Anand Mahindra on British education: 'What goes around, comes around'

Janmashtami 2022: Anand Mahindra wished his Twitter followers a happy Janmashtami.

Anand Mahindra on Tuesday shared a message on how British education affected colonised countries by tweeting an audio of a skit by Daliso Chaponda -- Zambian-born Malawian stand-up comedian who lives in England.

"Flawless logic…. What goes around, comes around…," Mahindra tweeted with the clip. In it, Chaponda -- who was educated in Brtish-run schools in African countries such as Zambia, Somalia and Kenya -- said that while he was being taught English, French and Latin in school, local languages like Swahili and Somali were being ignored.

"My school thought there were more chances of me running into the ghost of Julius Caesar than a Maasai warrior in Africa," Chaponda said.

"And in history, we were learning about William 'the Conqueror', Henry XIII... we did not learn any African history at all. In hundreds of subtle ways, my schools were telling me that my culture was shit and yours (the British) was awesome," he added. "And then I moved here 10 years ago and I heard people saying: 'Why do all these immigrants come here?' Well, you spent decades telling me it was the greatest place! Where did you think I was going to go?"

Anand Mahindra's tweet seem to be pointing at drawing parallels between the treatment meted out to African countries and to India -- both being former British colonies. Also, English continues to be a preferred language among several African countries, as is the case in India.

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The post resonated with Twitter users with one saying, "True. In some way, this even applies in India with a distorted version of history being taught to us."

Another tweeted, "I'm worried that even our own spoken languages will vanish in a decade or two, since in Metros and big cities, the language spoken is English, parents in India speak with their children in English at home and train them in English only."

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