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OTHER TONGUES
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<td class="">Arabinda Ray</td>
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<p class="" align="left">Educated persons in
India often quote Macaulay and the English Education Act of 1835
(legislating the primacy of English over all Oriental languages in
British-dominated India) in their arguments for and against the
education or language policies adopted by subsequent administrations
uptil this day. Macaulay’s derision of Sanskrit and Arabic literature,
his views on the immaturity of vernacular languages and the Bengali
proclivity towards deceit are well known, as is his declared objective
to create “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in
tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”.</p>
<p class="" align="left">I could reflect on
many present-day situations in the light of the Act. Its effects can be
seen in the language policy of successive post Independence governments.
Hindi as one of the official languages in the Constitution left only a
small space for English. Yet, English has gained such importance that
thousands of upper and middle class Indians treat it as a <i>de facto</i>
mother tongue while being unable to read or write in their own
language. Then there is the dismal failure of Bengalis in competitive
examinations for entering government services. </p>
<p class="" align="left">India has developed
its vernacular languages greatly. One can go back to Macaulay’s
expressed wish about such languages (“...refine the vernacular dialects
of the country... enrich [them] with terms of science borrowed from the
Western nomenclature, and... render them by degrees fit vehicles for
conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population”) and see in
Bankim Chandra a product of the new education policy — he created the
first Bengali novel, followed by successive novels and multifarious
writings which show the high standard of Bengali prose; Madhusudan Dutt,
who tried to imitate great Western poets through his verses in English,
soon turned to Bengali and is read till this day; the glow engulfed the
Tagore family, and the bard himself often acknowledged his debt to the
West and pleaded for open-door exchanges. Even great scientists like
P.C. Ray and Meghnad Saha had their curiosity piqued through school
textbooks in Bengali. I do not know enough about other vernacular
languages but there is enough evidence of their flowering in other parts
of the country.</p>
<p class="" align="left">If the seat of the
British administration had been in Madras instead of Calcutta, would
Macaulay have been able to ignore Tamil (which, strictly speaking, is
not a vernacular language like almost all Sanskrit-derived North Indian
languages are)? As Tilottama Tharoor mentioned in her talk about
Macaulay’s minute on Indian education at the Bengal Club on August 22,
had he been fully conversant in German culture, could he have ignored
Goethe’s memorable lines on Kalidasa’s <i>Shakuntala</i>? Would he have claimed, as he did, that Greek thoughts on philosophy, science <i>et al</i>
found continuity through English, when the world knows that the Arabs —
whom he derided — helped to develop, with acknowledged contributions
from Indians, Greek thoughts with original ideas on mathematics,
astronomy, biology, surgery and other scientific disciplines?</p>
<p class="" align="left">One must acknowledge,
though, that Macaulay may have played a part in Gandhi’s education in
England and the subsequent development of his non-violence policy in
South Africa. At the same time one must praise the British
administrators of the time — in spite of the new education policy, the
Sanskrit College was developed and Vidyasagar flowered.</p>
<p class="" align="left">This brings me to the
present day crisis. Till Independence, it did not matter where a
student at Presidency College came from, because academically all
students were equal. Who is responsible for students today failing to
progress in life because they feel handicapped as they do not know
English well? Who should be held accountable for the fact that students
from middle-class families taught in English medium schools cannot read
or write in their native language?</p></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140903/jsp/opinion/story_18781009.jsp#.VAiDiWNcvIU">http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140903/jsp/opinion/story_18781009.jsp#.VAiDiWNcvIU</a><br clear="all">
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