[lg policy] India: Who Is Killing Our Languages?

Sun Mar 1 19:18:45 UTC 2015

Who Is Killing Our Languages?
The SC judgement giving English supremacy in primary education is the death
knell for our mother tongues
DEVANOORA MAHADEVA
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What does one say, who does one ask when 22 Indian languages—all of them
recognised by the Constitution and an assortment of minority languages
besides—lie inert, their legs lopped off by a recent Supreme Court
judgement? While the debate about medium of instruction was in progress,
the newspapers reported a judge as saying, “A Supreme Court judge from
Japan was in Delhi, and he spoke in English. No one would have understood
him if he hadn’t spoken in English. Even China, which has conservative
ideas about language, is opening up to the possibilities of English.” This
sounds a bit like the Kannadiga long years ago, who having returned from an
England visit, commented, “Incredible! Even little children in that country
speak English.”

If only the judge had pondered a bit, he might have got to know about
Japan’s language policy, and realised that Japanese is the language of
instruction in almost all schools, colleges and institutions of higher
learning there. It might have become apparent to him that in China, the
languages of instruction are the mother tongue of Mandarin, and for the
ethnic minorities Mongolian, Tibetan and Korean. The country is spending
heavily to teach English and Spanish but only as languages, and only so
that it can expand its empire.

The Scandinavian and G-8 countries, besides other independent regions,
employ the mother tongue as their natural medium of instruction even in
higher education. All over Asia, it’s the same. In some places, they make
marginal changes, but that’s it. In Malaysia, the colonial language of
instruction is now being replaced by the mother tongue. The national
schools teach in Bahasa Malaysia, while the regional schools use Chinese
and Tamil to teach even maths and science. But in India, only the Tamils
beat their breasts. Had their language grown as a medium of instruction,
ours could have too. The mother tongues of India are pathetically begging
for a place, at least in primary education.

To sum up, no independent nation has killed its mother tongues and
embraced some other language. Some poor countries, crushed by internal
problems, still hold up their mother-tongue medium of instruction as a
symbol of their sovereignty. The practice across the world is to keep the
mother tongue as the language of instruction, and study other languages as
languages, and grow. So what is wrong with India? We might have got freedom
from physical slavery, but perhaps we aren’t cured of our psychological
slavery yet?

Today, the world is driven by “development” and competition. Even from this
perspective, China, Japan, Korea and Thailand, countries in our vicinity
with some complexity and diversity, are striding ahead. It is possible a
connection exists between education in the mother tongue and their pace of
development. When common education is provided in the mother tongue, skills
and talents emerge from every nook and cranny of a populace, and the nation
is enriched. Gainful, skilled activities thrive in every household. Why
isn’t this apparent to our legislature, executive and judiciary? Why isn’t
this apparent to the globe-trotting IT-BT folks, even from their profit
perspective?

This is no inscrutable matter. India has overcome its practice of denying
education to the Shudras, and is now talking about universal education. But
it has incorporated into its education diseased caste and class divisions,
and retained the discrimination and exclusion natural to its four-fold
social hierarchy.

The infection has spread or why have an education system where communities
are divided like at ritual meals?

The Kothari Commission on Education had warned in 1963-64 that education,
if it wasn’t common, would create deeper social divisions. Yet, India is
practising a discriminatory education policy. What does this tell us?
Perhaps India can’t sleep in peace if it isn’t practising discrimination
and exclusion? We have the infection of slavery on the one hand, and the
infection of class and caste on the other. These must also have spread to
the legislature, executive and judiciary. Thus, we have this education
system where communities are separated, like at ritual meals (in a practice
described as *panktibedha* in our languages). We lose out because we don’t
realise that the biggest education for India would be for children of all
castes, communities, religions to mix when their minds are still fresh and
receptive.

Of course, the quality of government schools is declining everyday. We are
looking for explanations elsewhere. If common, neighbourhood schooling,
with mother tongue as the medium of instruction, is implemented, the poor
standards automatically give way to excellence. It is like this: in posh
neighbourhoods, the quality of utilities is high. Water and power supply is
not disrupted, like in the poor neighbourhoods. Achieving excellence in
schooling calls for no extra training, no amenities. Because of unequal
education, with no access to a common, neighbourhood education in the
mother tongue, village children, street children and children from the
oppressed communities are dropping out of school. Our half-hearted,
discriminatory education system practises ‘inclusive exclusion’. It flings
aside deprived children in such a way that they can never get up and go
anywhere again. English is colluding in this, and serving as a big filter.

Looking up to the judicial system isn’t helping, and our hopes and
aspirations are fading. In its order on the medium of instruction, the SC
has mixed up freedom of expression with freedom to choose the medium of
instruction, and stretched it to fraying point. When freedom is stretched
this way, doesn’t it become licentiousness?

The language a child learns naturally from its environment is its mother
tongue. Our plight is that we are still debating this definition. Anything
can happen in a situation like this. And a lot is happening.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the right to choose the medium of
instruction lies with the child, and the parents. But when does choice
arise? When 2-3 options exist. When only one exists, where is the question
of choice? The basic understanding of education is that it moves from the
known to the unknown. Our courts should have paid attention to this aspect
at least. After a child has learnt reading and writing in the known
language of its environment naturally, then only the question of formally
learning a second language comes up. In post-primary education, wherever
necessary, the language of instruction could have been reviewed. This is
the wisdom of education. Our courts have destroyed it.

When the states were formed on a linguistic basis, our Constitution makers
foresaw the dangers of majority state languages behaving like bullies and
stifling other mother tongues coming under their wing (for example, Tulu,
Urdu, Konkani, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Kodava in Karnataka), and so
created strong, sword-like laws to protect minority languages. But these
very laws are now helping to murder all regional languages, including
minority ones. It truly looks like we have no hope of survival. A man
can’t deceive anyone as much as he can deceive himself, Gandhiji said. I
despair every time I am reminded of this. The SC judgement on medium of
instruction in primary education is a solid example of such self-deception,
isn’t it?

But we have to confront this problem. This is not just a problem of
language. It concerns the freedom, sovereignty, unity and future of India.
This is the time for the first citizen of India to look into the plight of
our languages. The multitudes who constitute our republic hope he will use
his experience, sagacity and wisdom to advise our governments
appropriately. This is a time of despair, because the legislature,
executive and judiciary are taking positions detrimental to the nation’s
future.

If we mean what we say in our Constitution, the Centre, in consultation
with the state governments, must arrive at a language policy that embraces
all castes, classes and communities. India deserves an education system
that treats everyone equally, and provides fair opportunities. We must not
allow the egalitarian dreams of our Constitution to be destroyed by an
education system that thrives on discrimination. Education is nothing if
it displays no idealism and compassion. It’s now up to our president to
take a bold, courageous stand, and dispel the darkness looming on our
future generations. India’s young deserve a better, brighter future.
------------------------------

(Kannada writer Devanoor Mahadeva’s award-winning 1990 novel *Kusumabaale* is
now out in English, OUP.)

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Who-Is-Killing-Our-Languages/293525
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