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GATE 2025 XH2 (English) – Question 58

Critical Theories and Intellectual Traditions · Theoretical Paradigms: Structuralism, Marxism, feminism, existentialism, poststructuralism, modernism, postmodernism, new historicism, postcolonialism, posthumanism · 2 marks · Multiple select

“I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.”
Which of the following statement(s) is/are correct based on the above excerpt?

  1. It homogenizes all non-European knowledge systems as one monolithic entity.
  2. It depicts the colonial perspective where Eastern languages and knowledge systems seem lacking when compared to their Western counterparts.
  3. It constructs a binary between the East and the West.
  4. It invokes the library movement around the globe which led to global literacy as a result of the Enlightenment.

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Show answer and explanation

Correct answer: (A) It homogenizes all non-European knowledge systems as one monolithic entity.; (B) It depicts the colonial perspective where Eastern languages and knowledge systems seem lacking when compared to their Western counterparts.; (C) It constructs a binary between the East and the West.

Explanation

This is Macaulay's Minute on Indian Education. It lumps together all Indian and Arabic learning, ranks it below European learning, and sets East against West. It says nothing of a global library movement.