The name is absent

2. The researcher's experience of a religious education
curriculum in an Anglo-Indian school

Before Indian independence in 1947 the schools were linked
to an education dominated by the Christian ethos. Although
the British had adopted a neutral religious policy, in
Anglo-Indian culture the emphasis was upon Christianity and
Christian teaching schools. The schools linked education
with Christianity (c.f. discussion above Ch. 2. p.51, Ch.
3. p.77, and Ch. 4. p.126) After 1947, secularism was one
of the characteristics of free India. (2) It dominated the
debate about religion and education in Anglo-Indian
schools. The entire debate was fuelled by fears of
conversion to Christianity.

The background of Christianity and education in an Anglo-
Indian school was familiar to the researcher. The
researcher's grandparents had studied in Roman Catholic
missionary schools during the 1880s, in northern and
central India. The researcher's parents had studied
between 1908-1920 in Anglo-Indian schools owned by Roman
Catholic and Anglican missionaries on the west coast of
India. The researcher had studied between 1945-1956 in an
Anglo-Indian Roman Catholic school in Bombay.

By the 1950s, a dual curriculum of Christianity and ethics,
taught separately to Christians and non Christians
respectively, was introduced in the researcher's Anglo-
Indian school. This produced an apartheid, exclusionist
policy which puzzled both Christians and non Christians.
The policy raised doubts among the students about "they"
(non-Christians) needing a moral education in ethics and
"us" (Christians) needing Christian liturgy, Church
history, the Gospels, the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic
Church, and committing to memory the entire Acts of the
Apostles.

296

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