*This paper was co-written by Ananya Kachru and Ajay Culhane-Husain
Nation-Building in India: Post-Colonial Impacts and a Move Towards Globalization
For the vast majority of the 19th and 20th centuries, India was under the jurisdiction of European colonial powers. These powers infused India with colonial values such as the english language and western religions. These influences were at odds with indigenous values as they minimized how many people knew and were taught Indian languages and religions. Moreover, the colonial powers failed to make sufficient investments in education infrastructure further hindering the ability of the Indian government to teach these indigenous traditions post-independence.
When India became independent in 1947, the country’s population was about 361 million. This made India a very pluralistic society without a strong national identity, partly due to the remnants of colonialism. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the Indian government made slow efforts to uproot colonial values and restore native language education. These efforts were somewhat successful but never fully implemented.
Over the past two decades, the India government has made steps to promote nation-building through the implementing multilingual education curricula and restructuring the schooling system. The efforts to reclaim Indian values are often in tension with the country’s focus on maintaining western language and literature, to prepare students for a globalized world.
In supporting our argument, we first explain how British colonial values replaced Indian indigenous language systems and fractured India’s education infrastructure, while also dividing the nation through the creation of a ruling elite. We will then demonstrate that more recent policy seems to center on national priorities, including multilinguistic education and greater educational accessibility via federal involvement. There have been several efforts in support of these national priorities, especially in the last couple decades. Each has had their own shortcomings in part to a tension between developing global citizens and promoting nation-building.
We also acknowledge that the incorporation of Hindu values and religious texts have been used in promoting nation-building, especially in recent years. This has been controversial and exclusionary of Muslim students in India, amongst other religious groups and is definitely an element of the government’s attempts to cultivate a specific identity. While this is an element of recent nation-building efforts, we will not focus on this area due to the scope of our paper.
I: Historical Origins and Structure
Indian Education Infrastructure Post-Colonialism
Colonial rule uprooted indigenous values and infrastructure within the Indian education system. Prior to colonial rule, education was a crux of Indian society with “every village having a school” (Goyal, 2000). These schools primarily taught indigenous texts such as “the Vedas, the various Sastras, the Purans, the more well known books on Ganeeta, and Jyotish-sastras” (Goyal, 2000). While these systems were primarily built for young men, and exclusionary of women in communities, the education was more centered on Indian texts, language, and culture. However, indigenous education was soon neglected and then rapidly decayed within a few decades after the onset of colonial rule. In researching the impact of British colonial rule on the Indian education system in the 19th century, Mani P. Kamerkar finds that a “very minor role was played by the Indians in shaping the educational policy of the Government,” and instead, mostly British officials and missionaries would determine education policy with “abysmal ignorance of the indigenous systems of education” already present in India (Kamerkar, 2000). Britain even tried to get rid of indigenous language teachings, believing that “that a single shelf of a European [literature] was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia” (Macauley, 1835, p.2).
The colonists taught British values to support their own “divide and rule” strategy and, in turn, created a ruling elite during the redevelopment of India’s education system. This can be seen through how the colonists used convent school. Convent schools, created by Christian missionaries, incorporate religious values into education. These schools house monks and nuns who act as teachers. Because many nuns and monks only knew English, these schools placed an emphasis on English language learning. During colonial rule, these schools quickly became popular in North India, where at one point in the 1900s, “nearly 70% of high schools and secondary schools in UP [one of the largest states in India] were mission-run,” (Bellenoit, 2007). The religious and linguistic teachings within convent schools were used “to drive a wedge between Indians” to support the colonists divide and rule strategy (Rahman et al, 2019). The imposition of colonial linguistic and religious beliefs also acted as a cultural separation from other regions in India that had held onto indigenous values. The teaching of these English values created a ruling elite that aligned with ideological values of the ruling class (the colonists). In this way, we see indoctrination being used to support colonial priorities at the expense of Indian religious and linguistic traditions.
