British Colonization to India
Intro:
The first European power to arrive in India was the army of Alexander the Great in 327-326 BC. The satraps he established in the northwest quickly crumbled after he left. Later, commercial trade was carried between Indian states and the Roman Empire by Greco-Roman sailors that reached India by sailing on the Red and Arabian Seas.
The Portuguese sailor, Vasco da Gama, was the first European to arrive in India solely by navigating the sea, at the end of the 15th century. Having arrived in Calicut, which by then was one of the major trading ports of the eastern world, he obtained permission by Mānavikraman Raja to trade in the city from Saamoothiri Rajah. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire).
British empire has been in India since the early 1600 's, when the East India Company started trading and British missionaries first began their efforts. A large number of Christian schools providing English education were set up trough out India by the early 1800 's. The process of producing English-speaking natives in India began with the “Minute” of 1835, which officially endorsed T.B. Macaulay 's goal of forming "a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern - a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect" (quoted in Kachru 1983, p. 22). English became the official and academic language of India by the early twentieth century. Direct administration by the British, which began in 1858, effected a political and economic unification of the subcontinent. The rising of the nationalist movement in the 1920 's brought some anti-English sentiment with it -- even though the movement itself used English as its medium. Once independence was gained and the English were gone, the perception of English as having an alien power base changed; however, the controversy about English has continued to this day. Kachru notes that "English now has national and international
The first European power to arrive in India was the army of Alexander the Great in 327-326 BC. The satraps he established in the northwest quickly crumbled after he left. Later, commercial trade was carried between Indian states and the Roman Empire by Greco-Roman sailors that reached India by sailing on the Red and Arabian Seas.
The Portuguese sailor, Vasco da Gama, was the first European to arrive in India solely by navigating the sea, at the end of the 15th century. Having arrived in Calicut, which by then was one of the major trading ports of the eastern world, he obtained permission by Mānavikraman Raja to trade in the city from Saamoothiri Rajah. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire).
British empire has been in India since the early 1600 's, when the East India Company started trading and British missionaries first began their efforts. A large number of Christian schools providing English education were set up trough out India by the early 1800 's. The process of producing English-speaking natives in India began with the “Minute” of 1835, which officially endorsed T.B. Macaulay 's goal of forming "a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern - a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect" (quoted in Kachru 1983, p. 22). English became the official and academic language of India by the early twentieth century. Direct administration by the British, which began in 1858, effected a political and economic unification of the subcontinent. The rising of the nationalist movement in the 1920 's brought some anti-English sentiment with it -- even though the movement itself used English as its medium. Once independence was gained and the English were gone, the perception of English as having an alien power base changed; however, the controversy about English has continued to this day. Kachru notes that "English now has national and international
Bibliography: http://www.history.com/topics/india http://www.languageinindia.com/junjul2002/baldridgeindianenglish.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire