Cradled by a Colonial Tune

In countless Indian nurseries today, the first songs that tickle a child’s ears are often the lilting tunes of English nursery rhymes. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” we coo, or “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” as if these foreign jingles were as Indian as the monsoon. It’s a charming picture on the surface — a toddler humming in English, parents proud of the “modern” upbringing. Yet behind this innocent scene lies an uncomfortable truth: our cradles have been quietly colonized by verses born of a very different land and time. Long after the Union Jack was lowered from India’s skies, its cultural echoes still rock our babies to sleep.

It wasn’t always this way. For generations, Indian mothers and grandmothers passed down a treasure trove of indigenous lullabies and rhymes — sakhis and loris — filled with local color and spiritual warmth. But with the colonial era came English education and its baggage of nursery rhymes from Victorian Britain. What began as an imposed part of the curriculum a century ago has persisted as habit. Without questioning, we’ve let “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and “Humpty Dumpty” elbow out “Jasuda ni jhula” (Mother Yashoda’s cradle song) and countless other Bharatiya melodies. In essence, the empire’s nursery has supplanted our own, subtly suggesting that English wisdom is the default and our cultural rhymes mere relics.

Dark Tales Disguised as Nursery Rhymes

Many of these beloved English rhymes carry surprisingly dark, bizarre, or colonial themes beneath their sing-song tunes. We’ve all giggled at “Rock-a-bye Baby” without pausing to consider its words — a baby in a cradle treetop, the bough breaking, the cradle (and infant) plummeting to the ground. This is a lullaby of impending disaster! Wrapped in a sweet melody, it introduces a newborn to the anxiety of sudden danger. Such grim imagery, passed off as a soothing bedtime song, would be unthinkable in our traditional lullabies. Indian mothers sang of moonlight and lotuses, of divine guardians watching over the child — not of cradles falling and babies hurt.

Consider “Three Blind Mice.” Children gleefully chant this rhyme about three sightless mice chased by a farmer’s wife who cuts off their tails with a carving knife. The horrific act of animal mutilation is recounted in cheery rhythm, as if cruelty were a game. What does a child learn from this? At best, nothing useful; at worst, a dulled sensitivity to violence and suffering. In a culture like ours that teaches “ahimsa” — non-violence and compassion toward all creatures — such a rhyme is starkly out of place. Imagine a little one in India singing about dismembering mice, while our own folklore teems with kindly elephants, wise birds, and benevolent cows. The contrast couldn’t be more jarring.

Even the seemingly harmless “Jack and Jill” hides a tale of injury. Two children climb a hill and Jack falls down, cracking his head (“broke his crown”), with Jill tumbling after — a simple accident, perhaps, but essentially a story of kids getting badly hurt. Some historians even link it to grim happenings in British history (like an executed king and queen). Yet we set it to a merry tune and present it as appropriate kiddie fare. “London Bridge is falling down” merrily sings of a collapsing bridge (and some say, of children sacrificed to keep that bridge standing). “Ring-a-ring o’ Rosie” is often cited as a rhyme about a plague that killed millions (“ashes, ashes, we all fall down” symbolizing death). From violent punishments to pandemics, sexist tropes to religious bigotry, a surprising number of English nursery rhymes sprang from a turbulent, colonial world far removed from the innocence of childhood. We’d never hand a toddler a horror comic or a history of war, but we unknowingly feed them watered-down versions through these rhymes. Each time an Indian child recites these jingles, a bit of Britain’s shadowy past echoes in the playroom.

When Yashoda’s Lullaby Fell Silent

Now picture a different scene: A mother in Vrindavan gently rocking her baby to sleep under a starlit sky. She hums a soft lori about little Krishna, the Almighty in infant form, playing in the courtyard. She sings of butter thieves and the baby’s anklets tinkling, of Mother Yashoda’s love, assuring the child that they too are cherished by the universe. Such lullabies once drifted through our courtyards every night. Or think of Queen Kaushalya in Ayodhya, cradling baby Rama and crooning a sacred verse, believing her child’s destiny is bound with dharma and greatness. These are the songs that celebrated the divinity of childhood — where each child could see themselves as a Krishna, a Rama, a precious soul entrusted by God.

