PM Modi’s Call for a 10-Year Mission to End India’s Colonial Mindset

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture, urged India to embark on a ten-year national mission to eliminate what he called the “Macaulay mindset” — a lingering colonial-era psychological framework that, he argued, continues to influence India’s education, culture and outlook. Drawing attention to Thomas Babington Macaulay’s 1835 Minute on Indian Education, Modiji said that the British deliberately engineered an intellectual disconnect between Indians and their own traditions. The result, he noted, was a system that encouraged Indians to aspire toward Western approval while undervaluing the enormous depth of their own civilization.

Modiji proposed that India should utilize the coming decade, leading up to the 200th anniversary of Macaulay’s educational policy in 2035, to reverse this intellectual damage. He described it as a moral and cultural responsibility — not merely to look back at history, but to reclaim confidence in what India has produced over millennia. The Prime Minister said that while global engagement is essential, a nation must root itself in its own cultural foundations to stand firmly in the world.

PM Modi said the colonial mindset embedded by Macaulay weakened India’s confidence and called for a decade-long effort to revive Indian heritage, reform education and restore cultural pride. (Image: PTI) | OpIndia

Understanding the Legacy of Macaulay’s Education Model

Macaulay’s recommendations reshaped India’s education system during British rule, prioritizing English and Western knowledge while sidelining classical Indian systems of learning. Modiji argued that this approach systematically weakened Indians’ connection to their own identity, languages and knowledge traditions. While historians have long debated the benefits and harms of the Macaulay reforms, Modiji’s speech brought the conversation back into the center of national development discourse.

The Prime Minister stressed that this inherited mindset not only influenced education but also seeped into public life, governance structures and societal expectations. According to him, India should no longer evaluate its progress through a Western lens or regard its traditions as outdated. Instead, he advocated for a balanced model in which Indians confidently draw from their own heritage while engaging with modern global systems.

Towards a Decade of Cultural Revival

Modiji explained that the next ten years must be dedicated to strengthening Indian languages, promoting traditional knowledge, and correcting the historical narrative around India’s civilizational achievements. He connected this to ongoing policies such as the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which encourages mother-tongue instruction in early schooling. He urged educational institutions, cultural bodies and policy-makers to view this as a national movement rather than an administrative adjustment.

He highlighted the example of countries like Japan and South Korea, which maintain strong national identities and linguistic pride while still excelling in global arenas. India, he said, should follow a similar path by reviving its own intellectual heritage — from ancient sciences to traditional arts — without rejecting the importance of English. This, he clarified, is not a call to abandon global languages but to restore a balance that empowers Indians to be grounded yet globally competitive.

Heritage, Tourism and National Pride

The Prime Minister pointed out that nations which take pride in their heritage often succeed in building strong cultural tourism industries. He lamented that India, despite possessing some of the world’s greatest monuments and historical treasures, has at times been hesitant to celebrate them wholeheartedly. This hesitation, he said, stems from a lingering colonial influence that devalues India’s own past.

Modiji emphasized that pride in heritage is essential for its preservation. Without confidence in one's roots, he said, no society can build lasting institutions. Reviving heritage therefore becomes not just an emotional pursuit but a strategic one, tied to economic growth, cultural influence and soft power.

Political and Social Dimensions of the Debate

The speech triggered significant political and academic discussions, with some praising it as a necessary cultural correction and others questioning the practical implications. Modiji accused earlier political leaders, particularly the Congress party, of nurturing ideologies that weakened India’s cultural self-confidence. He linked this to larger themes of social justice and welfare, noting that his government has expanded social security coverage from 25 crore to 94 crore people — a transformation he described as true social empowerment rather than symbolic politics.

The broader discussion that followed in media and academic circles reflected a renewed interest in examining how India can modernize without disconnecting from its roots. Analysts noted that the ten-year framework offers both symbolic meaning and a practical timeline for long-term cultural reform.

The MGMM Outlook

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a ten-year national mission to shed India’s “Macaulay mindset” resonates strongly with our viewpoint that India must reclaim the civilizational confidence deliberately eroded during colonial rule. His speech highlights how British educational policies were designed to disconnect Indians from their own intellectual and cultural heritage, making generations aspire to Western validation. For us, this is not just a historical issue but a lived reality — seen in how Indian languages, traditional knowledge, and indigenous philosophies were sidelined for decades. Modiji’s push to use the coming decade leading up to 2035 as a period of cultural correction echoes what many Indians have long felt: true progress requires rooting modern development in India’s own civilizational identity, not in borrowed frameworks.

This mission aligns with India’s broader revival across education, governance, heritage preservation and national pride. The emphasis on strengthening Indian languages, promoting traditional knowledge systems, and undoing colonial-era narratives mirrors the direction India has already begun to take under initiatives like NEP 2020. Modiji’s comparison with nations like Japan and South Korea — countries that have blended tradition with modernity — underlines a model that India, too, can successfully embrace. At the same time, the political and social debate his speech triggered shows how deeply the colonial mindset still influences public discourse. In our viewpoint, this ten-year framework is not merely symbolic; it is a necessary and timely national movement to rebuild India’s self-confidence, restore cultural balance, and ensure that India’s future progress is shaped by its own civilizational strengths rather than inherited colonial ideas.

(Sources: OpIndia, The Indian Express, India Today)