I am an Aitchisonian, which is just another way of saying that I am an ideal colonial subject.
Wait, what?!
Every year, Founder’s Day is celebrated to commemorate the institution’s founding in 1886. The school is named after Sir Charles Aitchison, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab. This much we knew as students, and anyone can find this information on the school’s Wikipedia page.
What we were not told, however, is that the philosophy behind the establishment of the school is not as clearly stated in Lord Aitchison’s speech in 1888—a collection of platitudinous Kantian imperatives proudly quoted on the school’s website—but rather in Lord Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education from 1835:
“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 taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
To be clear, I’m more American in taste, and I find that superfluous “u” in color rather annoying. I say that only half-jokingly; the British investment in their colonies allowed for a seamless transition to American imperialism in the latter half of the 20th century. Our principal, Shamim Saifullah Khan, once remarked on his interest in the shift in the late ’90s, where Aitchisonians increasingly favored American universities, contrasting with the earlier preference for British institutions in the early ’90s.
To reiterate, I am an Aitchisonian. I belong to that “class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, opinions, morals, and intellect.” In other words, I am an ideal colonial subject.
The rest of Macaulay’s “Minute” is equally enlightening (or “enlightened,” as they would say). It reeks of colonial arrogance: he speaks of the “intrinsic superiority of Western literature,” dismisses Sanskrit and Arabic as absurd and false, and describes indigenous education as delaying the “natural death of expiring errors.”
Macaulay’s recommendations had a profound impact on British India. Soon, the phrase “seekho Farsi baicho tail” became popular. Persian, once the language of scholarship and administration, became irrelevant as colonial powers imposed their language as the marker of education and opportunity.
Is it any wonder that these so-called harbingers of truth and justice did not hesitate in massacring millions of Indians during their illegitimate occupation of our land? Thirty million deaths resulted from their artificially induced famines. Interestingly, I did not learn this part of my history at Aitchison. I’d be surprised if it is even mentioned in today’s O-level Pakistan Studies books.
Is it any wonder that the products of these schools, my peers and I, spend the entirety of our academic lives studying Western resources? If any of us, God forbid, shows interest in studying traditional sources, we are immediately met with an impetuous “Why?” Still less likely is the chance that we adopt a critical lens when engaging with Western science. Western sciences were supposed to make us more critical thinkers, but it seems that critical thinking only targets everything religious, traditional, or Eastern.
Is it surprising that the products of these schools, my peers and I, are largely settled abroad? We drive Teslas and live in posh American neighborhoods. Our houses and cars aren’t paid off, but that’s okay. We’re living the American Dream. We now serve our colonial masters in their homelands—or rather, the homelands of the Native Americans, which were occupied, colonized, and stripped of their identities. But why would we care about that? We only wish they had done the same to our countries. It would have saved us all the travel!
(For the record, I live on rent and didn’t buy cars with money I didn’t have).
Those less fortunate among us, who could not live the American Dream, now crowd our parliament houses. They carry on the colonial legacy quite effectively there. I don’t need to tell you more about them. Suffice it to say that brain drain is definitely better than brain down the drain!
We were educated just enough to take up highly skilled labor jobs—medicine, engineering, etc. Before we could even educate ourselves further and realize that the emperor is not wearing any clothes, the scarcity mindset—the trans-generational remnant of those genocidal famines—pushes us into jobs we don’t like, to make money we desperately want, to buy things we don’t need. And it doesn’t stop there. We push our children into the same endless cycle of expectations and pressures, like Sisyphus eternally condemned to roll his boulder up the hill. They, too, will spend their lives laboring without ever reaching fulfillment, trapped in a pursuit that leads nowhere and perpetuating a system with no higher purpose.
Thankfully, we have mid-life crises to wake us up from our colonized slumbers. Oh, wait—here’s an anti-depressant and a sedative. Back to la-la land!
And this isn’t restricted to Aitchisonians. If you or your parents are from South Asia and you’ve made it to the end of this piece, this applies to you too. The only difference is that you didn’t get your heads gassed up by being called an Aitchisonian.
Cynical, much? Perhaps. But don’t get me wrong—I am eternally grateful for having studied at Aitchison. If given the opportunity, I would do it all over again. How the guilt of my privilege seeks transcendence in the responsibility of privilege is what my next post will be about.
