Read the source given below and answer the following questions.
Language of the wise
Emphasising the need to teach English, Macaulay declared:
All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the
natives … of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so
poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to
translate any valuable work into them …
a) How does Macaulay criticise Indian dialects?
b) What were the provisions of “The Indian Education Act of 1835”?
Answers
Answer:
[a] The English Education Act 1835 was a legislative Act of the Council of India, gave effect to a decision in 1835 by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General of the British East India Company, to reallocate funds it was required by the British Parliament to spend on education and literature in India. Previously, they had given limited support to traditional Muslim and Hindu education and the publication of literature in the then traditional languages of learning in India (Sanskrit and Persian); henceforward they were to support establishments teaching a Western curriculum with English as the language of instruction. Together with other measures promoting English as the language of administration and of the higher law courts (instead of Persian, as under the Mughal Empire), this led eventually to English becoming one of the languages of India, rather than simply the native tongue of its foreign rulers.