Literary Histories: Reading the Canon and the Institutionalisation of English – MEL111

Assignment I: A Historical Survey of the Crisis of English Departments of India

In her essay, “The Beginnings of English Literary Studies in British India”, Gauri Vishwanathan
analyses the deep-rooted connections between Britain’s socio-political motivations and the
establishment of English literature as an institutionalised discipline in India. By highlighting the
underlying imperialist agenda of concealing their own economic exploitation of the colony in
order to preserve their position of power, as well as of teaching a language that would serve as an
intermediary between the rulers and the ruled, she dismantles the apologist notion that English is
a “gift” to India, as opposed to being an instrument of colonialism. Without oversimplifying, she
demonstrates the continual shifts in the curriculum that were influenced directly by the
modifications in educational goals that arose to benefit the British in one way or another. She
does all of this by compiling archival material and historical accounts, the culmination of which
is a compelling argument about the relationship between power and culture.

Perhaps one of the most striking internal evidences of Gauri Vishwanathan’s

demystification of the colonial education system lies in Lord Macaulay’s 1835 Minute on
Education, in which he articulates the need for the English tongue to be taught to the native
subjects with the purpose of creating a class of Indians that would serve as interpreters between
British administrators and the millions they govern, a class that would be “Indian in blood and
colour, but English in taste, opinions, moral, and intellect.” So strongly does he advocate for this
new system of education that he stakes his future as the chair of the Committee upon the decision
of the Board. The outcome of Macaulay’s memorandum took form of the English Education Act
of 1835 and led to English joining the vast repertoire of languages in India.

Since the dawn of the era of postcolonialism, there has been an impressive, sometimes
even to the extent of being overwhelming, number of critics who have challenged the state of the
curriculum of English in India. None, however, have made their voice heard as vociferously and
eloquently as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. In the first chapter of her book, An Aesthetic
Education in the Era of Globalisation, entitled The Burden of English, she brings to light the
situation of Indian teachers in English, their role in building ‘the ideal reader’, and the
relationship between the problems of teaching English literature and the development of the
colonial subject. According to Spivak, there is a desperate need for teachers of English literary
studies to abolish the divide between English and vernacular literatures that have been
systematically laid down in most Indian institutions. This artificial divide, constructed to
“Englishize” the colonial subject, cannot be disregarded by English departments, and must not
only be acknowledged but also undone through the collaboration of the Departments of Modern
Indian Literatures, of Literature in the State Vernacular, and the Departments of Comparative
Literature.

This brief historical survey of the crisis of English departments in India does not, by any
means, represent an exhaustive collection of crises and ideas presented by critical thinkers of the
topic. In fact, it barely scratches the surface. Yet, it attempts to offer a basic, preliminary
understanding of the history of our education system, the role of power in the institutionalisation
of culture, and the shifts in thought necessary to redesign the curriculum of the English
department so that it is more inclusive of those who fall outside the peripheries of hegemonic
constructs.