By Hari PR
This is in response to the recent thrust by a government-appointed panel to replace the medium of instruction in educational institutions, which currently is English, with the respective regional language. The reasons provided for this change are that English is a vestige of the colonial legacy that India is trying to put behind her, and that it is well-established that young children absorb knowledge better if content is delivered in the language they speak at home.
I have conflicting feelings about this. There is no doubt that English, for all the good that it has done, remains an elite, exclusionary language that only a small proportion of the population is able to speak with reasonable fluency. There is also no disputing the fact that there is a large number of works of brilliant poetry, literature, and other written works in our regional languages that go unread and underappreciated simply because of the preferential treatment that English and works written in English get.
Personally, I was drawn to the English language from a very young age. I still read English novels with fervour, though more recently I have been trying to branch out to Tamil novels as well. Sometimes I feel pangs of guilt – why am I drawn so much to a language that, to all intents and purposes, is foreign to me?
On the other hand, English is also a wonderful link language that enables easy mobility, especially among students. I have done part of my education in Delhi, and I consider that phase to be among the best in my life. If the proposed policy is implemented, would students be confined to their home states? And how would companies with presence in many states operate? And what about companies serving international clients?
I know that the English language has a colonial connotation in many parts of the world, considering that it comes from an empire where the ‘sun never set’. Its legacy is particularly more complicated in India, given her multilingual character, and the fact that many families living in India also speak English in their homes. India has also produced English authors of international repute, like Arundhati Roy (who has also written about her internal struggles with language in one of her essays.) At the same time, large swathes of our population cannot reasonably speak or comprehend English.
I suppose there are no easy answers, but I just wanted to put my thoughts out here, off my chest.
Baradwaj Rangan 
RK
October 14, 2022
Entire Hindi imposition episode by govt seems like a intended distraction from actual problems like unemployment, inflation, corruption etc. How would more than half of the population, whose primary language is not Hindi will benefit from this? I can’t even think what govt would do by 2029 election when northern states will have more MP seats in parliament.
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Siva
October 14, 2022
” and the fact that many families living in India also speak English in their homes. ”
What? 🤔
Really? 🧐
I did not know about this.
Please elaborate! 🙂
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lurker
October 14, 2022
@Siva not sure if this answers your question https://www.livemint.com/news/india/in-india-who-speaks-in-english-and-where-1557814101428.html
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Srinivas R
October 14, 2022
TN students will study medicine in Andhra. Andhra students will study Medicine in Maharashtra etc. How are we going to use “regional” language? They would have done their school education in English. Now they will have to shift to Hindi as a medium of instruction? Who comes up with such braindead ideas?
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Madan
October 14, 2022
“Personally, I was drawn to the English language from a very young age. I still read English novels with fervour, though more recently I have been trying to branch out to Tamil novels as well. Sometimes I feel pangs of guilt – why am I drawn so much to a language that, to all intents and purposes, is foreign to me?” – Exact same situation for me. 🙂 And I have been into our films and music right from childhood. So it’s not as if I ever felt too uppity for Indian language art. I just can’t explain why English just happened.
I think at least till we know that the new hegemon is going to be China or something, we should encourage rather than discourage English as a medium of instruction. Hindi is already spoken by half the population and its spread will continue (especially with demographics loaded against the Southern states). And even if China does become number 1, it will be hell of a lot harder to learn Mandarin. MAYBE then the anti English brigade will develop some appreciation for it. 😉
@ Siva: In India, even the top 10% comes up to a number like 100 million. We probably have more English speakers than in any country other than the USA, unbelievable as that sounds.
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Rahul
October 15, 2022
What they are talking about is not doing away with English, but only changing the medium of education from English to vernacular. So many of the concerns raised in this article seem misplaced to me. English will still be taught as a language.
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Rahul
October 15, 2022
@Srinivas, the imposition of Hindi is another disaster though, I agree with you. The other point you raised about higher education is valid as well. I think they are going to start with primary education ?
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Prat
October 15, 2022
Why can’t they will try to solve actual problems instead of creating new ones? This will directly impact the employability of students given that most of the well paying jobs are now in IT and need English proficiency. More class divide and more inequality, yay.
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Feanor
October 15, 2022
Education in local language is in principle not a bad idea. There’s considerable research to show that children learn best in their mother tongues. Primary school – all taught subjects – should best be taught in local languages, with “prestige” languages slowly added to the mix in middle school as additional subjects. Otherwise we end up with the unfortunate situation that the anglicised classes have kids who adapt well to English medium instruction while the rest struggle to keep up (and possibly suffer mockery to boot). Of course, imposing Hindi as medium of instruction where it’s not the local language doesn’t help, even in areas such as Bihar where it’s not really Hindi, but Bhojpuri or Maithili or Santhal that are the main language. I suspect the government’s linguistic chauvinism opposes English but is happy to inflict Hindi on populations that don’t speak it natively.
