Gauri Vishvanathan's Masks of Cretinism

Gauri Vishvanathan's much cited 'Masks of Conquest' begins thus-

ENGLISH LITERATURE made its appearance in India, albeit indirectly, with a crucial act in Indian educational history: the passing of the Charter Act in 1813.

Is she right?
Briefly, the answer is no. English literature made its appearance in India when English speaking people began to reside there. Coryate was a notable writer who died in Surat in 1617. One of his books may be said to be the first book of English literature written in India. However, he was not the first Englishman to contribute to Literature in India. This was probably an English Jesuit who had translated the Bible into Konkani some twenty or thirty years previously. Fr. Thomas Stephens had written a letter about India which was included in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and published in 1599.

However, it wasn't till the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century that any sizable number of Indians studied English and became acquainted with its literature which had become more polished and settled in matters of orthography and idiom during the second half of the seventeenth century.

Graham Shaw, who works for the British Library, writes in the Hindu- that

on May 12, 1716, a small edition of an English schoolbook rolled off the press at Tharangambadi. This was Thomas Dyche’s A guide to the English tongue, printed for use in the charity school for poor Protestant children, established in Chennai in 1715 by East India Company’s chaplain, William Stevenson. This was the first book to be printed in English in India, or in the whole of Asia.

The 1716 Tharangambadi edition of Dyche’s Guide was printed as part of Stevenson’s plan for his new charity school on the English model, opened a year earlier. Copies of Dyche’s work had probably already been used in the free-school conducted by George Lewis, Stevenson’s predecessor as East India Company chaplain, from 1712 until 1714, when Lewis returned to Britain.

These could have been copies of the first 1707 or second 1710 London editions that had been imported. By 1716 perhaps, those copies had become worn out and needed replacing; or maybe the number of pupils began to exceed the number of copies available. But Stevenson had no means of printing more copies locally.

Chennai’s first press would not arrive until 1761, looted by the British from the French at the siege of Pondicherry. Stevenson’s only option therefore was to apply to the mission press at Tharangambadi. On November 14, 1715, he wrote to the Lutheran missionary Johann Ernst Gründler requesting a print run of 200 copies of Dyche’s Guide. The Tharangambadi missionaries agreed to do the work free of cost. It was no doubt an unauthorised reprint — a pirate edition, like many early Indian imprints.

The book obviously proved its worth as a textbook in the Chennai mission school. No doubt its attraction to Stevenson, as to Lewis before him, was enhanced by the Christian messages and child’s morning and evening prayers included among the reading passages to be memorised. Seven years later, in 1723, a second edition was printed, again at Tharangambadi. 

As Britain prospered and outdid its European rivals during the course of the eighteenth century, there was an increased demand on the part of both Europeans and Indians to learn English grammar and become familiar with its literature. Ambitious Indians in the Presidency towns as well as some Protestant European Missionaries gravitated towards English as a medium of instruction and a common language. By the late eighteenth century, some wealthy Indians sent their sons to private Schools run by English or Eurasian teachers. Poorer Indians too might get a leg up but by attending a Missionary School and thus acquiring sufficient linguistic skills to gain some modest sort of  employment.

The Charter Act of 1813 says ': “It shall be lawful for the Governor-General-in-Council to direct that out of any surplus which may remain of the rents, revenues, and profits arising from the said territorial acquisition, after defraying the expenses of the military, civil and commercial establishments and paying the interest of the debt in manner hereinafter provided, a sum of not less than one lac of rupees each year shall be set apart for the revival and improvement of literature and encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the science among the inhabitants of the British territories in India.”

One lac rupees was the pay of 5 White Civil Servants. It was by no means a munificent sum. The East India Company used it to pay for Sanskrit and Arabic and Persian pundits who would be of use to them in interpreting the local laws and customs. However, wealthy Indians could learn Sanskrit and Arabic from local priests easily enough. They wanted their English education to be subsidized and regulated by pukka White people who, after all, knew a thing or two about English.

Later, Macaulay would belabor the point that you had to pay Indians to study Arabic or Sanskrit whereas they would happily pay good money to learn English. That was the argument he made, with typical hyperbole, in his Minute on Education in 1835.

Gauri Vishvanathan takes a different view. She believes that the Act of 1813 made the East India Company responsible for educating natives who came under their power. This is utterly absurd. Britain itself did not assume any such responsibility towards its own people till much later.