Unless investment aligned with the British values as seen with convent schools, the colonists failed to devote sufficient resources to the redevelopment of the Indian education system resulting in a broken education infrastructure. As officials and missionaries were focused on phasing out indigenous education systems, they were not efficient with substitutions and the new schools “in no way made up for the loss of educational facilities previously available to the people,” because “the will to develop the system of education was thoroughly lacking” and the “money available for it was insignificant (Kamerkar, 2000). In the field of higher education, “no government or private effort was seen to start a college in most parts of the state” (Kamerkar, 2001, p. 376). The colonists started a few village schools; however, these “made up in no way for the loss of the original village schools” that were present in nearly every village pre-colonialism (Kamerkar, 2001, p. 376). Thereby, the colonists failed to devote enough human capital or financial investment to quickly substitute available educational resources or expand educational access in the short-term, according to Kamerkar’s findings. As a result, the education system inherited from the colonists was structurally inadequate to meet the needs of the Indian nation.
II. Curriculum
A Renewed Focus on Multilingualism
Within the scope of our analysis, we argue that English serves as a common language which promotes unity and global citizenship, while increased emphasis on learning indigenous languages helps uproot colonial times. At the same time, given that colonialism centered English language acquisition in the first place, educating in indigenous languages is a form of creating further cultural belonging and pride. Our research shows a slow evolution of indigenous language teaching implementation for the fifty years post-independence. However, indigenous language teaching really comes into fruition over the past two decades through policy proposals like the 2020 National Education Plan.
India has long struggled with how to teach a population that speaks hundreds of different languages. In drafting the Indian constitution, there was debate as to whether Hindi or English should be the country’s national language. The assembly arrived at a compromise and decided that the country would have Hindi and English as the “Official Languages” of the union. Indian leaders also wanted to ensure language-survival, and so included that language rights were to be considered fundamental rights. In acknowledging the challenges of educating a multilingual society, the writers included that all linguistic minorities shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice (Jayasundara, 2014). This provided more linguistic flexibility for populations within India, which is a pluralistic society.
In 1956, Indian states were created on the basis of majority regional languages and states were allowed to make their own official language for state affairs (Jayasundara, 2014). This form of nationalism furthered the linguistic division between Indian regions. In 1968, the Indian government released its first National Policy on Education (“NEP 1968”), which outlined how the country planned to improve the country’s education system. NEP 1968 proposed a three-language formula that would promote Hindi, English, and a regional language within schools (National Policy on Education, 1968). This NEP recommendation had the potential to lead India towards a common medium of instruction, while also ensuring the survival of mother-tongue languages. However, the plan was poorly implemented.
In 1986, India released their second National Policy on Education. The entirety of the report’s content on “languages” can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1: 1986 National Policy on Education (Language Section)
Note: sourced from National Policy on Education, 1968. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-reports/NPE-1968.pdf
The 1986 report states that the “implementation of the 1968 Policy…has been uneven”. Despite India’s intentions of protecting linguistic minorities and language traditions, the country’s education system failed to implement appropriate policy between 1968 and 1986. Instead, English remained the primary languages taught in schools to support “economic objectives that increasingly depend on English” (Jayasundara, 2014, p.3). As mentioned in Section I, English language acquisition became a national priority during colonial rule, due to British influence, but by the mid 20th century, English language acquisition also became more of a necessity in an increasingly global world.
It was only in recent years where indigenous language teaching became more of a priority. Given that the Indian education system is focusing on increasing educational accessibility, to better prepare students for entering the workforce, we believe that it is advantageous for the government to promote learning in multiple mediums of instruction, which are suited to student needs. In the most recent rendition of the National Education Policy (“NEP 2020”), the Indian government proposed that children be taught in their mother tongue, at least while in primary school (Anand, 2020). The languages taught will be the “choices of states, regions, and students” and “efforts will be made to prepare bi-lingual textbooks” (National Education Policy, 2020). These strides towards language protection in the NEP are a core part of nation-building through education in India at the moment.
These NEP 2020 policy proposals demonstrate India’s commitment to supporting linguistic minorities. The country has long articulated a desire to support local language speakers in the classroom, but policy implementation has fallen short in part because of the economic value of English learning. Additionally, this policy only applies to government schools (public schools), so parents and families who send their children to private schools can essentially decide that their students will focus on English language acquisition. This policy, while well intentioned, may actually exacerbate disparities as a particular group of families can opt their children into intensive English language acquisition if they have the means to afford it. We explore this concept further in Section III. This policy reform combined with changes in education structure demonstrate the government’s increased efforts to promote nationalism through education in the past two decades.
