Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India (Politics, History, and Culture)

Drawing on history, political science, anthropology, and philosophy, Seth interprets the debates and controversies that came to surround western education. Central among these were concerns that Indian students were acquiring Western education via rote memorization--and were therefore not acquiring "true knowledge"--and that western education had plunged Indian students into a moral crisis in which they were torn between modern, western knowledge and traditional Indian beliefs. Seth argues that these concerns, voiced by the British as well as by nationalists, reflected the anxiety that western education was failing to produce the modern subjects it presupposed. This failure suggested that western knowledge was not the universal epistemology that it was thought to be. Turning to the production of collective identities, Seth illuminates the nationalists' position vis-a-vis western education--which they both sought and criticized--through analyses of discussions about the education of Muslims and women.