Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad just celebrated the 206th birthday of Lord Macaulay, with a party in New Delhi [via Shashwati]. Why celebrate the face of English imperialism? Because for some groups domination by a foreign overlord was better than domestic oppression. 
…. Prasad … hails Macaulay as the Father of Indian Modernity, for it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854, that Dalits got the right to education, he says. [Link]Bhan has three reasons for revering Macaulay – his insistence to teach the “natives” English broke the stranglehold of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic teaching, a privilege of only the elite castes and, he argued,for the European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. “Imagine, if we had only followed indigenous study,” said Bhan, “we would be like Afghanistan or Nepal today.”… [Link]
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p>These activists go further than celebrating Macaulay’s role in the past, however, and call for English to be central to Dalit education in the future. They unveilled a portrait of “English, the Dalit Goddess”:
Dalit poet Parak sang a couplet to the portrait – a refashioned Statue of Liberty, wearing a hippie hat, holding a massive pink pen, standing on a computer, with a blazing map of India in the background – Oh, Devi Ma/ Please Let us Learn English/ Even the dogs understand English, to cheers and laughter, …Bhan … declared … “Hereafter, the first sounds all newborn Dalit and Adivasi babies will hear from their parents is – abcd. Immediately after birth, parents or a nearest relative will walk up to the child and whisper in the ear – abcd,’… [Link]
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p>Is English a tool of liberation? Are indigenous Indian languages oppressive?
The remedy … is to … become English speaking at the earliest. Goddess English is all about emancipation. Goddess English is a mass movement against the Caste Order, against linguistic evils such as Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telgu and Bangla for instance. Indian languages as more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications. [Link]
Or is this just a PR stunt, to stick a finger in the eye of the local intelligencia? Is the best path for Dalit advancement to reject Indian languages in favor of English? Lastly, should they learn International English or Desi Hinglish?
You are still grabbing at straws. Look at subsaharan Africa as a region. Ditto for the MIddle-East, South-East Asia and Latin America and you will get the true picture of where India stands. India lags behind every region of the world and is neck and neck with subsaharan Africa:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5116596.stm
“Given the huge positive press that India has received in recent times, it is sobering to discover that India’s per capita income is just a shade higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa, and about one-sixth that of Latin America.
Equally surprising is that 35% of India’s population lives on less than $1 a day, which is comparable to Bangladesh’s 36% and much worse than Pakistan’s 17% and Sri Lanka’s 6%.”
Macacaroach,
I think I missed this.. Why do you think ‘Sati was widespread’ and the Brits ‘civilized’ the natives by banning it.??. I said it was probably limited to a “few upper caste” households . Why do you think I was wrong??.. Do you have any data that I am not aware of??..
Ponniyin Selvan,
educate yourself!
Yeah sure..
You said it was limited to bengali upper castes. Which is obviously false, and you must know it too. Most every literate indian is aware that sati was practiced by, and still is revered, among rajputs, for example.
The issue was not that sati is still practiced in India, it was that forcibly ending it is one of the beneficent legacies of british rule. Along with the ban against human sacrifice, the crushing of thuggery etc.
You are still grabbing at straws. Look at subsaharan Africa as a region. Ditto for the MIddle-East, South-East Asia and Latin America and you will get the true picture of where India stands.
I claimed and established that India was not in the fifty poorest countries, nothing else. I do believe that India will outpace the regions you mention above – the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and Africa-in overall growth in the coming twenty years and make up ground in the tables.
Right, because the data available when the Brits banned Sati (from 1815 to 1828) was around 8000 widows burnt in Bengal.. It is mostly an upper caste phenomena.. Every literate Indian is aware because that’s what he has been taught.. Whether it is true or not who knows.. 🙂
We have to keep in mind that to ‘civilize’ the ‘natives’ Brits needed ‘justifiable’ reasons..
The upper caste have been playing the english game for more than a century and are far ahead. It’s like saying I can enter the search engine business and beat google.
