Indian higher education: Colonialism and beyond

Abstract

Indian higher education as it developed in the nineteenth century was not surprisingly influenced by British models. Not only was India under British rule but from 1835 onwards, Government policy was to support the spread a knowledge of Western arts and science through the medium of the English language. English higher education in India can be said to have begun with the establishment of Hindu College in Calcutta in 1817, the first ‘Europanized’ institution of higher learning in Asia. The first three universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, established in 1857 were modeled on London. Subsequently also, when university reforms were undertaken, the models sought to be emulated were always British. What officials in Delhi, Calcutta or London formulated, however, could not always be implemented and British models could not be replicated because conditions in India were so different. As a result, Indian higher education developed certain peculiar features of its own. Even after independence, many features of colonial education and the tendency to look to the West for models still persists, though it is now more the United States than Britain that we turn to. The scientific and technological institutes that have been established or new research programs undertaken are inspired by Western models. While such dependency is probably inevitable given the technological and economic superiority of the West, it makes Indian academics imitative and dampens originality.