The Future of English Language in India - ET Debate-The Economic Times

Angrezi Hatao is in effect the same slogan as Garibi Hatao. It will inevitably lead to a more just distribution of resources, opportunities and wealth. And that is precisely why all Angrezi-wallahs are hysterically against such a move.

It is often argued that India has developed and come up in the world so spectacularly because we have English. But then, how did the rest of the G-20 get there?

Fifteen of those top countries have made it by functioning almost entirely in their own mother tongue and national language. For the remaining four — the US, UK, Canada and Australia — there was no choice, for English is again their mother tongue. In a second language, the moral seems to be, one can only remain second rate.

Finally, man does not live by economics alone. Sa’adat Hasan Manto once said, “When I hear a Punjabi speaking English, I know he’s speaking a lie.” (from Yes, the have-nots will feel more equal- by Harish Trivedi, ET Debate-The Economic Times).

The Prof makes sense

So, here was this professor in English who made great sense. There are clearly three things that are important: -

One - English is the language of exclusion. And it deprives 80% of India of opportunities. It is above all, a it is "one more marker of the have-nots."

Two - It allows the English media and system to control the future of India.

Three - India needs to learn more foreign languages. The great 'software success story is actually two countries - US and UK who give between 70%-80% of Indian software business? This is coolie labour! We are missing out on the massive Japanese, French and the Spanish markets because we have not invested in those foreign languages. And we have missed out on computing in Indian languages, because we have not invested there either.

The Hindi 'un-thinker'

The 2nd part of the debate was from a Hindi writer.

English, then, would have logically been perceived as the language of colonial rulers. But now, the situation has entirely changed. Hindi is now the language of sarkar, bazar and sanchar (government, market and media) and it has been monopolised by the dominant caste and religious group.

Official Hindi has become a vehicle of obscurantism, communalism, blind nationalism and, to top it all, casteism. English, in post-colonial India, has become a language of modernity and empowerment.

Poor and low caste people and minorities know that Hindi will make them naukar and English will escort them to the seat of the master. If you ask me to give a slogan now, it would be angrezi laao, desh bachao. (from No. It's now the language of liberation by Uday Prakash).

Two things.

One - To Mr.Uday Prakash the entire debate was about Hindi vs English. Did someone remind him, that this debate is dead.

India will be multilingual. We have centuries of literature, culture, wisdom, knowledge, learning in Indian languages that we just cannot give up. The people of India, each individual will choose their language. No bureaucrat, politician, 'intellectual' will decide that. Finito. Completo. Terminato. Endlich. Eindig. ändlig.

That discussion is over. What is on the plate and up for discussion is how to support Indian languages get back on their feet, reduce the role of the State and how create skills in multiple foreign languages. And not subsidize the West.

Two - Of course, we should not expect Uday Prakash to talk about nearly 800 years of violence against Indian education system must be reversed – and the Oriya student needs help more than the elitist English speaking student.

But Uday Prakash is in cuckoo land (and he is not alone).

Great start

The third part of the discussion was the most disappointing. The post starts off with a smart paragraph,

For far too long, English and other Indian languages have been squeezed into the binary slots of an artificial, mutually exclusive choice. This is grossly mistaken. We need English and other Indian languages. And there is no contradiction whatsoever in this proposition—it has the backing of logic, international experience and pedagogy. (from When a billion Indians prosper, so will their dictionby TK Arun, ET Bureau).

Data ... data ... data ...

Which is just right. He demolished the language of progress argument with some simple data.

The world is full of countries that have populations smaller than that of a suburb of Delhi and yet not only hang on to their distinctive languages but also prosper. In Sweden or Finland, with a population of a few million, children learn in their mother tongue. They also learn a couple of foreign languages, mostly English and German. South Korea, with a population smaller than Tamil Nadu’s, teaches its children in Korean, and has seen a spectacular rise in living standards over the last five decades.

Japan is smaller than Uttar Pradesh, in population. The Japanese have built the world’s second largest economy without too many people being fluent in English. Relatively few Chinese speak English, but China is the world’s fastest growing economy. Such examples can be multiplied.

He continues with a some smart logic on how

In this land, human sounds have resonated with meaning for the last five millennia. Yet, lots of us are only too eager to dump the resultant cultural richness coded into the Indian languages that survive. Why? Colonial baggage is the short answer.

The only misstep till here was the need for Indians to learn other foreign languages. Where did that go? How did he miss that?

After clinching a sale .. shut up!

Then the unpreparedness shows through.

From five millenia (5000 years) he zooms to just 500 years ago, how "Indian languages came into their own with the Bhakti movement." Did Indian use foreign languages before the Bhakti movement? Was there no Indian language literary activity before the Bhakti movement?

He cant resist giving credit to the West, and continues how Indian languages "got new vigour with exposure to western literary trends and the social churning that accompanied the freedom struggle." What great compositions happened during the colonial era which cannot be compared to previous eras? In fact the opposite is true!

And then jumps to how in the last 15 years, Indian languages "had to wait for the economic reforms to get a further shot in the arm— the base of prosperity expanded, and industry’s need to tap into this prosperity channelled advertising to regional newspapers, leading to a surge in Indian language publishing."

Did nothing happen between the freedom movement and the 1991 liberalization? What great literary achievements have we seen after economic liberalization? In fact after the 1991, economic liberalization, Indians won more English language prizes (Bookers and Man prizes).

Then came the bathos

He concludes with a fantastic leap of unreason, with a statement that "Indian languages require, thus, better teaching of English as a foreign language and social transformation that will allow all Indians, and not just a tiny elite, to globalise."

Where did that come from?