Why is that the minority/oppressed group always have fruitcakes like prasad? It happens here too. I remember a black woman representative complaining that the hurricanes are not named after black names!
I was in Botswana in 2004 (next door to Namibia, and one of the shinning stars of Southern Africa). Sure, it is not densely populated as India, and therefore, not widespread poor. But calling India poorer compared to Namibia et al. is humor. Sure, India has lots, lots of poor people. But these indexes are GIGO = Garbage In, Garbage Out
Kush: Its interesting that you say that. I was having a similar discussion with someone about the HDI yesterday. I am always interested in issues of poverty and the indexes which take into account access to basic sanitation, access to primary health care, malnutrition rate in children, probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 , Adult illiteracy rate, population without sustainable access to water sources, number of people for every hospital bed, number of people for every doctor etc. Care to elaborate on why you dislike the Human Development reports? Do you believe the numbers are cooked?
Lets not have any illusions that English was the Indian elitist’s language even before the onset of pvt sec corporations and globalisation. If anything proficiency in english has spread beyond the traditional babu-sociologist-publisher class and become the technology professional’s bread and butter. That along with their rising salaries has dented the social clout of the largely left-leaning intellengensia in socialist India. Since this new class of technocrats is drawn largely from the middle class as opposed to the oligarchial family succession in other intelleectual artsy fartsys, the stakes in power in urban India have shifted from the left to the right. If anything the secularisation of english and the empowerment of techies from conservative hindu families whose sympathies for Hindu nationalism is hardly a secret, has prolonged the life of Sanatana dharma and Indian culture under the aegis of its compatibility and blend with modern life
Do you believe the numbers are cooked?
I am not saying numbers are cooked. They do not capture the “complexity” of the case studies, and present simplistic (and deeply flawed) calculations Let us discuss:
Point 1 1) Palestine Anyone will tell you that Palestine without outside direct financial aid from Middle East (openly and not so openly)/ EU cannot survive for even a month. There is absolutely no commerce, no factories, no income producing enterprise in Palestine – they were orchids before intifada 2 but they are craters now. All salaries are from outside donation or one seeks mostly blue collar job outside (Israel or Jordan). If Israel puts a curfew/ embargo then there is no work/ income for months. Now if your attribute puts Palestine above India, there is something is seriously wrong with the attribute calculation in the first place – that should raise a red flag in itself.
2) Botswana Essentially, in half of Botswana no human beings live. It is pristine wildlife and mines in large tracts of land. The country has huge diamond mines. That is pretty much it. A huge section of human population has been decimated by AIDS. Either you have US $300/ day safari lodges or tin huts, nothing in between. Don’t get me wrong it is beautiful country with very decent people. The government subsidizes a lot through diamond mines, the infrastructure is only either for mining or tourism related, and with low demoninator (low population), any index like you presented will be inflated. Quite similar Namibia with uranium mines.
Comparing such smaller countries with ones with huge, densely populated countries like India is unfair to both of them.
Point 2 I think numbers with different units (age in years, and number of doctors is not in same units) should not mixed together, you could compare child malnutrition only within different countries but even in those cases how do you normalize. How do you normalize malnutrition? Like a dollar’s equivalent in India is different from its equivalent in China, US, Ireland. I mean a person in India can live on US $5-6 dollars a day that might be equivalent to US $50 days a day in Ireland with similar broad standards. Let’s ask Manish in Mumbai. How much does it cost for him to maintain New York City style hipster lifestyle in Mumbai? How much same bread cost in India than compared to US. Nutrition needs are different in different regions.
Point 3 Most important when you make these formulas how do you weight them. Is Human Index = basic sanitation + access to primary health care + malnutrition rate in children + probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 + Adult illiteracy rate + population without sustainable access to water sources + number of people for every hospital bed + number of people for every doctor or Human Index = 3 X basic sanitation + 5 X access to primary health care + malnutrition rate in children + 20 X probability at birth of not surviving to age 40 + Adult illiteracy rate + population without sustainable access to water sources + number of people for every hospital bed + number of people for every doctor. How do you even parameterize the damn thing?