This act, renewing the East India Company's charter for a twenty-year period, produced two major changes in Britain's relationship with her colony: one was the assumption of a new responsibility toward native education, and the other was a relaxation of controls over missionary activity in India.

There was no responsibility for native education. All that the Act said was that John Company was permitted to spend a paltry amount, provided there was a sufficient surplus, on 'encouraging' learned natives in the manner that was already occurring.

 Without minimizing the historical importance of the renewal of the Company's charter, it would be safe to say that the more far-reaching significance of the Charter Act lay in the commitment enjoined upon England to undertake the education of the native subjects, a responsibility which it did not officially bear even toward its own people.

This is sheer fantasy. England never undertook any such responsibility. It would have gone bankrupt if it had. Missionaries were welcome to teach kids gratis, and there would be a few subsidized schools which elites could capture but that was all that was on offer.

Hitherto, measures to educate the Indians were entirely at the discretion of the governor-general at Calcutta and the Company was in no way obligated to attend to their instruction.

Gauri believes that Indians did not or could not educate themselves. The Governor-General might, at his discretion, pick up an urchin and get him edumicated (what? No fucking Governor-General used his discretion to edumicate me so how do you expect me to spil gud?) but if the Governor-General was not so inclined then Indians would have no means to gain instruction.

Why? It is because Indians are completely shit, yaar. Gauri taught at Delhi University. She should know. Thankfully, she managed to escape to Amrika. However, due to no nice Governor-General used his discretion to edumicate her, the Brits having done a runner in 1947, she is so idiotic as to believe that from 1813 onward, East India Company was opening schools all over the place.

Indeed, reluctant as it was to spend any more money on the natives than necessary, the East India Company was all too willing to abide by the practice in England, where education was not a state responsibility.

Nor was education a state responsibility in Mughal India or its successor states. There may have been local provision- but it was not required by the hegemon.

The East India Company did spend some money on English education because some 'natives' were their own sons. Instruction from such schools did percolate down to ambitious 'pure blooded' natives- more particularly if they converted.
Consider this account of the oldest English school in India which was financed by John Company-

It was in Fort St George that Preacher Pringle in 1673 established a Portuguese and English language free school for English, Portuguese, Eurasian and Indian children resident in the Fort. In l678, this school was more formally recognised by the Council of Fort St. George with the appointment of Ralph Orde as ‘Schoolmaster’. Arithmetic, ‘Merchant’s Accounts’ and Tamil were introduced in the curriculum. It was this school that St. Mary’s in the Fort took over and, under the stewardship of its chaplain, the Rev. William Stevenson, ran from 1715 as St. Mary’s Charity School. In 1787, the School merged with the Male Orphans’ Asylum and in 1954 took the name St. George’s School and Orphanage. By then it had been 50 years at its present location on Poonamalle High Road. Like many of the other pioneering institutions, it became a Higher Secondary School in time. The unbroken continuity of the institution since 1715, only additions being made to it, makes it the oldest English medium school in Asia.

Warren Hastings and scholarly men like Sir William Jones were already 'encouraging' native scholarship. The Charter Act rationalized an ongoing practice.

 Hastings set up the Calcutta Madrasa

(later Calcutta Aliya Madrasa)- the earliest of the state-managed educational institutions under the British rule in India. Founded by the Governor General in October 1780 with its entire expense borne by him for a year and a half, of course fully reimbursed later, the Bengal Government took it over in April 1782

& Jonathan Duncan set up the Benares Sanskrit College in 1791. However, both had to pay stipends to students to get them to study. Meanwhile wealthy Indians were paying good money to learn English while continuing to learn Arabic or Sanskrit from their local priest.

All that the Charter Act did was to recognize and formalize a pre-existing arrangement in this respect. It did not change anything.

Gauri knows about both the Calcutta Madrasa and the Benares Sanskrit College yet she writes-

The Charter Act, however, radically altered the prevailing state of laissez-faire in Indian educational matters.

Yet, no great change was observable. Why? One lakh rupees is a drop in the proverbial bucket.

The 13th Resolution categorically stated that England was obligated to promote the "interests and happiness" of the natives and that measures ought to be adopted "as may tend to the introduction among them of useful knowledge, and of religious and moral improvement." 

OMG! How naive is Gauri? Does she not understand how Parliament works? The opposition makes long speeches about how the incumbents are a bunch of scoundrels. The incumbents make even longer speeches about all the marvelous things they are just about to do. Some meaningless Bill is passed and everybody rolls into the bar to get drunk.

