Uttarakhand: The government is accused of saffronizing education, but "what is wrong with saffron?" Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said on Saturday as he called for the country's utter rejection of the Macaulay system of education.
The vice president stated in his remarks after inaugurating the South Asian Institute of Peace and Reconciliation at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya at Haridwar, Uttarakhand, that Indians must abandon their "colonial perspective" and learn to be proud of their Indian identity.
Naidu also stated that Indianization of the school system is crucial to India's new education policy, which places a high value on the promotion of mother languages.
"We've been accused of saffronizing education, but what's wrong with saffron?" he wondered.
In the 75th year of independence, Naidu has called for the rejection of the Macaulay system of education, claiming that it imposed a foreign language as the medium of instruction in the country and confined education to the privileged.
"Centuries of colonial control led us to regard ourselves as a second-rate race. We were taught to loathe our own culture, as well as conventional wisdom. This hampered our nation's progress. The imposition of a foreign language as our medium of instruction limited education to a narrow segment of society, depriving a large population of the right to an education," he remarked.
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