📚 Educational Reforms

1. Macaulay’s Minute (1835)

• Written by Thomas Babington Macaulay (Law Member of Governor-General’s Council)
• Recommended English as the medium of instruction in Indian schools
• Famous statement: “We must 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, opinions, morals, and intellect.”
• Led to the English Education Act (1835) — English became the medium of instruction
• Ended the debate between “Orientalists” (Sanskrit/Arabic education) and “Anglicists” (English education)

2. Wood’s Despatch (1854) — “Magna Carta of Indian Education”

• Written by Charles Wood (President of Board of Control)
• Called the “Magna Carta of Indian Education” — most comprehensive education policy
• Recommended:
  • Universities in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras (established 1857)
  • Affiliated colleges and high schools
  • Primary schools in vernacular languages
  • Teacher training institutions
  • Women’s education
  • Grants-in-aid system for private schools

3. Hunter Commission (1882)

• Reviewed primary education
• Recommended expansion of primary education
• Recommended more Indian involvement in education

📰 Press and Nationalism

• English education created a class of educated Indians who could read newspapers
• Newspapers played a crucial role in spreading nationalist ideas
• Important newspapers: Kesari (Tilak, Marathi), Mahratta (Tilak, English), Amrita Bazar Patrika (Bengal), The Hindu (Madras)

Vernacular Press Act (1878):

• Passed by Lord Lytton — called the “Gagging Act”
• Allowed the government to suppress Indian language newspapers that criticised British policies
• Repealed in 1882 by Lord Ripon
• Increased nationalist sentiment — Tilak’s Kesari became more popular