop failures, but we never so many cases of farmer suicides. So why does it happen only now? The reason for this is that, in the olden days the farmers still had some things left like seeds, some stored food. They had some rays of hope left. But now-a-days all they have left is loans. He might have invested all he had in that particular farm. And when it was all gone, he will be left with no other option other than suicide. For a farmer, his pride is the most important thing. Even if he is not very rich, he has always been proud of what he does and his land. But now that all his possessions are gone and he is sure that he cannot repay the loan, he kills himself. They can never live on that situation where he owes someone money and cannot pay it back. A farmer can never live in indebtedness. His pride never allows him to do so.

Education and Nation Building

            Education is believed to be the base of everything. We require education to live on this planet. By education, I do not mean only the kind of education one gets in schools or colleges. Everything and anything a man learns is education. We cannot live our lives like the flat characters described in novels by Oscar Wilde. We need changes. And hence, we need to learn. Education is the base or foundation of our life. The history of education dates back to the times of our myths. The initial system of education was believed to be in the gurukuls, where students would stay with their gurus and learn everything about life. These were the kings and princes. They learnt about various things that would, later in life, help them rule their father’s kingdom. They were educated in the arts and sciences related to government such as, politics (danda-nıti), economics (vartta), philosophy (anvıksiki), and historical traditions (itihasa). And there was also education based on one’s caste and the Varna he had to perform. Thus, this kind of education taught them the dos and don’ts in their lives. The earliest education began with the teaching of traditional elements such as Indian religions, Indian mathematics, Indian logic at early Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning such as Taxila and Nalanda. 

            The roots of education in India had actually sprouted long ago, about 2250 years ago. This was during the Mauryan Dynasty. Chandragupta Maurya and his well-learned adviser Vishnugupta, popularly known as Kautilya or Chanakya formed this empire. Kautilya was a very intelligent and well-read person. He wrote the famous work, Arthashastra, which when literally translated means, “the science of wealth”[1]. “This book, the Arthashastra, deals with so many subjects and discusses such a variety of matters that is not possible for me to tell you much about it. It deals with the duties of the King, of his ministers and counselors, of council meetings, of departments of government, of trade and commerce, of the government of towns and villages, of law and law courts, of social customs, of the rights of the women, of the maintenance of the old and helpless, of marriage and divorce, of taxation, of the army and navy, of war and peace, of diplomacy, of agriculture, of spinning and weaving, of artisans, of passports, and even of goals! I could go on adding to this list….”[2] To be precise, this book spoke about everything from how one should lead his/her life to how a nation should be governed. If the ideas suggested by Kautilya are followed today, the government would have not been such a mess. Kautilya’s ideas were also tested practically, and they proved successful in Chandragupta Maurya’s empire. Kautilya’s wit and knowledge had helped Chandragupta build up an empire and rule it, for years.

            The next phase of education began in the middle ages. The system of education witnessed drastic changes during this period. This was the time of Islamic invasions. The Muslims, who came from Central-Asia, caused a lot of destruction. And they started everything afresh. They educated the Indians on Persian texts, grammar, mathematics, etc, which they felt, every human being had to know. The system of education was more religious now. More importance was given to religion and other related issues. They also brought about a connection between science and humanities. By the time Akbar’s rule had come, education’s standard had improved and people were educated on everything we learn today.

            The massive and big transformation of education system in India took place during colonialism. The Indian education system took shape and formed into one of the best ones during this period. With every invasion, we Indians learnt new methodologies of education. And when colonialism took place, we had the Western influence. Indians started following the Western system of education. The British Empire appointed many committees and people to frame and construct an education system in India. They wanted to educate the Indians, hence make them work for the British. They thought of appointing a number of Indians in the Administrative services and hence making their rule here easier. Though their intentions were not good, their actions helped our country a lot. If not for this, Indians were going abroad for higher studies (which only a few could afford). Once these reforms took place, education became easily accessible. Many Indians came forward and started taking up initiatives. The British set up Colleges in every Presidency. The educational reforms went about strong with many Indian social reformers backing it up. With education also came social changes and reforms in the country. And another notable inclusion of this period was women education. There was education of women even earlier, but it was for a very brief period and very limited. But, the British took separate and special efforts for women education. They set-up many educational institutions like Madras Medical College in Madras Presidency and Women’s Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, Punjab. This was basically initiated so that many women would have women doctors to examine them and hence the number of deaths would decrease. The main reason why British did all these were because they though they would stay in India for ever and hence it was necessary to educate them. This education would help the Indians serve the British better. The need for education to administer the country was very well understood then itself.

