The Bengal Club in Kolkata is a pale shadow of its colonial glory when it spanned a block stretching from its grand entrance at Chowringhee opposite the Maidan to its rear on Russell Street. Today, it’s reduced to half its size. Only the rear portion of the building is retained and entrance is from Russell Street. The reduction in its stature is symbolic. For it stands on the very premises which once housed the grand residence of Thomas Babington Macaulay, a member (education) of the Viceroy’s Imperial Council. His portfolio alone ensured Macaulay’s high status. For he was entrusted with an onerous responsibility, that of advising the Viceroy of the medium of instruction that was to be followed by the native Indians in the schools and languages.

Hitherto, Persian and Arabic were the mediums used and Persian had for long been the official language of the Mughal court. But Macaulay made a radical departure from established practice and recommended that English be used as the medium of instruction in all the native schools and colleges. This was a decision which was to have far-reaching ramifications and its impact echoes and reverberates even today.

Today, there’s a move to rehabilitate Macaulay and people that his famous “Minute on Education” in 1835 was not so infamous after all. It has been stated that Macaulay was a consummate cosmopolitan and believed that English education would help the Indians understand the classics better as the English themselves had been exposed to Greek, Roman and Latin writings. It was forgotten that Macaulay believed that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”. He never believed that the native India even with “English education” could ever be the equal of any Englishman. Macaulay believed that English education would create “a class of natives, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, morals and intellect”.  But the native intellect was subordinate to that of the English, never its equal.

As is well known, such a class of “English educated Indians” would serve the interests of their English masters and help to consolidate imperial rule. This was a radically different outlook to that of other contemporaries like the Indologist, Max Mueller, who believed that “India can never be anglicised, but it can be reinvigorated… by encouraging a study of their own literature, as part of their own education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among the people”.

It was a grim irony for Macaulay that the national feeling of pride and self-respect brought about in part by English education helped the Indians overthrow colonial yoke in 112 years.

But Macaulay’s famous Minute establishing English as the medium of instruction had another important consequence, which is often overlooked. It helped to establish a market for English books and reading material in India and helped to set up a publishing industry which is now the third largest producer of books in English in the world.

Printing in India has an even longer history. The first printing press landed in Goa in the middle of the 16th century in strange circumstances. The Portuguese were fulfilling an order for a press from the ruler of Abyssinia. By the time it landed in Goa, the Abyssinian lost patience and cancelled the order. How this was communicated to the Portuguese is not known! Suffice it to say that the Jesuits commandeered the press and starting printing hymn books in various languages.

The market for English reading material and for books was actually developed by sustained visits in the 1800s  by travelling representatives of the English publishing companies. They were the original “carpetbaggers” and it was their reports that alerted the publishing companies to the fact that there was market for their books in India.

The readers were initially both the official and non-official British in India and a few members of the princely class who had had the benefit of studying in England. With Macaulay’s Minute, this market grew exponentially. It was still the elite among Indians who took to English but the numbers were significant.

Significant enough for English publishers like Macmillan, Longman, Kegan Paul and John Murray to set up “Colonial Libraries”. These libraries were to produce books that were for exclusive distribution and sale in India and were priced accordingly.  Three authors were initially very popular. They were G.W.M. Reynolds, G.A. Henty and H. Rider Haggard. Do people still remember them? Later authors who followed were, of course, Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, R.L. Stevenson, Marie Corelli, Jonathan Swift and Jules Verne.

A quiz question in school could be to ask the children to name the books associated with these authors.

At the launch of the eminent poet Keki Daruwalla’s book For Pepper and Christ, an account of Vasco da Gama’s voyage, eminent journalist Mark Tully remarked it was a jolly good read for it read like one of “Henty’s swashbuckling stories”.

I later remarked to Mark that only three people in the room knew who Henty was! No prizes for guessing!

The writer is a publishing industry veteran and a senior consultant