<div dir="ltr"><h1>Our language crisis</h1>
<div class="gmail-postedBy">By Vikas Kumar, Feb 16, 2017,</div>
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<div class="gmail-brTOpStyle">The post-colonial elite of India
favoured English in the educational and economic spheres, while the
state and politicians were nominally committed to Indian languages. As a
result, more than seven decades after independence, the question of the
medium of instruction in educational institutions remains unresolved.
And, we continue to struggle with poor learning outcomes, high drop-out
rates, and the lack of inclusion of the masses in higher education
because of, among other things, our inability to provide quality
education through mother tongues.<br><br>The association of English with
material success in the popular imagination and the neglect of
intellectual activity in Indian languages have not only allowed the
former to thrive at the expense of our languages, it has also made
millions believe that our languages (as well as the knowledge ingrained
in them) are worthless. I am reminded of a young student leader, whom I
met in a remote town of Nagaland. Without any prompting, he told me that
his grandparents were “backward” because they did not know English (I
asked him if Europeans should be considered backward because they do not
know Naga languages).<br><br>Nagaland was the first state to adopt
English as its official language and the medium of instruction in
schools. However, five decades after Nagaland aligned its state policy
with the elite preference, a majority of its people are not proficient
in English even as their own languages remain neglected. The condition
of other states, where private institutions took the lead in introducing
English in schools, is not better.<br><br>In fact, irrespective of
their state’s language policy, people have been going out of their way
to learn English. An acquaintance of mine in Etawah (Uttar Pradesh)
approached a chemistry teacher, who was barely conversant with English.
He was given to believe that the teacher, who could effortlessly
pronounce names of chemical compounds, was best suited to help him pick
up spoken English.<br><br>Phas Gaye Re Obama, a 2010 Hindi film, takes
us through the world of spoken English courses exemplified by Tyagi
English Coaching Class. The photos of US presidents, sportsmen,
entrepreneurs and film stars adorned the Coaching Class, whose tagline
was “English seekho amerikaa jaao” (Learn English, go to America). The
English teacher warned the students against using Hindi in the class in
the following words: “This English coaching, not a local language... You
together thinking, English speaking like a rice plate eating. No.
Never. Not. English speaking not a children play. English speaking like a
undertaker play”.<br><br>I was reminded of this film while travelling
through Jammu and Kashmir, where I found thousands of posters
advertising English medium schools with names such as YES Dubai Grand
School International, Ever Onn Public School, KLM International School,
JK Montessorie British School, and DRS Kids. <br><br>I came across only
one advertisement listlessly calling attention to the existence of some
Urdu academy that nobody seemed to care for and also a poster meekly
inviting students to learn Arabic. Eighth Schedule languages such as
Kashmiri and Dogri seemed to be entirely absent from the advertisement
space.<br><br>Chasing the mirage<br>The decline of non-English media
schools and the growth of strangely-named English medium schools, is not
restricted to Jammu and Kashmir though. Until the 1990s, there used to
be good Hindi medium schools in Kanpur that ranked ahead of English
medium schools. Today, none of them commands the same respect. They did
not lose patrons because of a decline in teaching standards. They just
failed to fulfil the demand for English.<br><br>People are chasing the
mirage of English because those who do not know the language are denied
both voice and space in (urban) India. A recent Hindi film, English
Vinglish (2012), poignantly captured this. In this film, the lack of
acquaintance with English affected the standing of a housewife, both in
the society and sadly even within her family. Her daughter, who studied
at an English medium school, and husband treated her with contempt. She
redeemed herself by learning English. The director could not imagine
other means of redemption.<br><br>The reel and real life characters
mentioned above stand for millions who cannot speak English. Those who
somehow manage to learn the language feel on cloud nine. Parents feel
proud of their children, when they get better grades in English than in
Indian languages. The children innocently proclaim that they hate Indian
languages (qua subjects, I hope). <br><br>However, even in the best
case, most first generation English learners belatedly realise that they
have picked up the wrong English, namely, British or Indian one,
whereas the elite has moved on to American English. These people
constitute a large and growing part of our society that is neither India
nor Bharat.<br><br>English, which was retained after independence to
avoid linguistic conflict within the country, has introduced a new
linguistic divide that is aligned with, and thus reinforces, the class
divide. But, our self-absorbed Anglophone elite continue to be oblivious
of the damage English has done to the society. <br><br>A decade ago,
then prime minister Manmohan Singh proudly informed his audience at the
Oxford University: “Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more
important than the English language… Today, English in India is seen as
just another Indian language.” English is not just another language. It
is, as Ram Manohar Lohia warned as early as the 1950s, a key marker as
well as determinant of socio-economic privilege in post-colonial India.<br><br>It
is time we paid attention to the language problem, which is at the
heart of our education system. An education system based on the neglect
or hatred of one’s own languages cannot promote the pursuit of
knowledge. Unfortunately, instead of confronting the problem we have
abandoned ourselves to market forces that are steering us into an ever
tighter embrace of English and compounding the language crisis.<br><br>(The writer teaches at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)<br><a href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/596592/our-language-crisis.html">http://www.deccanherald.com/content/596592/our-language-crisis.html</a><br><br></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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