             The most important person, who set-up the education system was Thomas Macaulay. Macaulay brought about many reforms in the Indian educational system. He came into power in the year 1835. He suggested that the medium of higher education must only be English. This formed the foundation for English education in India. Many Christian missionaries also went about spreading English education all across the nation. Macaulay was believed to be the architect of Britain’s Educational Policies in India.

“It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”[3]

            There were many Indians who had their own views on education. A few of them tried it out in real life too. One such man was Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore started a new style or rather wave of education. Tagore came from a family with great cultural richness and heritage. This had in many ways helped him look at education, the way he does now. His family atmosphere allowed him to learn everything in a sub-conscious state at his own speed. He was exposed to an extremely open model of education, which he later tried in Shantiniketan. Tagore introduced the importance of freedom in education. He believed that nothing must be done in an authoritarian manner or be forced upon. Education must be given its space and time to grow. He stressed on the importance sub-conscious learning and open-mindedness. He wanted one to be broad or open minded and look at everything in life in an open, unprejudiced manner. “I was brought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspiration for the expansion of the human spirit.  We in our home sought freedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination in our literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and that of mind in our social environment.  Such an opportunity has given me confidence in the power of education which is one with life and only which can give us real freedom, the highest that is claimed for man, his freedom of moral communion in the human world.... I try to assert in my words and works that education has its only meaning and object in freedom–freedom from ignorance about the laws of the universe, and freedom from passion and prejudice in our communication with the human world.  In my institution I have attempted to create an atmosphere of naturalness in our relationship with strangers, and the spirit of hospitality which is the first virtue in men that made civilization possible.

I invited thinkers and scholars from foreign lands to let our boys know how easy it is to realise our common fellowship, when we deal with those who are great, and that it is the puny who with their petty vanities set up barriers between man and man.”[4]

By 1901, Rabindranath Tagore started a school in his father’s ashram. He called it Shantiniketan. In his school he included both Indian culture and Western concepts. Shantiniketan didn’t have anything like a set syllabus. Tagore believed life is to be learnt through experience. He got faculty from all over the world to guide the students of Shantiniketan. And in Shantiniketan, Tagore made it a point that even the rural, under privileged students are given equal education. He wanted to bridge the gap between the city’s elite and villages’ poor. And he did this with education as a tool. There were many discussions in Shantiniketan, and all kinds of learning and evaluation were based on this. The students were expected to be open, frank and free. Tagore believed that education was not just about books, formulae or derivations. According to Tagore, education was something big, which should not be limited into a book or an exam. The education at Shantiniketan was based on day-to-day chores and activities. Tagore’s style and methodologies were very useful for everyone as it mould a person into a human being. It not only gave them knowledge, but the power to use it and think about it too. “We have come to this world, to accept it and not merely to know it. We may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain fullness by sympathy. The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”[5] Tagore had later composed a poem expressing his wish on how education everywhere must be,

Where the mind is without fear

   and the head is held high,

   Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken 

up into fragments by narrow domestic

walls;

 Where words come out from the

depth of truth;

 Where tireless striving

       stretches its arms towards

  perfection;  

 Where the clear stream of reason

      has not lost its way into the

 dreary desert sand of dead habit;

    Where the mind is led forward

 by thee into ever-widening

      thought and action–

 into that heaven of freedom,

   My Father,

Let my country awake.[6]

Another trend that arose during the freedom struggle was the starting of National Schools by the Indian National Congress. In 1921, when the non-cooperation movement began, the Indian National Congress called for the boycott of all British institutions, including British schools. At that time, they saw the need for modern education, to educate the youngsters of the nation. They realized that it was necessary to educate the people of the nation or else we would end up wit such similar fate. The necessity of education forced them to the setting-up of educational institutions. But this time, they did not adopt the traditional methodologies of teaching. They opened schools across the nation. At these schools, they followed the British system of secular and democratic education. They did not show any differentiation and thus good education for building a better future was born.

In the modern times, everyone knows the importance of education and its value in the world. One is considered as a human being only if he is educated. But the definition of education has changed drastically over the years. From a spiritual and respected ceremony, education has now become something like more of a mechanical customary or statement.