How do you make Human Index a unit less number? How do you attribute scores to things like basic sanitation? Even if you are scaling from 0 to 1 each attribute (like College ranking is done US World and New report, you are atleast looking at all similar schools with a same prism). How can you look Palestine, India, Ecuador, Ireland with a same prism?
My take: use simple attributes, compare similar places (China could be compared to India, Botswana to Namibia, Palestine to none), and if you go universal, be very careful about corrections. I never denied presence of huge poverty in India, but the measure you had presented. My gut feeling is that Human Index is one of those touchy feely numbers which has not been put through peer-review. Somebody else can chime in. Maybe, Vinod.
It is like comparing engineering students in India, China, and US recently in media. Except IITs, the training in India is not remotely comparable to Universities in US. Someone from a small private college in India does not compare to someone from Purdue.
Hope I was able to explain the fallacy in such numbers.
Kush:
Point 1: I think you are quite correct in your assertion that the Palestinian economy survives on foreign dollars and hence the sustainibility problem as compared to India’s more self reliant economy. This analysis is important for projecting futute growth and policy making, but it does not belie the fact that its very possible that especially in the pre Al Aqsa Intifada days, the quality of life might be better in the occupied territories than India. If the HDI is measuring the quality of life as it exists and is not being used for policy making, then its only verifying facts which exist on the ground. Whether the money comes from foreign dollars in Palestine or dwindling oil wells in Iran has no bearing on quantifying the quality of life as it exists today in Palestine or Iran as compared to India.
Point 2: I think certain things can be quantified easily. Either a certain percentage of children born reach a certain age or they do not. These numbers can be easily compared. Of course hospital beds is not the best indicator but the number of children who do not reach the age of 6 months is surely a good indicator.
Excellent discussion. Highly entertaining in some places — Razib & Sahej Zindabad ! 😉
Regarding the issue of Sati, it is correct that it wasn’t limited to Bengal. Historically, the practice was unfortunately common in many quarters of Rajput society. Other parts of Northern India were affected too; for example, even Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s funeral included multiple women committing sati (11 of his queens) despite the fact that Sikhism itself explicitly outlaws the practice.
I also have to correct this statement made by a previous commenter on this thread:
With all due respect, it was actually closer to 190 years (Battle of Plassey 1757 – Independence 1947), and even then their direct control extended only to 2/3 of the subcontinent. The other 1/3 was controlled by proxy, of course. Wikipedia summary of the British Raj here.
Here is the methodology for the Human Development Index from wiki. Apparently a new report was released today based on data from 2004, and brownz in general did slightly better.
The map provided in the wiki article puts India in the Middle Development bracket (the countries in yellow), along with most of South America, Asia and the fomer Soviet colonies.
Bhan is right in his analysis:
“The remedy to all dalit problems is to become English speaking at the earliest”. Thats how, by abandoning the local languages, the “upper castes” (UC) have become filthy rich and have gotten respect in society. The UCs have understood that knowlegde of more than one language, especially native, will become the sole bottleneck to their ticket to success. Indian languages survive today because we are the sole upholders. The British allowed us to enter modern schools in 1854, Ambedkar gave us 10 years of reservations extended only by our mesiah politicians – we are finally ready to utilize these benefits by declaring mother of all languages as our native tongue. Even though Buddha was against idol worhip, we will declare yet another Devi ma to mock Hinduism. Hail Macaulay.
Jai Singh pai, from you wiki link:
This increases the number by atleast 100 years!
Hammer_Sickel,
Control of localised terroritory at 3 corners of India does not equal “imperial control over India”. The latter happened much later — and 1670 was during the height of Mughal power, under the rule of Aurangzeb, as we all know. There was a steady collapse from the Emperor’s death onwards, but it was a long time before the British could be considered as an imperial power on the subcontinent in the real sense (the intervening period involved Hyderabad & Mysore in the South, the Marathas in the centre and the Sikhs in the far north, for example).