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Cholan Raje
October 15, 2022
Yes, English’s dominance is the result of colonialism, but we live in a colonial world. If we have to speak English to survive and live comfortably in this colonial world, so be it. Principles, culture, etc. are secondary to survival.
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kaizokukeshav
October 15, 2022
Really don’t understand the logic here, we owe the development of India to English to be frank. It’s not as if regional languages are flourishing, they are infact in a dying mode.
The only way these languages can survive is that the regional states should expand like European countries. Else it will be so easy for foreign entities to mess up with the nation.
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Madan
October 15, 2022
“What they are talking about is not doing away with English, but only changing the medium of education from English to vernacular. ” – Well, given the quality of English spoken or written by quite a few people who did study in English medium, the prospect of them having to study English only as a language is even more grim. And if it stops at primary and secondary education, they will suddenly be faced with a daunting adjustment to make in college.
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Siva
October 15, 2022
Madan:
Well, given the quality of English spoken or written by quite a few people who did study in English medium, the prospect of them having to study English only as a language is even more grim. And if it stops at primary and secondary education, they will suddenly be faced with a daunting adjustment to make in college.
💯
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brangan
October 16, 2022
I think this kind-of fits this topic. See 4.40 onwards, where Kodangi is asked to review reviewers. (My name comes up at the 6.10 mark.)
A director-friend keeps asking me to do reviews in Tamil. But the whole point of English is that the review gets a wider audience, and the film’s existence is known to more people. Anyway…
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vijay
October 16, 2022
“A director-friend keeps asking me to do reviews in Tamil. But the whole point of English is that the review gets a wider audience, and the film’s existence is known to more people.”
is he asking you to write reviews in Tamil or just do the videos that way? because the former is like asking you to give up on your forte, for which you have your own audience.. Maybe the quick 5-min video takes that you do for reviews, maybe those can have an alternate Tamil version as well(?) if that’s possible..
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brangan
October 16, 2022
vijay: It’s the same thing. The video review is basically the written review that is read out. So I’d have to write the whole thing in Tamil first and then read it out.
Anyway, I don’t think the “elite reviewer” charge is only about English (though he does mention it as a point). I think it’s also about the way I approach and review cinema, which I guess is different from the “recommendation” nature of most reviews.
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Kay
October 17, 2022
Utter madness is all I can say! Problem is, although this might seem like an inconsequential issue, it can’t be ignored considering how there has been a trend of silently passing bills and getting them approved as laws, of late.
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Siva
October 17, 2022
Madhya Pradesh has become the first State in the country to start the MBBS course in Hindi.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/madhya-pradesh-new-education-policy-amit-shah-releases-textbooks-in-hindi-for-mbbs-students/article66017234.ece
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Raghu Narayanan
October 18, 2022
Well, the English language IS an imposition on Indians which happened during the colonial rule by the British. However, as it has been around for over two centuries, it is well and truly entrenched within the social fabric of our country now. For good or bad, it does lend to smooth collaboration of people in many areas of society – employment, business, tourism, etc. and so cannot be done away with or replaced completely. I see these efforts by the government as not merely ways of decolonialising from our past, but also of making Bharat as an economic superpower. One of the key requirements to becoming a superpower is to create a domestic market which can fuel our economic growth thereby reducing dependence on international consumers, and language is an important aspect to be considered in expanding the domestic market. Having said that, my personal opinion is that there are many, many issues with the content, structure and delivery of education as it stands now, which are in urgent need of attention and change than doing an overhaul of the language.
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shaviswa
October 18, 2022
Thr British ruled India and imposed English on us. It is a colonial legacy.
Hindi majoritarian party rules India and imposes Hindi on non-Hindi speakers. What do we call this? Another colonial imposition – this time by Indians on other Indians 🤦
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Honest Raj
October 18, 2022
I see these efforts by the government as not merely ways of decolonialising from our past, but also of making Bharat as an economic superpower.
Reminds me of the epic line (in the conversation between Vadivelu and Crane Manohar) from Winner.
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Yajiv
October 18, 2022
“I see these efforts by the government as not merely ways of decolonialising from our past, but also of making Bharat as an economic superpower. One of the key requirements to becoming a superpower is to create a domestic market which can fuel our economic growth thereby reducing dependence on international consumers, and language is an important aspect to be considered in expanding the domestic market.”
This sounds like Nehrunomics all over again. Cut yourself off from the world to ‘grow’ the domestic market.
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Madan
October 18, 2022
“This sounds like Nehrunomics all over again. Cut yourself off from the world to ‘grow’ the domestic market.” – Need not be. We can keep the supply chain open and allow imports to flow in and at the same time build a robust domestic capacity (which has to then depend on some level of national pride and not pure economic efficiency). I mean, the reason why Ford is still the top car brand in the US or the reason why Germans still avoid Japanese cars can’t have all that much to do with buying the best cars. Western capitalist elites have pulled cotton wool over our ears for years marketing Western as automatically the best and what India needs, whilst they themselves make choices dictated more by culture than pure bottomline economics.