It may be that because Gauri studied English Literature- not exactly an intellectually rigorous discipline- she is somewhat credulous and naive when it comes to history. However, she also believes that English Literature was not taught in England. That is utterly mad. 'Chancery Standard' was taught in schools and printed books were used in such schools from the middle of the fifteenth century onward. It is a different matter that some 'Public' Schools were forbidden, by a Court Judgement, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to alter the terms of their original foundation and thus devote their endowment to providing instruction in subjects not mentioned in their Charter. However, since instruction in Classical languages involved much translation, Public School boys had a more, not less, thorough knowledge of recent English literature because it supplied the models for such translation. Most schools, however, provided a much more practical course of instruction.

English grammar books, on the Latin pattern, had begun to appear in the late Sixteenth Century. The demand for instruction in useful subjects burgeoned as Britain grew more prosperous. Many scholars- like Milton- took pupils or established Academies. Dissenters, in particular, had to develop their own scholastic networks where greater stress was laid on modern languages and other commercially useful disciplines.

Gauri, being a pedant, may think curriculums and Ministries are important. This could be the case- as in Prussia- but wasn't where the market worked its magic of creating 'focal solutions' for coordination problems without any great need for State action.

She writes-

“The amazingly young history of English literature as a subject of study (it is less than a hundred and fifty years old) is frequently noted,

She means 'a subject of study at University'. King's College in London taught English Literature from the time it opened its doors in 1831. By 1859, it was an exam subject for the University of London Degree program.

However, English had always been taught in schools. Shakespeare learned English literature at his Grammar School. Milton taught English as well as Latin. The method of instruction and assessment used at Universities meant that one developed a refined and elegant English style at the same time that one labored over Latin or Greek texts. Swinburne had a greater knowledge of English literature than Professor Saintsbury. Chesterton was offered a Chair in English though he had no degree. Why? His knowledge of certain aspects of it was as prodigious as his style of elucidation unique and unexampled.

but less appreciated is the irony that English literature appeared as a subject in the curriculum of the colonies long before it was institutionalized in the home country.

Gauri is a cretin. She doesn't get that English school masters and Chaplains- who had been teaching English in India since the late Seventeenth Century- used textbooks and taught to a curriculum institutionalized in the home country by the free working of the market. There was no need for the State to stick its oar in because the market was doing the job by itself. Just because there is no Govt. Dept. tasked with something does not mean that the thing does not exist.

As early as the 1820s, when the classical curriculum still reigned supreme in England

How stupid is this woman? Does she really think that all literate English people were trained in 'the classical curriculum'? Very few of them were- only those intended for the Church or those who showed high promise. Everybody else, who could afford it, received a sound enough commercial, or naval, or military education- or, in the case of girls, a grounding in modern languages and maidenly 'accomplishments' like painting water colors and playing the pianoforte.

despite the then strenuous efforts of some concerned critics to loosen its hold, English as the study of culture and not simply the study of language had already found a secure place in the British Indian curriculum.

Sheer nonsense! Some Indians spent money to study English. Others managed to get a free ride thanks to Missionaries or local connections. But, there was no 'British Indian Curriculum'. Why not? The thing would have been a political hot potato because of the intense sectarian conflict which paralyzed England's own efforts to introduce free, compulsory, State funded education on the Prussian model.

Perhaps Gauri, being a native of India, should be forgiven for not knowing anything about English history- though it is mirrored in her own subject, which is English literature.

What of her knowledge of India? Let us see.

“A play like Kalidas' Shakuntala, which delighted Europeans for its pastoral beauty and lyric charm and led Horace Wilson, a major nineteenth-century Sanskrit scholar, to call it the jewel of Indian literature, was disapproved of as a text for study in Indian schools and colleges, and the judgment that the more popular forms of [Oriental literature] are marked with the “greatest immorality and impurity" held sway.

Is this woman utterly mad? Surely she must have relatives who studied Sanskrit? Does she really not know that you don't start kids off on Shakuntala but rather begin with Hitopadesha or other such texts specifically designed to interest kids. They don't want to read about ladies with huge breasts and fat bottoms. Sure, by the time they get to College, that is what they are into. But, by then they can appreciate lyrical poetry.

Kalidasa was emphatically approved for High School and College instruction. That's why most Bengalis of the pre-independence era could recite large chunks of Shakuntala. The thing was a 'scoring subject'.

As for indecency- what of Catullus or Aristophanes?

The fact is middle class parents are the same the world over. Pundits bowdlerised Sanskrit in the same way that English school masters bowdlerised Shakespeare.

