How to make Macaulay turn in his grave?

History (or is it divinity?) has presented the Modi government with an opportunity of a millennium to set right the historical wrong that began in 1835.

Lord Babington Macaulay wrote the now infamous minute in that year to ‘ create a class of people who are Indians in colour but British in blood and tastes’. This he sought to achieve by introducing the English education to the masses thereby helping them overcome the ‘superstition ridden Sanskrit and Urdu based oriental education’.

Even Swami Vivekananda had this to say about the English education in India:

A negative education or any training that is based on negation, is worse than death. The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all the sacred books are lies! By the time he is sixteen he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless. And the result is that fifty years of such education has not produced one original man in the three Presidencies

Macaulay was quite successful in his efforts and the ‘class’ of Indians created by him, a representative being Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, ensured that the same education system was followed even after the British rule ended in 1947.

The universities and higher education sites created were far removed from the Indic thought base and were taking pride in continuing to deride the Indic value system.

Academics and media personnel who graduated from these ‘centres of excellences’ continued to propagate the hundred year old colonial value system proposed by Macaulay, with the result that all pillars of the country, from academia, to media, to judiciary were inundated with Nehruvian secularism trained aka brainwashed souls that continued to deride the Indic cultural values of the civilisation that was Bharat.

Now, the judiciary, with its totally uncalled for judgment in the Sabarimala case, has cut open the civilizational wound of a billion people.

With Kerala up against the regional and last communist government in the country, Prime Minister Modi has a golden opportunity to set right the historical wrong done by Lord Macaulay.

By bringing in an amendment to the constitution that the Judiciary can not interfere in the tantric rituals of temples, PM Modi would be able to set in motion a series of follow up measures by the other regional governments in India. And that would result in de-macaulaizing India, thus cleansing the nation of the macaulaian virus.

I feel that the centre is waiting for the state government to fail completely before acting decisively. Until then they would appear to keep mum under the oft repeated maxim ‘law and order is a state subject’. Pinnarai Vijayan, Kerala’s Chief Minister and his communist government are doomed, in any case. If they act against the verdict, it would amount to contempt of court; if they don’t act, then it would become a law and order problem coupled with loss of faith from the majority community in the state.

So, what Mr.Modi needs to do is: Wait now but act afterwards, decisively, with an amendment to the constitution and an ordinance. While an amendment would help keep the judges at bay, an ordinance would send a powerful message to the people at large that the government would not sacrifice its Indic support base just to score some brownie points from the ‘sick-ul-ar’ media ( that has not been forthcoming, anyway).

I expect Congress and is allies to oppose the ordinance and amendments  in the winter session of the parliament. But I also expect the Congress MPs from Kerala to oppose the party’s stand, if it chooses to oppose the ordinance. I also expect the ‘allies’ or what ever is left of them not to join ranks with Congress to oppose the ordinance as that act would further alienate them from the already aggrieved masses of the majority community.

What if the Modi government has been keeping silent in the Sabarimala case as the case might not have as much national repercussion as a favourable verdict in the soon to be announced Ram Jenma Bhoomi case? In such a scenario too, I would welcome the central government’s silence now, for if they oppose the Sabarimala verdict now and bring in an ordinance, they would be compelled to bring in another ordinance to overturn a possible ‘favourable’ judgment in the Ram Jenma Bhoomi case.

Having said this, I don’t expect the communist government of Kerala to bring in an ordinance to pre-empt the center into endorsing the same. Just in case better sense prevails and the state government brings in the ordinance, I would still welcome it, for that would ensure a surefire funeral to the already dead philosophy of communism in India.

In any case, it is time for a grand funeral for the minute of 1835 and make Lord Macaulay turn in his grave.

History doesn’t give a second chance.