The exception to Shiv's colourfully phrased but authentic description was the Punjab' which had an astonishingly modern system that was uprooted by the British. The consequence is Banta and Santa jokes.
Sent from my iPad On Jul 14, 2012, at 9:04 AM, ss <[email protected]> wrote: > On Friday 13 Jul 2012 10:56:58 pm Thaths wrote: >> Sanskrit and Arabic might have been studied (by a minority who could afford >> education) for liturgical purposes. But weren't the language of the bazaars >> the likes of Urdu, Hindustani, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, etc.? > > Oh absolutely. But there was a system of education in India that, in > retrospect was as elitist as it is now. > > All the texts containing knowledge for Hindus was in Sanskrit, which they > studied. All that was required to be studies by Muslims was in Arabic. For > centuries before Macaulay both Hindu and Muslim kings has subsidzed education > in both Arabic and Sanskrit (at least that is what Macaulay said). Initially > the Brits continued these subsidies in the areas they got involved in. > > What Macaulay did was to stop Britidh subsidies for Sanskrit and Arabic > education and introduced English. So what we have now is that the vast mass > of > Indians speak Indian languages , but the few elite educated (who used to be > Sanskrit/Arabic scholars) are now English speakers. Democratization of > education does not seem to have existed in old times and still does not > exist. > You learn an elite language to become elite and take on the mannerisms and > attitudes that the elite language brings with it. > > shiv > >
