Question

what was the British opinion about Oriental learning​

Answer 1

Answer:

In order to communicate with the locals, the Company’s officers had to take the help of some traders and local officers as only a few people in India knew English language at that time. However, those workers of the Company who stayed for long in India learnt Persian and other languages.

Answer 2

• In order to communicate with the locals, the Company’s officers had to take the help of some traders and local officers as only a few people in India knew English language at that time. However, those workers of the Company who stayed for long in India learnt Persian and other languages.

• When the Company became a political power, its authorities made ‘compulsory’ for its workers to learn Indian languages for the sake of easy interaction with the locals. Thus young officers of the Company when they arrived in India, hired Indian teachers to learn local languages because they didn’t want to depend on interpreters and wanted to directly communicate with the local people.

• Realising the significance of communication, Governor General Wellesley established the Fort William College in 1800. His aim was to promote Oriental learning through education. The young officers were taught jurisprudence, history, geography, economics, chemistry and philosophy. It was compulsory for students to learn Greek, Latin, French, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. Other local languages of India were also part of curriculum. It shows that the Company wanted to teach its young officers about both European and Indian cultures.

• Indians were appointed in the college to teach local languages. In 1806, when Haileybury College was established in England in order to train the young officers for Indian service, Fort William College became a teaching institution only for Oriental languages.

• The college had its own printing press to publish books. The college press printed Urdu books which were written in simple style — one can say that it was Fort William College that introduced and popularise this style.

• The Ghaziuddin Madrasa built in 1792 was renamed as Delhi College in 1835. The government allotted a section of college for English learning but at that time there was strong resistance from locals for English learning and therefore, it was decided to translate books of natural science and social sciences in Urdu.

• Some significant teachers of the college are Imam Baksh Sehbai, Master Ramchandra, Master Pyare Lal and Maulvi Zakaullah. Famous alumni of the Delhi College are Deputy Nazir Ahmed, Mohammed Husain Azad, Khwaja Mohammed Shafi and Bhairon Pershad (he later became Assistant Professor in Delhi College).

• The Delhi College had to suffer great loss in 1857 — during the war of independence its principal was killed and its library was looted. The college reopened in 1864 but later on it was merged with a mission school.

Maulvi Abdul Haq in his book Marhoom Delhi College writes, “On May 11, 1857, after 12 O’clock, the rebels destroyed the library. They took away the golden bindings of the English books and their pages were scattered in the garden. They also took with them Arabic, Persian and Urdu books and sold them to second-hand book sellers at a very cheap price.”