I do understand your point, of course.
Regarding the issue of Sati, it is correct that it wasn’t limited to Bengal.
Yes, but it is not an India wide phenomena and restricted to probably a few groups of upper castes.. I mentioned “bengali” because Raja Ram Mohan roy was from such a Bengali Brahmin household and was fighting to get a legal ban.. More like the Pandita Ramabai opening a school for Brahmin widows..
You don’t get bragging rights for wishful thinking.
I have no idea what that conversation was about. Someone educate me if you have time
(insert mangled literary reference here)
Hail Macacaroach the Messiah! Satyam eva jayate.
Kush – the definition of HDI is pretty easy to find:
Here’s the technical note.
But this isn’t some number generated by hippy NGOs, it’s something that economists think about.
I have read Chandrabhan Prasad’s articles in The Pioneer and he has come across as a sensible commentator. This however is, I believe, a misguided approach. Of course it is useful for every Indian to be proficient in English and all power to Dalits, it will definitely help them climb the social ladder. But let’s not forget that not all jobs will require English speaking people. There will people from all castes farming, running restaurants, driving buses/taxis, operating telephone booths and assorted small businesses. ‘Vernacular’ will always be there (at least in the foreseeable future) and there are even jobs in the ever growing local language media.
Macacaroach, dude you need to chill.
It was a clever satire of the hindu fundamentalist, “India Shining”, “India is an IT superpower”, Macaulay-hating yet proudly “english proficient” masses yearning for an american visa or green card.
Of course no Chinese ever sought a Green Card or an American visa. Only upper caste Hindoo Indian dogs.
A hungry child is a hungry child regardless of “dollar’s equivalent” or any other spin you try to put on it.
And India is worse even than subsaharan Africa when it comes to child malnutrition. That should be the very minimum measure of HDI, dont you agree?
Macacaroach’s views on this thread are a load of crap. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. Let’s consider Sati or Suttee first. It was never a widespread Indian practice. The women of the warrior Rajput community in present day Rajasthan would commit mass Jauhar or Sati in the wake of an impending rout of their men by the invading Central Asians. They did it to preserve honor. It was mostly voluntary. To set oneself on fire due to the deep sorrow caused by the death of one’s loved one must come across as incredible to many today. But Indians are an emotional people and there are several cases reported in India every year where men/women commit suicide or immolate themselves because they have either been jilted by a lover or one of their pop idols just died. However what started out as a totally voluntary practice began to get abused in some cases when women were forced to sit on their dead husbands’ funeral pyres. This because a certain prestige began to be associated with the family that had a sati. But this was far from a pervasive Indian practice. I am not sure what to call you if you really believe that Indians indulged/indulge in child sacrifice.
The peak of Indian civilization clearly predates the arrival of the British in India. As for what Macaulay said ; I don’t think the West has to date produced anything comparable to the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. Also ancient Indian texts including these last two have innumerable mentions of gadgets/weapons systems/airplanes which are never associated with that age.
Having said the above I also think that the British did a lot of good work in India and were never the villains they are made out to be in certain quarters today. There was less corruption and crime. Also Indians shouldn’t gloss over the atrocities committed upon European women and children during the war of 1857 and next year when they commemmorate it, should apologize for it.
Nobody
in jail, Ponni
Jilted_Manhood,
Hmmmm. I think “never” is a strong word to use in this case. “Generally not” or “Mostly not” would perhaps be more accurate. On the whole I don’t think the majority of them were sadistic monsters gloating over the suffering of the “natives” like pantomime villains either, but there were notable exceptions, some of whom did indeed go to the malevolent extreme in their actions, and these individuals & events have been recorded by historians.
And yes I agree that the actions of many of the revolutionary Indians during 1857 were horrific. The fact that many of the British behaved just as badly doesn’t excuse this. “Higher moral ground” and all that.
