New Delhi – On November 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired up the crowd at the Ramnath Goenka Lecture during the Excellence in Journalism Awards, urging India to break free from a “slave mentality” that dates back to British rule. The speech, delivered just after his party’s victory in Bihar, was a critique of the current education system and a call for a national reset.
Modi blamed the Congress party for allegedly supporting Maoists and urban Naxals, claiming the group’s actions harmed India’s ancient learning traditions. He said the next ten years will mark the final defeat of Thomas Babington Macaulay’s colonial legacy, whose 1835 Minute on Education aimed to create a class of Indians who were “British in taste” and “clerks who were ashamed of their heritage.”
The Prime Minister highlighted the legacy of Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express, who challenged British censorship as early as 1835. Modi praised Goenka’s courage: “That fearless spirit is needed again today,” he said.
Central to his address was a condemnation of Macaulay’s policy, which Modi said dismantled the ancient gurukul system and replaced it with a sterile “factory” that produced unfree minds. He warned that even after independence, successive governments had chased foreign models, treating imported ideas as superior and native languages as inferior.
Modi challenged opposition critics of the National Education Policy, saying, “We are not against English; we are against the deliberate neglect of Indian languages.” He announced a national mission: by 2035—exactly 200 years after Macaulay’s “crime”—India will be free from colonial mentalities and will rebuild pride in its heritage, languages, and knowledge systems.
The Prime Minister called on all citizens to join the effort, linking Goenka’s fearless journalism to India’s future. “Ramnath ji fought colonial slavery with his pen. Today we fight mental slavery with education, innovation and unbreakable self‑confidence,” Modi said as the audience erupted in applause.
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