 The government of India has realized the importance of education. That only reflected in the deletion of compulsory education from the Directive State Principles and its inclusion in the Fundamental Rights. It is the right of every child to attain free and compulsory education till the age of 14. This primary education will help them live a better life and understand things better. They will know the good and bad in life. They will learn to say no, wherever it is required. And when the children learn things, they can be helpful to their elder generation, in which there are many illiterates. Till date, there are many places in India where poor people are fooled and money is got out of them. Many rich people lure the poor or mainly tribes who are illiterate, by giving them false promises and getting the land allotted to them by the government. They get them to sign false agreements and steal away all their properties. Sometimes, they even cheat them by paying very less amount. An example for this is the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada, Palakkad (Palghat). The authorities of the company cheated the people and the got their land from them. But now, the ground water of the entire region in contaminated and has become unfit for drinking. If only they had been careful and aware of such disadvantages of plants, this would not have happen. Another example would be from the very present, the Jan Lokpal Bill. The protests grew strong only when more people were educated about all these. All these years corruption has been in existence, and so has the fight against it. But it is only now that the movement has gained some momentum and support all over the nation. It is only now that the government is forced to submit to the demands of the people. The most important reason for this is that all the people are educated about the atrocities of the corrupt ministers. The people are made to realize and hence, many measures are going to being taken against corruption. And if even a small amount of corruption is put to an end, our country will develop big time economically. It will help our country develop itself. We can stop depending on other sources like the World Bank any other foreign funding organisations for funds for anything and everything we do in our country.

Education, through any means is to be given to everyone. Another thing to be taken care is of the quality of education. Along with quality of education, equality of education is also should be taken care of. In India there are many types and categories of people. Hence, a common education throughout at primary level will be the most absurd thing to do. There are children who might be first generation learners; some might come from a good background. So, all these must be taken into consideration while primary education is given to students. I do not mean to form a differentiation between such children. But, there must be someone to take care of such children. All they need is an extra push and they will be equal to any other child. If such a system is followed we will have a bright tomorrow. If these under privileged children are given little extra care, a pat on their backs and adequate opportunities, they are sure to form the pillars of our nation in the future. But one big problem is that they are given any support and when they reach the level of higher education, they get something called the reservation. And at this level there are other frustrated students who create an unnecessary over reservation. If all these children are made equal at their primary level it all these can be avoided. It is true that we need quality and equality in education, but equality will only be possible if quality education is given to everyone.

Education develops our nation politically, economically and socially. We have one of the worlds best space research centers. We have one of the best education system, hence Indian teachers are respected and in demand all over the world. Our financial markets are one of the very few which didn’t get affected like other countries did during the recent market crashes in the United States. We shine in fields ranging from Science and Technology to literature. We have produced some of the worlds best literary giants like Rabindranath Tagore, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Arundathi Roy, Aravind Adiga and many others. We also have equally important names in the fields of theatre and films. And one place where India stands apart from many other countries is the presence and raise of eminent women intellectuals, philosophers, icons and other leaders. Though there is lots of gender discrimination in our country, many women fought all odds to come up in life. They too have been a part in the building of our nation and its development. They must be given equal rights for education and over the past years they have proven that there is no such work that a man can do and a woman can’t. It also has a very vast cultural heritage to back all these.

But nowadays, a lot of Western concepts and culture has, and is still influencing our education systems. There is nothing wrong about it, but we must never get carried away by their world. We must always remember that we have one of the greatest culture and heritage in the world. Many great people like T.S.Eliot have adopted many things from our culture. Recently, the government of Bihar decided to make a world-class University at Nalanda (which is believed to be the site of the world’s first University). For this they called upon eminent people like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to advice and guide them. Our history dates back to the period of the Indus Valley civilization. We have a lot to learn from our own culture and past. It will be better if we form an education system composing of a mixture of both Western concepts and Indian values. This was what Rabindranath Tagore had told during his times. We must always be proud of our nation and uphold it by forming a stronger tomorrow. This is only possible if education is given importance and treated above everything.

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[1] Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, Pg.59

[2] Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, Pg.59

[3] Thomas Macaulay’s Minutes on Indian Education

[4] Rabindranath Tagore, 1929

[5] Rabindranath Tagore, 1926

[6] Mind Without Fear, Rabindranath Tagore, published in Gitanjali, 1912