I think it is AOK to have some consumer preferences for made-in-India as long as that doesn’t involve govt mounting import restriction walls to keep out foreign OEMs. But it has to be managed with extreme care because as far as I am concerned, exploitation doesn’t magically become better just because you are now exploited by thy own countrymen. And language policy does not have very much, if anything, to do with turning Bharat into an economic superpower. I can go on and on about this because I find these delusions that started with the 2003 McKinsey study so tiresome and would rather we pursue big but achievable goals in shorter time intervals instead. But I will stop here.
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hari
October 19, 2022
As someone who mentors girls from under-privileged background studying engineering, I can say the emphasis that we put on English severely dents the confidence of these girls. Day-in-and-day-out these girls are made aware of their low english skills and somehow told that they can’t score big in interviews. And on top of it, the “English” coaches also talk of MTI (mother tongue influence). To get them out of this complex is an uphill task.
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Ravichandar
October 21, 2022
Education system in mother tongue is fine. But the question of link language arises. Certainly English has to be the link language. English is not foreign any more like Hindi is said to be. If English is said to be colonial, what about Hindi which was found to facilitate communication with invaders. In this aspect Hindi is driving us to be submissive, relatively more mean than being in colonial mindset, as is been told about English.
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Vinaya
October 25, 2022
The solution to the English language conundrum is more English and earlier, right from kindergarten, particularly in non Hindi States.
English is not only aspirational, it is likely to keep the lead in knowledge and contemporary culture for centuries to come, and the earlier we require our children to learn it, the better we are equipping them with.
Hindi, as of now, is a low quality, low class prescription, exceptionally crude and comes with a low culture quotient too. Look at Modi talk, and the crudity over flow is not only horrendous but exceptionally distasteful.
Moreover with declining fertility ratios, the southern states are already suffering from Hindi people overload,.
Imagine that it now has to suffer its languages giving way to Hindi and the culture being replaced by North Indian culture. A very distasteful proposition to say the least.
For the states that don’t speak Hindi, this proposition is not about arguments or being judgemental, this is real, it is about survival.
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Madan
October 25, 2022
Vinaya: I wanted to write a counter bringing up the oratory of Vajpayee, Anand Sharma or Jyotiraditya but I have to reluctantly agree as a lover of Hindi that the image of an ‘aspirational Hindi figure’ is now defined in Modi and whatever be his political merits, it makes for a poor cultural advertisement. The North needs to reflect as what exactly is this uttam pradesh that they are advertising as the recipe for rest of India. When bhakts mindlessly believe fake news advertising UP as economically ahead as Maharashtra, what message does it convey and it can hardly be the ringing endorsement to the South that the bhakts think it is.
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Vinaya
October 25, 2022
True Madan,
The distaste is kind of recent.
Part of the credit should go to Modi’s, monkeybaat, wonder who came up with that name
The other is triggered by the declining population in the south while the North ignored it and now has a surplus, which given prevailing conditions there, is more than willing to export.
The cultural implications of this are more dangerous than one attributed to English and with not even a tenth of the profit that accrues from English.
If a person who knows only Tamil is a liability in the professional job market, imagine one who knows only Tamil and Hindi.
Other than that there is a stink of continuing poverty about the language and it’s culture, which is primarily because the Gangetic belt is, despite resources, the lowest ranking economy as far as the common man is concerned.
Let their leaders improve their own language and economy and think about it as a link language.
Until then, we will remain happy being their colonial cousins.
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Vinaya
October 25, 2022
The southern states are more likely to be overrun by Hindi Hindus before the frequently prophesied Muslim overflow, an immediate and more dangerous proposition.
If you have every been to the North and have been slapped for not knowing Hindi, then this stance is a non sequitur.
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Vinaya
October 25, 2022
Madan, et al…
I think it is fairly understond in economic theory that internal markets find equilibrium quickly.
This means that there is no such thing as a flourishing internal economy.
And this is irrespective of the size of the population or the market.
Also, larger the internal economy, the longer the stagnation, a common market does little good in the long run.
Take America for instance, on most consumer goods the profit is very very low, the average American has very little disposable income, and flocking to discounts is actually a life style.
Make in India or America or China and consume internally or in a common market is therefore a prescription for infinite economic stagnation, whatever the size of the economy be.
Japan is a good example, once it lost its peculiar advantages, it has been in stagflation, for some 20 plus years now.
Growth and development of economies derive mainly out of arbitrage,
The correct question therefore is, what is your arbitrage? Be it Nehru or Modi, this arbitrage question cannot be ignored.
Almost all other stances in development economics (ignore the right meaning for now) can be best considered as weed smoke.
Apply that understanding to the English vs Hindi question
Which language gives you arbitrage?
English is the winner and will remain so till AI and ML can translate truly and in the right context. When that happens, then we don’t need a second language.
We can stick to Tamil and be understood all over the world. Why then Hindi at all?
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