The inability to discriminate between decency and indecency was deemed to be a fixed characteristic of the native mind, a symptom of the "dullness of their comprehension."

It was also deemed a fixed characteristic of the Welsh mind by the infamous Blue Book of 1847. So what? The Welsh had the last laugh by overtaking England educationally and, in the shape of Lloyd George, sticking it to the wealthy Seisnig.

Clearly such a statement suggests that it is not the morality of literature that is at issue, but the mental capabilities of the reader.

But drawing attention to the statement suggests that the author is a cretin.

Raising Indians to the intellectual level of their Western counterparts constituted a necessary prerequisite to literary instruction, especially in texts from the native culture, and consequently to forestalling the danger of having unfortified minds falsely seduced by the "impurities" of the traditional literature of the East”. 

This is sheer fantasy. The English may have thought they could impose their language on Wales or Ireland- and this would make those horny buggers a little less horny- but they never believed or wanted to do anything similar to India. Some Indians wanted a purely English education for their kids- but that is still true today. Sometimes they said things like 'our own literature is cretinous and sensual. Teach only English so our kids don't end up queuing up outside the brothel or get entangled in some crazy religious cult.'

Sir Syed Ahmed expressed an even more radical theory- viz. that vernacular education may be okay for 'exact sciences' but it rotted the brain when it came to 'inexact sciences'- like history, law, and the 'Liberal Arts'.

'In Urdu, according to Syed Ahmad Khan, it was virtually impossible to write without exaggeration, to separate metaphor from concrete reality. ' (Urdu for Syed was elite language, Hindi was for the vulgar.)
When he established the Aligarh Mohammedan College, the desirable goal was to be able to conduct higher education in Urdu. And when the Oriental department was opened there, he made suggestions about Urdu textbooks in sciences and mathematics as well. But in practice, the course followed the lines of the Calcutta University except that Arabic and Persian remained the language of literature, logic and philosophy, and Urdu of history, geography, science and mathematics. English was taught as a second language. But as the courses got going Syed Ahmad Khan saw the effort towards vernacular education in action reaching one stumbling block after another and he was greatly disillusioned. Insistence on teaching through vernacular textbooks inevitably meant a lowering of standards. He was saddened by this painful realization. His earlier assumption that the mother tongue is the best medium for instruction received a severe jolt. He gave voice to this new realization in his testimony before W. W. Hunter’s Education Commission. Syed Ahmad Khan began his testimony by saying that although he was the original architect of the idea that students should be taught in the “vernacular,” his view had undergone a change in light of the actual practice in the university. He now believed that the language of the ruling power must become the language of scholarship. He further pointed out that some of the exact sciences might require only very rudimentary English, since they consisted largely of universal symbols and technical terms. What really concerned him more now were what he called the “uncertain sciences,” such as history, logic, philosophy, political economy, and jurisprudence. Here, however, the difficulties that he envisaged were not over technical vocabulary, or keeping up with the literature. The major obstacle was the style of expression communicated in ordinary Urdu. And, here he made a value-loaded statement that would infuriate Edward Said and a lot of others. In Urdu, according to Syed Ahmad Khan, it was virtually impossible to write without exaggeration, to separate metaphor from concrete reality. The remedy for this lay in English education. “As long as our community does not, by means of English education, become familiar with the exactness of thought and unlearn the looseness of expression, our language cannot be the means of high mental and moral training.” Language, according to his way of thinking, was not a passive tool to express one’s ideas and experiences but an active agent molding the thought processes of its speakers and practitioners.

Sir Syed Ahmed had a point (but see the Note below). However, were he to rise from the grave to see the nonsense written by 'Saidians' or 'Subalternists' or 'Post Colonial theorists' he would have understood that English- at least as used by Professors of English at Ivy League schools- is even more 'meta-metaphoric' and meaningless than the baroque sabak-e-hindi literary style.

Still, a mask of cretinism is the safest thing to wear in the campus of Political Correctness. This makes plausible the claim that any misbehavior on your part is just P.T.S occasioned by your but very recently departed conqueror.

Still, it must be said- Gauri's book is miles better than anything Spivak ever spat up. But that's also why I don't believe she herself believes its thesis. At least not now she has access to Wikipedia.

Note
Sir Syed Ahmed was an astute politician. He was somewhat exaggerating his account of the failings of Urdu- which is perfectly fine as a language- so as to appease W.W Hunter who had previously written a book about some terrible Muslim conspiracy against the Raj.