Accused of saffronising education, Venkaiah Naidu says ‘what is wrong with saffron?’

"We are accused of saffronising education, but then what is wrong with saffron," Venkaiah Naidu said as he called for a rejection of the Macaulay system of education in the country.

Countering allegations that the government is saffronising the country’s education system, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu has called on Indians to step out of the colonial hangover and demanded ‘what is wrong with saffron?’

"We are accused of saffronising education, but then what is wrong with saffron," Naidu said, as quoted by PTI, after inaugurating the South Asian Institute of Peace and Reconciliation at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya in Haridwar.

The Vice President went one step further and said Indians should outright reject the Macaulay system of education, a reference to Macaulayism, or the policy of introducing the English model of education to British colonies. It was named after Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British historian who played a major role in the introduction of English as the medium of instruction in India.

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The imposition of a foreign language has in turn confined education to the elite, claimed Naidu.

"Centuries of colonial rule taught us to look upon ourselves as an inferior race. We were taught to despise our own culture, traditional wisdom. This slowed our growth as a nation. The imposition of a foreign language as our medium of education confined education to a small section of the society, depriving a vast population of the right to education," he said.

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