Wait, what?!
Every year, Founder’s Day is celebrated to commemorate the institution’s founding in 1886. The school is named after Sir Charles Aitchison, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab. This much we knew as students, and anyone can find this information on the school’s Wikipedia page.
What we were not told, however, is that the philosophy behind the establishment of the school is not as clearly stated in Lord Aitchison’s speech in 1888—a collection of platitudinous Kantian imperatives proudly quoted on the school’s website—but rather in Lord Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education from 1835:
“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 taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
To be clear, I’m more American in taste, and I find that superfluous “u” in color rather annoying. I say that only half-jokingly; the British investment in their colonies allowed for a seamless transition to American imperialism in the latter half of the 20th century. Our principal, Shamim Saifullah Khan, once remarked on his interest in the shift in the late ’90s, where Aitchisonians increasingly favored American universities, contrasting with the earlier preference for British institutions in the early ’90s.
To reiterate, I am an Aitchisonian. I belong to that “class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, opinions, morals, and intellect.” In other words, I am an ideal colonial subject.
The rest of Macaulay’s “Minute” is equally enlightening (or “enlightened,” as they would say). It reeks of colonial arrogance: he speaks of the “intrinsic superiority of Western literature,” dismisses Sanskrit and Arabic as absurd and false, and describes indigenous education as delaying the “natural death of expiring errors.”
Macaulay’s recommendations had a profound impact on British India. Soon, the phrase “seekho Farsi baicho tail” became popular. Persian, once the language of scholarship and administration, became irrelevant as colonial powers imposed their language as the marker of education and opportunity.
Is it any wonder that these so-called harbingers of truth and justice did not hesitate in massacring millions of Indians during their illegitimate occupation of our land? Thirty million deaths resulted from their artificially induced famines. Interestingly, I did not learn this part of my history at Aitchison. I’d be surprised if it is even mentioned in today’s O-level Pakistan Studies books.
Is it any wonder that the products of these schools, my peers and I, spend the entirety of our academic lives studying Western resources? If any of us, God forbid, shows interest in studying traditional sources, we are immediately met with an impetuous “Why?” Still less likely is the chance that we adopt a critical lens when engaging with Western science. Western sciences were supposed to make us more critical thinkers, but it seems that critical thinking only targets everything religious, traditional, or Eastern.
Is it surprising that the products of these schools, my peers and I, are largely settled abroad? We drive Teslas and live in posh American neighborhoods. Our houses and cars aren’t paid off, but that’s okay. We’re living the American Dream. We now serve our colonial masters in their homelands—or rather, the homelands of the Native Americans, which were occupied, colonized, and stripped of their identities. But why would we care about that? We only wish they had done the same to our countries. It would have saved us all the travel!
(For the record, I live on rent and didn’t buy cars with money I didn’t have).
Those less fortunate among us, who could not live the American Dream, now crowd our parliament houses. They carry on the colonial legacy quite effectively there. I don’t need to tell you more about them. Suffice it to say that brain drain is definitely better than brain down the drain!
We were educated just enough to take up highly skilled labor jobs—medicine, engineering, etc. Before we could even educate ourselves further and realize that the emperor is not wearing any clothes, the scarcity mindset—the trans-generational remnant of those genocidal famines—pushes us into jobs we don’t like, to make money we desperately want, to buy things we don’t need. And it doesn’t stop there. We push our children into the same endless cycle of expectations and pressures, like Sisyphus eternally condemned to roll his boulder up the hill. They, too, will spend their lives laboring without ever reaching fulfillment, trapped in a pursuit that leads nowhere and perpetuating a system with no higher purpose.
Thankfully, we have mid-life crises to wake us up from our colonized slumbers. Oh, wait—here’s an anti-depressant and a sedative. Back to la-la land!
And this isn’t restricted to Aitchisonians. If you or your parents are from South Asia and you’ve made it to the end of this piece, this applies to you too. The only difference is that you didn’t get your heads gassed up by being called an Aitchisonian.
Cynical, much? Perhaps. But don’t get me wrong—I am eternally grateful for having studied at Aitchison. If given the opportunity, I would do it all over again. How the guilt of my privilege seeks transcendence in the responsibility of privilege is what my next post will be about.
Last modified: October 8, 2024
