[lg policy] India: Our language crisis

Thu Feb 16 16:06:25 UTC 2017

Our language crisis
By Vikas Kumar, Feb 16, 2017,
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.

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).

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

Chasing the mirage
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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

(The writer teaches at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/596592/our-language-crisis.html

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