Across India’s vast number of languages, we had a rich oral tradition of nursery songs and bedtime tales. From Tamil thaalattu songs to Bengali shishu gaan, from the lilting Marathi “Angai geet” to folk tales of the Panchatantra and Jataka — the repertoire was endless. They taught gentle lessons: respect the rivers and trees, be brave like Arjuna, wise like Tenali Rama, or kind like Buddha. They invoked the moon as Chanda Mama (uncle Moon) who brings sweets for the child, or described a child as a blooming lotus in a lake. Listening to these, Indian children drifted into sleep wrapped in a sense of security, cultural familiarity, and moral warmth.

Tragically, many of these native rhymes have faded from memory. Ask a young parent today to sing a line their grandmother might have sung, and you may get an awkward smile. The sweet “So ja rajkumari” have been replaced by “Hush-a-bye baby” and cartoon theme songs. When Yashoda’s and Kaushalya’s lullabies fell silent, something profound was lost. It’s not just the loss of some old-timey songs; it is the dimming of a child’s first connection to their cultural soul. Those traditional rhymes carried forward our civilizational memory. By not hearing them, the child misses out on that first introduction to who they are in the great story of India.

Identity Lost in a Nursery Rhyme

The dominance of English rhymes in Indian childhood isn’t a harmless preference — it has deeper implications for a child’s cultural identity and self-worth. Psychologists often say the stories and images we absorb in early childhood shape our subconscious beliefs. So what does it do to an Indian child’s psyche when all the rhymes and heroes they celebrate are from an alien culture, speaking a foreign tongue, often depicting contexts that subtly exclude or belittle their own reality?

For one, it plants the seed that “English is superior, Indian is inferior.” The very scenario that an educated Indian parent is proud of — a tiny tot confidently rattling off English lines — can send the child an implicit message: the fun songs, the important knowledge, the things worth learning are all from the West. Their own mother tongue and cultural lore take a backseat, relegated to the “informal” or irrelevant. This hierarchy settles quietly in the mind before the child can even spell their name. By the time they are in school, many kids feel closer to Jack and Mary than to Raj or Meera in stories. A sense of disconnect grows between their educational experience and home heritage.

Worse, some English rhymes perpetuate subtle biases that can erode a child’s self-esteem. Take the hugely popular rhyme “Chubby Cheeks” that Indian preschoolers everywhere perform with actions. It paints the picture of the “ideal” cute child: chubby cheeks, dimple chin, rosy lips, teeth within… curly hair, very fair, eyes are blue — lovely too! Now pause and think — how many Indian children have blue eyes or very fair skin? Is a dark-eyed, brown-skinned kid any less “lovely”? Of course not, yet here they are, energetically reciting a praise of features they mostly don’t have. Many a little girl has stood in front of the mirror, stretching her smile wide to check for dimples, or pinching her cheeks to make them “rosy”. The seed of complexion-based inferiority, of longing for lighter skin or colored eyes, can be sown with such rhymes, even before societal colorism fully hits. It’s a painful irony: while our culture traditionally celebrates “sarvanga sundar” (beauty in every form), our toddlers internalize a colonial-era beauty norm from these imported songs.

The issue goes beyond looks. English rhymes often present scenarios and values alien to Indian ethos — introducing a child to a world where kings and queens are English, where stealing pies or whipping children is a joke, where even a black sheep’s wool is owed to a “master”. Subtly, a young mind might start associating goodness, bravery, and fun with the West, and see their own culture’s stories as second-rate. When none of your beloved rhymes reflect your skin color, your food, your festivals or your grandparents’ values, you may begin to feel that those things are not worth nursery rhymes — not worth celebrating. This cultural disconnect chips away at the self-confidence of a child, albeit silently. By contrast, imagine the pride and comfort a child feels if one of their first songs describes holi’s colors, or Lord Krishna’s pranks, or simply the bustling Indian bazaar they see every day. That child knows my world matters too.

The Dharmic Way of Nurturing Innocence

Indian spiritual traditions have always viewed childhood as sacred and impressionable — a phase where the foundation of a person’s life is laid in emotion and sanskar (values). In the Dharmic worldview, a child is often seen as a spark of the Divine, pure and close to God. Our epics and Puranas are full of tender images of God as a child — baby Krishna’s playful mischief, baby Rama’s first steps, the child Prahlada’s unshakeable faith, little Dhruva meditating for Lord Vishnu. These tales weren’t just meant for festive storytelling; they set an example that every child carries a divine potential, deserving the utmost care and positive guidance.