It’s the reservations and quotas after freedom that has enabled dalits. english language has nothing to do with that. Given the strong prejudice against dalits and lower castes in the society, there is no way a dalit could get a decent position even with english. if there is no quotas and reservations all these dalits who advanced would still be at the bottom level of the society.
i don’t understand the fondness of lower caste intellectuals for british. during the british rule something like 10’s of millions of people died due to various famines. upper caste types being on top of food chain had better access to food even during famines and so it must be the lower castes who must have died in large numbers (disproportionate to their share of population). since freedom, there has been no large scale famines which is a significant thing for lower caste people. plus democracy, quotas all benefited lower caste more than upper caste.
230. Good points. Never is a stong word indeed.
Except that they looted the country left and right nary a regard to the suffering of masses. If you read the communication between high officials during famines you would understand why. Huge amounts of resources went out of India with nothing comparable coming in. If it weren’t for them, agreed the poor people would have suffered equally under rajas, but atleast the so many resources wouldn’t have gone out of India for nothing.
Jai Singh: You were right thaht Plassey war is that start of the major control by British. My point is that British controlled India during a critical time (Industrial revolution) in the human history.
You mean it would have gone into building palaces / mosques / temples /mahals etc.. and would have stayed within the country.. and people were having milk and honey in kings/sultans/rajas/Mughals’ rule..
FYI, Nizam of hyderabad was the richest person in the world (of 1920s and even leading upto 1940s) while the people of his region were dirt poor..
Lets not get snarky here please. I said ‘poor wouldn’t have been any better off under the kings.‘ I am sure you read that. Even mosques, temples, mahals (disregarding the fact they can’t even be compared to what British looted) would have been in India. You are saying that it is better to give away the natural resources (and so much of cotton) than building whatever you are saying.
Agreed. Where was his wealth and is now (most part anyway)?
And to add “salt to the wounds” Indian govt. after independence was paying as royalty 1 million $ to the Nizam of Hyderabad every year while the average Indian’s annual income was less than 50$ a year. The Indian govt. was also paying royalties for the other 500+ kings/princes/Nawabs who merged their kingdoms with India.. Thank Indra Gandhi for putting an end to this madness in 1970..
Brits were clever in annexing a few kingdoms and leaving out a few kings as their dummies and governing India by dividing it into two political entities, British India ruled directly by British viceroys, and Princely states of India with their own armies but under Brit protection. If you look at the geographic regions these two regions are cleverly interleaved so that if there was any problem in one group they can take help from the other group.. It is a clever plan.. How else could 300,000 whites can rule over 300 million people.. 🙂
Like they killed the mostly upper caste Hindu and the Muslim mutiny of 1857 (reason for this blog’s name) by taking help from the Sikhs and Madras/Bombay regiments mostly of lower caste recruits..
The reason Sikhs helped put down the Mutiny of 1857 has nothing to do with caste…it was a)because they did not want to see a resurgence of the Mughal empire (in which name the mutiny was being fought), and b)the same soldiers who were mutinying against the British, were the very ones who the British used to defeat the Sikhs only a decade or so earlier…so there was definitely a grudge against the soldiers involved in the Mutiny too. Of course, a more sophisticated view would have made everyone realise that all desis were being used as pawns by the British, but a)British Raj, at least the first several decades of it, was very good for many classes of Sikhs and b)no one thought of themselves as ‘Indians’ or ‘desis’ or what have you in those days…just hundreds of different groups (the narcissism of minor differences).
Although it has to be said…even if the Mutiny had been successful, it would not really have led to the return of the Mughal Empire…probably just the political disintegration of northern India…until another (local?) power emerged to fill the vacuum. If Maharaja Ranjit Singh had successors as talented as he was, it’s very possible the Sikhs could have been the next rulers of Delhi… at least temporarily.
Right on the money. Thats why in the thread of 230+ comments no one would admit that they themselves are “dalit” proves the above point. If the “Dalit” group want to be anywhere close to be what “African American” are in the US, they will have to overcome this. Its not easy.
