[Reader-list] english: a Rant

[pratap pandey]

Dear all,

One should rant about english. I am not too sure why.
Being a General English teacher, one who is in the
midst of the politics of english in India, my
experience has taught me that we could really be
barking up the completely wrong tree when (a) we
dismiss english as the coloniser's language; (b) we
celebrate, inadvertently, its links to an expert
culture (that's too easy a reading of english; this
reading, especially in its variant of being
"class-specific" fits too easily with the harangue of
Indian politicians, viz Gandhi and Mulayam Singh
Yadav, to name two across time-space); and when (c) we
offer some other language as THE solution to the
"language problem" in India, or even 15 languages (the
history of such decisions has to be re-examined)

I once asked students in my class to write an essay:
General English: necessity or burden? The compositions
I got are instructive. I will post them (still typing
them in!)

Meanwhile here is a "rant" on english in english ("on
english in english": this is the best "excuse", some
think; I have begun to think this is the worst kind of
reactionism):

There are two kinds of beings in India. Engcans and
engcants. Engcans are those who make it, engcants are
those who can’t. The government of the state, the
governments of the states as well as the government of
the Union the states comprise in India, should begin
to actively consider the importance of english to the
lives of the human beings that together make up the
totality of voters that time and again vote the
states, and the State, in other words the Indian
Union, into being. For in all these states, in the
State and therefore in the Indian Union there exist
some people who know english, who possess a knowledge
of english and actively use this knowledge to make
their lives better. In every state in the State that
is otherwise known as the Indian Union there are
people who are born into a condition that is
inseparable from the inculcation of english, these
people who are born into families that know english
and are born of parents who know english because
english was inseparable from their lives as well start
to inculcate english throughout their lives and
actively using this knowledge are able to find for
themselves the best route to prosperity and hence
happiness. Outwardly such people are prosperous and so
inwardly these people are at peace, in India people
are not inwardly at peace unless outwardly they are
prosperous, unless people in India are outwardly
obviously prosperous they are just not happy. And only
some, actually, very few in India are happy, and this
simply because they have access to english. And can
articulate in it.
	Yet what the governments do in all the states that
together somehow comprise the Indian Union, what even
the Union government does is to make sure that the
majority of its voters do not get to articulate in
english. An educational system is deployed to keep the
majority of the population out of the Indian human
requirement of knowing english, on the one hand a vast
"public" school system is kept in place to train some,
a few, to articulate in english, and on the other a
larger number of government schools are created to
keep out the truth that arrival and articulation in
english are twin tracks. While some are allowed to
keep on track, many more are thrown by politicians of
all hues and intentions off track.
	This can be incontrovertibly proved. One day a guy
turned up in the room I and my fellow riftline-dancers
by employment sit, he’s from a small town in Bijnore
district, he's come to clarify a point of grammar. It
is known that in the genitive case, he said, ‘she’ is
rendered as ‘hers’. Thus, he said, we have a sentence
like ‘This book is hers’. Sitting opposite my fellow
riftline-dancer with intense involvement he further
said that whereas it was possible to make a sentence
he had just made, it was not possible to say a
sentence like ‘This book is his’. He was from a small
town, he said, not from a place where a university
like the one I uphold the system in exists, and in
this small town which everybody studies in and then
leaves, his brother had studied in the college and
left to go to Dilli for a job, he had come to visit
his brother, he said, and decided to use the occasion
to clarify a confusion, as he put it, for the last two
months he had been arguing with his little sister’s
tutor on this point, that when changing a sentence
like ‘He said to him, “This book is yours” ’ to its
Indirect or Reported form, as he put it, we could not
say ‘He said to him that book was his’.It was not
possible, he said. I totally jolted out of my usual
stupor, as you keep sitting in your departmentally
accorded chair it is best in order to survive to go
into a stupor, I awakened asked him how he could say
that. This man  looked at me and told me that in the
grammar book he had consulted published by some
University in India as a textbook his sister and her
tutor also used, in this textbook, he said, under the
column for the genitive case, and in the row ‘he’ was
written, against the ‘he’, as he put it, there was no
‘his’. So how could one say ‘He told him that book was
his’? He would be grateful, he would be indebted, as
he characterised his attitude, if we who were teachers
in a big university where the english was learnt, as
he put it, could clear his confusion, as he put it.
	I for some reason I still cannot fathom I got utterly
irritated with him and snapped open with the key I
have been given by the department the shelf, the
second shelf of a departmentally accorded cupboard, I
have been departmentally accorded. From the
departmentally accorded shelf that is just to the left
of the departmentally accorded chair I have been
given, I dragged out my bag, snapped it open, and took
out Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage. Opening
Swan to the relevant page (I knew the page, I had
recently read it while preparing for the General
English classes on the grammar of the transformation
of sentences from Direct Speech to Indirect or
Reported Speech, this in itself is a travesty I am
performing, instead of following the official textbook
to class whose idea of grammar has long been rendered
obsolete I take Michael Swan’s book to the class, I
tell students who... but enough) I showed him that it
was possible to use ‘his’ in the genitive case and so
construct the sentence form he found unconstructible. 
  