Crucial in this nurturing is the power of sound and words. The Vedic seers declared “Matru Devo Bhava”, placing the mother as the first guru — and what is a mother’s primary tool to teach an infant if not her voice? Be it through lullabies, soft chants, or simple rhymes, the words we bathe our children in act as their first lessons about the world. Nada Brahma, the idea that the universe is sound, underscores that vibrations carry energy and meaning. A gentle Sanskrit shloka or a Hindi lullaby about flowers and rain carries a very different vibration than a jarring rhyme about chopping off tails. Our ancients understood that even before a child can grasp logic, they absorb the emotional undertone of words and songs. Harmony, love, and reverence were woven into traditional children’s verses to shape a child’s heart in tune with dharma.

Contrast this with the aggressive and nonsensical content of many Western rhymes, and it’s clear why they feel off-key in an Indian spiritual context. While a rhyme like “Little Miss Muffet” might just make a child giggle at a scared girl and a spider, an Indian equivalent might gently allay the fear by describing how a friendly moon and stars watch over the child at night. Our approach historically has been inclusive and calming: invoking nature, God, family — everything that reassures a child that they are in a loving universe. By replacing these with foreign rhymes, we risk not only confusing kids with conflicting values, but also robbing them of that early spiritual nourishment. The sacredness of childhood in our culture means we view kids not as blank slates to dump anything into, but as gardens to cultivate with care. And the songs and stories we choose are like the water and sunlight for that garden.

Reclaiming Our Cradles and Our Cultural Soul

It’s high time we, as Indian parents and educators, ask ourselves a simple yet profound question: What do we want our children’s earliest memories to sound like? Should their minds be an echo chamber of old British rhymes, filled with images of falling cradles, blind mice, and foreign kings? Or should their imagination bloom with the sights and sounds of their own land — the jingle of payal (anklet bells), the rustle of peepal leaves at night, the stories of real heroes and gods who walked this soil? The answer is obvious to any heart that beats for Bharat. We must reclaim our cradles from this cultural colonization, one rhyme at a time.

This doesn’t mean throwing out English or isolating our kids from the world — far from it. It means teaching English through an Indian lens, choosing or creating rhymes in English that carry Indian ethos. It means swapping out the outdated and irrelevant ditties with fresh, meaningful ones that celebrate India’s diversity and values. If we want, we can compose new English rhymes about a little girl at the Kumbh mela, or a boy flying kites on Makar Sankranti — playful, relatable, and educational. In fact, some enlightened educators and parents have already started doing this, penning modern rhymes that mention lotus ponds and laddus, Gandhi and Tagore, rivers and mountains of India, all in simple English for today’s child. The effect is magical — kids light up when they recognize their own world in their study material.

Beyond rhymes, we can bring back the practice of singing regional lullabies and folk songs at home. A child who falls asleep to “Oodi baba, oodi baba” (a Marathi lullaby) or “Uyyalalugavaiya” (Telugu cradle song) not only sleeps more soundly, but carries that melody of belonging in their soul forever. Grandparents can be encouraged to share the rhymes of their childhood, reconnecting the generational thread. Schools, especially preschools, can incorporate a “Rhyme time from India” in their daily routine — one period where kids learn a Hindi, Tamil, or Bengali rhyme with the same enthusiasm as “Jingle Bells.” Why shouldn’t “Machli jal ki rani hai” (the fish is the queen of water) be recited with the same fanfare as “Row, row, row your boat”? There is immense joy and pride in such small shifts.

The battle for our children’s hearts and minds is often fought in the smallest of arenas — the bedtime story, the classroom rhyme, the cartoon on TV. We owe it to our future generations to infuse those early years with self-respect and cultural confidence. An Indian child who grows up equally familiar with Krishna’s pranks and Jack’s misadventures will be far more rooted and secure than one who knows only one side of that story. Better still, a child who primarily grows up with Bharatiya rhymes and just treats the English ones as occasional fun will have a core of identity that is unshakeable. They will carry in them the tune of this land — a tune that can always call them home no matter where they roam.

In the end, reclaiming our cradles is about love. It’s about loving our children enough to give them songs with soul and substance, not just catchy beats. It’s about loving our culture enough to keep it alive in the laughter of our kids. The next time you hear an angelic little voice lisping “Three blind mice,” stop and gently introduce them instead to the tale of “Three wise old elephants” or any fun desi rhyme you know. Let’s decolonize our nurseries and fill them with the fragrance of our soil. Let Mother Yashoda’s spirit sing again through every Indian mother and father. Our children deserve to dream in the comfort of their own cultural cradle — one that swings to the rhythms of Bharat, and not the vestiges of a colonial past.

It’s time to hush the voices of a long-gone empire and let the lullabies of our motherland rise once more.