Increased Federal Involvement in Education Policy Planning
Restructuring the education system has supported nation-building efforts because the government is able to shift away from the colonial influence on Indian education and create a system which provides greater guaranteed opportunities to educate Indian students. This is demonstrated by how the Indian government’s involvement with education planning has increased in recent years through the Right to Education Act (“RTE Act”), and by efforts from the federal government in 2020 to increase the number of guaranteed educational years for students via a new ‘5+3+3+4’ educational system.
Constitutionally, Naik finds that the Indian Constitution clearly delineates educational planning and policy to the states but the federal government is often involved with high priorities to an extent, including “the provision of educational facilities for children up to the age of 14, the promotion and safeguarding of the cultural interests of the minorities, the need for controlled development of Higher Education” and others, too (Naik, 2000, p.12). Today, the Indian government plays a significant role in shaping federal education goals and structures for students, funding schools across India, and determining what narratives students will learn in their classrooms. This increased involvement gives the federal government more of an opportunity to prioritize nation-building through its education system.
In 2009, the federal government used the RTE Act to ensure that Indian students had access to education opportunities. The act established that “the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years” (Ahmad, 2016). This ensured that no child would be responsible for paying any fees that could potentially prevent them from completing an elementary education in government-owned schools. Moreover, the RTE Act specified that 25% of students admitted to non-government schools have to be “economically weaker” or “disadvantaged” (Iyer, 2021). This provision ensured that vulnerable children could receive a form of a quality education. Through reforms like the RTE Act, opportunities for educational attainment have increased substantially for Indian students at the primary and secondary level (see Figure 2). The government’s actions prioritize equity and empower more students to access educational preparation, training, and opportunities, which is a core element of India’s principles in nation-building.
Figure 2: Gross enrollment ratio of Indian students enrolled in primary or secondary school relative to the total population in the corresponding age groups over time
Note: sourced from Gross Enrollment Ratio, Primary And Secondary, Both Sexes. (n.d.). World Bank.
The federal government is also specifically involved in creating National Education Plans or National Education Policies. Most recently, the 2020 National Education Policy shifted the Indian education structure and initiated some fundamental changes in the education system. First, the Indian ‘10+2’ model of schooling, where students attend 2 years of schooling post their grade 1-10 experience, has been replaced by a ‘5+3+3+4’ system, which includes a foundational/ pre-primary schooling, preparatory/ primary education schooling, middle/ secondary schooling, and senior secondary schooling (Business Standard, 2020). This is a massive shift in improving educational access and equity, with an increase of three years of schooling in the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten time frame (Uable, 2020). These structural shifts better meet priorities set forward by the federal government, like expansion of education and adequate educational training for all students in India. These structural, institutional shifts are a part of nation-building because they support the Indian government in achieving its own goals. Not only does the Indian government promote economic nation-building through structural shifts and education access though, the government also has made increased strides in protecting indigenous language acquisition through schools and offering options for non-Hindi speakers in classrooms.
III. Contemporary Landscape
Successes in the Status Quo
English language education has become an increasingly popular option, driven by a desire to prepare students as global citizens. Simultaneously, the current Indian education landscape has arrived at a point where indigenous language learning is an accessible and encouraged option.
International schools and English-medium schools have become increasingly popular throughout India as students seek preparation for an increasingly global world. As of 2017, the number of students being taught at English-medium K-12 international schools totals 268,600, a number up from 151,900 enrollees in 2012 (Marsh, 2017). The number of schools has also increased from 313 to 469 over the same time period (Marsh, 2017). There has been an “increased interest in global citizenship…as a result of the increasingly multicultural nature of societies and the work of international organizations” (O’Flaherty & Liddy, 2017). In order to engage with the world of the future, students feel that they need to be equipped with English-language skills or an international perspective.
While these schools have seen a surge in demand, they are often accessible only to the upper class. These schools have to charge more to parents in order to break even due to factors like teacher recruitment and licensing costs (Prasad, 2011). Most international schools charge more than $10000 per student, while the nominal income per capita in India is $1265 (Prasad, 2011). This discrepancy means that international schools are restricted to those with substantial income sources.
