Bilingual English teaching in colonial India: the case of John Murdoch’s work in Madras Presidency, 1855–1875

Abstract

There is a prevalent conception about colonial Indian education–in the absence of much empirical research into specific contexts–that it was carried out only in English with the aim of anglicising the masses. While it is true that there were colonial motives of acculturation embedded in English language teaching and English-medium instruction, the idea that English language learning was exclusively monolingual is historically inaccurate. Indeed, the survival of bilingual teaching materials prepared in the nineteenth century for use in colonial schools suggests that, outside elite English-medium instruction, the use of Indian languages was common in English teaching. To explore this possibility further, this article focuses on the work and ideas of a prominent colonial educationalist, John Murdoch (1818–1904), with a focus on the schoolbooks he was associated with and on his recommendations for bilingual English teaching in the colonial schools of Madras Presidency. Murdoch’s ideas on the use of local languages in teaching reveal complexities and intricacies which have been under-explored in previous histories of colonial Indian education.