	 The man was utterly convinced. Totally convinced, he
asked my permission, could he have the permission, as
he put it, to take down the name of the book I had
just then shown him, so that he could go to a Dilli
bookshop and buy that book to take back to his town,
Dilli is a megapolis, he said, and in a megapolis good
colleges are, he knew, he said, he knew instinctively,
as he put it, he would get the answer to his question
there. He would buy that book and give it to his
little sister’s tutor, he would give it to Vermaji,
Vermaji had done his MA from the college in town and
had not left, he had gone into teaching english, he
would show Vermaji that the form ‘his’ existed and his
little sister would learn the correct english, his
sister would now learn the correct english, as he put
it.
	That guy was saying many things. I didn’t hear. My
head was swimming. I could’nt believe that such human
beings existed in India any longer who thought for two
months on a question of grammar. That there’d be
somebody who could actually have such faith in the
space of employment I was systematically upholding to
the bone as to actually visit system-upholders by
employment and ask them to clarify a matter of
grammatical form. Thinking this and in the midst of my
incredulity and an absolutely alien feeling of soaring
joy, I heard him say how the book would improve his
little sister’s english and rudely interrputed him.
Breaking into his words, I very arrogantly told him
that he was making a big mistake. In India, all
Indians want to know english. But then, in some
strange way or as they pass through an unequal
educational system, the majority of Indians come to
believe that knowing english means learning english
grammar. The heavily weighted educational system in
India does this, most who pass through this system
somehow come to believe that to know english one must
learn english grammar. And so force the next
generation to learn english grammar instead of
english.  “You want your little sister to know
english?” I asked him. He nodded enthusiastically.
“Then buy books for her, story books, books on
history, books that will help her understand how the
world is,” I told him.
	I told him then that when he used the word ‘english’
he meant ‘articulation in english’ and not english
grammar, which he thought ‘english’ meant. Grammar
comes later, first it is the language, I told him. He
nodded slowly. My fellow syllabus-imparter here took
up the argument. I stopped, and then stopped listening
to him. I distinctly remember I sat and thought
through this man about his little sister, another
engcant in the making, I thought with horror. You want
to imagine in english, in my mind I imagined I was
speaking to him, and you imagine that grammar is the
means. Crazy. Stop. Don’t make an engcant. Instead of
a human being, your sister will become a grammatical
being. The dramah of grammah leads to the death of
many. I tell you, everybody in India wants to know
english, and are actively prevented from doing so. I
now realise this clearly. 
	I also now realise I am an active producer of
engcants. Engcants are produced by me carrying
attendance register, official textbook, attendance pen
to class. With chalk I draw out the riftline in class,
reducing a space of conversation to a place of
engcant-production. Eyes on the blackboard. Grammar is
being taught. I actively prevent the production of
engcans, thereby actively supervising the maintenance
of the riftline between engcants and engcans. I now
realise that being a buffer has turned me into a
duffer, for only a duffer produces riftlines in the
lifeworld.

yours,
pp
  

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