I agree with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks about T B Macaulay in his Ramnath Goenka Lecture. I would also like to endorse his call to free ourselves of gulami ki mansikta (mental slavery). He is right to suggest that the next 10 years are critical. I would suggest, therefore, that over the next decade we should get rid of the BJP and “lock away” the RSS mindset.

I do not say this in jest. Or just to provoke. I say this with all seriousness. The battle against Macaulay’s manasputras must begin by taking on tilakdhari Macaulays before we get rid of Macaulays in suits and ties. Mental slavery disguised as cultural nationalism is more dangerous than the vulgar but visible slavery of the Brown sahib.

Let me begin by underlining my deep agreement with Modi and serious disagreement with his critics on his remarks about Macaulay. Just to recall, here is the underlying assumption of Macaulay’s “Minute on Education”: “A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia… historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit (sic) language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England… [This applies to] every branch of physical or moral philosophy.” Hence his policy prescription: “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, — a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.”

This note continues to be a reminder that India was subjected not........

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