On the other hand, indigenous language education has also become more popular through recent policy reforms. In the status quo, the RTE Act has massively impacted linguistic access within the Indian education system. Linguistically, the RTE Act included a provision that “medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in the child’s mother tongue” (Groff, 2016, p.152). In order to ensure practical multilingual teaching, India is making ongoing efforts to use multilingual “school curriculums, syllabi, textbooks” to ensure effective instruction (Groff, 2016, p.155). These efforts mark a stark contrast from the previous reality where “many institutions used patterns of communication where the teacher and the taught interact in one language, classes are conducted in another, textbooks are written in a third, and answers are given in a fourth language or style” (Groff, 2016, p.155). Most importantly, several states have been giving attention to mother tongue language instruction for linguistic minorities and the “evaluations of these programs report numerous positive outcomes” (Groff, 2016, p.155).
Current Challenges
While India has made substantial progress to improve education accessibility through reforms like the RTE Act, class discrimination restricts equitable opportunities, especially in rural communities. This discrimination is harmful to vulnerable communities and hinders national progress and inclusion. Recent nation-building efforts have aimed to change the status quo. The RTE Act hoped to create spaces for the inclusion of communities which were historically and unfairly disadvantaged (Pallikonda M and Judith A, 2017). However, research shows the lower caste are not being treated the same as their counterparts.
The segregation starts with the seating arrangement in classrooms as those from lower castes are made to sit in the back of the class. A study conducted in 2012 showed that “only 22% of Dalit students sit in the relatively front rows with 78% of them sitting in the back rows only” (Mhuthujaya, 2019). Not only does this divide lower caste students socially, but it also acts as a barrier to student learning. This segregation is especially concerning as Dalit children, those from the lowest caste, have limited support at home. Of the parents of Dalit children, 58% are illiterate and 68% are daily wage workers (Sahas). Since Dalit families cannot always provide support, schools are supposed to help fill the gaps. However, discrimination reduces the effectiveness of schools in this way.
The consequence is high dropout and illiteracy rates for Dalit communities. According to the 2011 Indian census, lower caste members are 10% below the national literacy rate of 74%. The dropout rates at the primary and elementary school level are also twice that of general category students (Mhuthujaya, 2019). These challenges are notable. While there have been recent efforts by the Indian government to increase educational accessibility, as explored above with shifting educational structures, the Indian government will struggle in progressing with their nation-building attempts if they avoid addressing educational disparities amongst the most marginalized populations in the country.
In addition to discrimination in primary education opportunities, caste discrimination also exists in higher education. Current government policies enumerate proportions of admission spots at higher education institutions for people in lower castes. In exploring higher education caste discrimination, there was limited available research on the topic, which was pertinent to our analysis. With that said, it is worth acknowledging that caste discrimination persists throughout all levels of Indian education and also society. Addressing caste discrimination will be an important component of nation-building at all levels and could be an area of further research.
IV: Concluding Analysis
In looking at the historical origins of India’s current educational model, navigating the federal government’s involvement in curricular decision-making, and assessing current successes and challenges, post-colonial education systems in India have faced a tension between remnants of colonial education infrastructure, economic priorities, and significant government advocacy, in recent years, to return to Indian literature and language in schools.
In assessing competing goals within the Indian education system, we see current tension between the federal government’s focus on preserving indigenous languages and commemorating Indian national identity with the government’s focus on preparing its students, across the country, to be global citizens in a world where English language proficiency and fluency in western information may be critical for specific types of job acquisition at high level agencies, multinational corporations, and government posts.
We would also like to address that our analysis is focused on post-colonial nation-building in India, and how these efforts have increased via the education system in the past couple decades. We did not look at other factors of nation-building, outside of education. We also focused on several specific elements of education to look at within our analysis–our analysis is not all encompassing of the entire Indian education system post-colonialism by any means. That being said, we did identify specific priorities in nation-building within language instruction and education accessibility. Within the scope of our analysis, we did not consider which political, cultural, and religious narratives the federal governing party chooses to emphasize in curricular development, but this would be an area of further research and exploration to understand a new layer of nation-building. Finally, we looked at sources only in English. Many government sources are purely in English, as it is a language of communication within the federal government, but it is possible that there may be articles or documents written in Hindi or other local languages on these topics. Further research may look into documents written at the local and state education levels, to demonstrate how stakeholders interact with one another on the federal government’s priorities.
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