Viswanathan's Idea of Mind Control Through Literature

"The history of education in British India shows that certain humanistic functions traditionally associated with literature, for example, the shaping of character or development of the aesthetic sense or the disciplines of ethical thinking, were considered essential to the processes of sociopolitical control by the guardians of the same tradition" (62).

"The English literary text, functioning as a surrogate Englishman in his highest and most perfect state, becomes a mask of economic exploitation, so successfully camouflaging the material activities of the colonizer..." (67).

I found Gauri Viswanathan's theory on the development of English studies as a discipline extremely thought-provoking, especially because America was obviously once a colony of Britain, the same country that exploited India by use of literature for ages. I have always viewed reading as an action that symbolizes freedom. I have a choice regarding what I read, who I read, and how I read a given text. Viswanathan, who was born in Calcutta, India, believes that studying English literature is a symbol of control, the exact opposite of my own thinking. I completely understand where she is coming from on the topic seeing as she is Indian-born, and has witnessed her own reasoning in her day-to-day life.

The Indian people read English literature to make themselves feel as if they were assimilating into a culture that was superior to their own. They read to gain dignity in the eyes of their colonizers who viewed them as incomplete, inferior, and imperfect human beings. In reading what the English threw in front of them, the Indian people were allowing colonization of the mind to occur.

Viswanathan points out that English programs in American schools sprouted up after colonization had been ended in the states, following the Revolutionary War. Why do you think American schools would establish these programs after the English had already liberated the colonies? The programs were clearly not a means of control and colonization, so why did English become such a vital course of study in American classrooms?

-Megan R.