Literary English teaching in colonial India served administrative and technical ends

Evidence

To the extent that English was imposed by the British, it was imposed primarily as the language of administration, management, modern professions such as law and medicine, technical fields, central surveys, and so on. The introduction of literary texts into various sorts of syllabi was primarily a means rowards such ends, the zeal of particular ideologues notwithstanding. … But a traditional British pedagogy· also held that the best way ro improve one’s knowledge of a language, especially a foreign language, once you have mastered the basic vocabulary and simple grammar, is through stylistically accessible poems such as Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’ sequence, or through fables or historical romances. The role of literary compositions in the school curricula for Indian children was one expression of that pedagogy, but language teaching for British personnel at Fort William College was also organized according to that same principle. … Thus a number of books, such as Aaraish-e-Mehfil or Bagh-o-Bahar, which eventually came to be included among the key classics of Urdu prose, were initially composed as textbooks for British personnel who needed to learn the ianguage and know its cultural ambience. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1178

Categorization

• XREF: Materialist: literature-as-instrument reading of colonial pedagogy counters discourse-first interpretations that take literary/cultural indoctrination as the primary mechanism of rule. — connects to: Literary study entered colonial curricula primarily as a language-teaching tool — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 520; Colonial administrative needs for language training generated Indian prose fiction — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 192; Teaching literature historically consolidated British and American imperial power — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 368 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Literary study entered colonial curricula primarily as a language-teaching tool #corroborates (0.95) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 520
• Colonial administrative needs for language training generated Indian prose fiction #expands (0.88) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 192
• Teaching literature historically consolidated British and American imperial power #qualifies (0.82) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 368
• Local teachers transmitted nationalist tendencies even within English-oriented colonial schooling #complicates (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 754
• Colonial Indian writers adopted English chiefly for technical fields, not literature #complicates (0.78) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1182
• Comparative historical-cultural study can break the colonial grid in English teaching #responds-to (0.78) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 541
• English’s colonial literary impact came through genres, not composition #qualifies (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 521
• Text-focused philology gave way to ‘society’ abstraction under colonial need #exemplifies (0.72)