Time and again there would be a thread about “Dalit” but no commentor .. none whatsoever .. would admit that they are “Dalit”. Thats not the case with African American or Native americans.
India’s society has a long way to go. … And yes, I also agree with previous comment about the denefits of the quota.
I’m closer to Dalit on the caste scale.. is that enough??. 🙂
Ponniyin, I dont want people to come out and admit. I want the tone of this debate to change. The tone of the debate should be that we are discussing a part of our own and not “analyzing” something alien. The society at large has to give a broad based acceptance to all its group for reconciliation to fulfill.
FWIW, let me say that my “caste” is considered OBC in the state where my parents were born in India.
You don’t get bragging rights for wishful thinking.
But its been doing exactly that (outpacing other regions in overall growth) for at least ten years, at least since the 97-98 Asian crisis, and arguably longer; that hardly makes such an assertion ‘wishful thinking’. I think your manifest bitterness stems mainly from the fact that you think you are a black man and no one else agrees with you. Do you know that Africans would be proufoundly offended, insulted even, to have your sorry ass claiming that you are one of them? 🙂 Actually, I am absolutely serious; no one likes a confused loser. A little self-pride is okay. Its time for you to get downz with the brownz.
Reminds me of that remark Jon Stewart made recently(in some other context): ” First of all I’d say as a Jew, stop out-self-loathing us!”.
I do not know which is worse Macacaroach, your delusional self-hatred, or the supposed delusional pride you constantly accuse everyone here of. Of course there’s a chance you do not even see yourself as desi, in which case it is naked racism. And that is what it sounds like most of the time.
I see your point.. But it’s funny just today I read this newsitem..
link
Time has changed.. It is a mistake to assume that all Dalits are looking for acceptance and inclusion etc.. Just by the theory of numbers and democracy, it should be the “upper castes” who should ask for that in a few decades.. What Mayawati is asking looks like ‘protection money’.. 🙂
Macaca en-rouch!, you got me otherwise. I kown that all anti-reservation activists are hote mongering fundies. But we dalits are breaking the system from within – there are more OBC/scheduled classe MPs in that fundamentalist party than any other! Again, Hail Macaulay.
Apologies! Now thats another subject worth of discussion. Some want the Brits to apologize for the Raj and you (and many others) want us to apologize to the Brits for doing something (acceptably) bad in an effort to throw them out. Some here on the board insult and disparage others and make unsubstantiated claims but fail to apologize when proved wrong or for their behavior! I do have a feeling from my own personal experience that us browns have an issue with admitting faults, but at the same time I see change and stay hopeful.
Live and Let Live
What of the coterie of the Queen of the Dynasty? Her ‘Aam aadmi ke saath Haath’ white glowing hand that promised so much but is only throtling farmers in Vidharba, and we dont hear a squeak from her cohorts in the snobbish Hindu-bashing Macaulayite media and P3 Socialite circle who misrepresent us and everything we stand for and yet are the only ones with the power to propogate our self-image or lack thereof to the world. When we minnions of middle class households line up for that emancipatory degree and visa why does it have to mean shedding our cultural and linguistic identities? Doesn’t our whole philosophy talk about the Plurality of One? English doesn’t have to be our worship-worthy monolith of expression as Macaulay wanted but it can still be a useful tool as Tolstoy, Marx, Savarkar used. We don’t have to think like you, no, in black and white? All Hail the Queen still
Right on the money. Thats why in the thread of 230+ comments no one would admit that they themselves are “dalit” proves the above point. If the “Dalit” group want to be anywhere close to be what “African American” are in the US, they will have to overcome this. Its not easy.
Time and again there would be a thread about “Dalit” but no commentor .. none whatsoever .. would admit that they are “Dalit”. Thats not the case with African American or Native americans.
Thats interesting. Does anybody have numbers on the percentage of Dalits in the Indian population in the US?
My guess is that it is probably very minimal 1-2% and even there most of them newcomers that is within the last 10-15 years.. If you add OBCs it would be around 10-15%.. it is growing though..