[Reader-list] Manu Joseph's piece 'India Faces a Linguistic Truth'

[Chintan Girish Modi]

From
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/asia/17iht-letter17.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Manu+Joseph&st=cse
 *
India Faces a Linguistic Truth: English Spoken Here* By Manu Joseph
 Published: February 16, 2011
NEW DELHI — In a recent Hindi film, the actress Katrina Kaif holds a thin
white bed sheet against her bare body and sings, in English: “I know you
want it, but you’re never gonna get it.”

That what has become one of the country’s popular Hindi songs opens with an
English sentence is unremarkable for Indians. So is the truth that Hindi
films are now written in English — the instructions in the screenplays are
in English, and even the Hindi dialogue is transcribed in the Latin
alphabet. Mumbai’s film stars, like most educated Indians, find it easier to
read Hindi if it is written this way.

Almost all advertising billboards in
India<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/india/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>are
in English. There is not a single well-paying job in the country that
does not require a good understanding of the language. Higher education here
is conducted entirely in English. When Hindustan Pencils makes cheap
pencils, which its sells to rural children for a rupee apiece (about 2
cents), the company prints the brand name, “Jobber,” in English. “A villager
has more respect for a brand that is written in English,” said Dhruman
Sanghvi, a company director.

English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth.

Many Indians would say that India’s national language is Hindi. They would
say it with pride if they are from the north and with a good-natured grouse
if they are from the south. But this is a misconception. The fact is that,
according to the Indian Constitution, the country does not have a national
language.

In the years that followed the nation’s independence from the British in
1947, there were efforts to hoist Hindi as the national language, but
regional linguistic sentiments were high. In the southern state of Tamil
Nadu, men immolated themselves to protest what they thought was the
colonizing power of Hindi. As a compromise, Hindi was downgraded to one of
the two official languages in which the government would conduct its
business.

The other official language was English, which has long been considered a
default language, a foreign language. But this is no longer true. Since
independence, the influence and reach of English have grown immensely. It is
impossible to arrive at a credible figure for the number of Indians who
understand English (a lot), who can read it (many) or who can write it (very
few). But what is indisputable is that in India today, English has the force
and quality of a national language.

Alarmed at the power of English, India’s cultural elite and politicians have
tried, through public policy and sometimes violence, to promote Indian
languages. In Mumbai, for instance, every shop is required to announce its
name in Marathi even though most of the people in the city can read English
but not Marathi. In the recent past, thugs have beaten up shopkeepers who
did not comply with the requirement.

Accepting that English is the national language would have benefits that far
outweigh soothing the emotions of Indian nationalism. It is to emphasize
this point that Chandra Bhan Prasad has built a temple to the Goddess
English in an impoverished village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

People like Mr. Prasad, who want to liberate the poorest segment of the
population, the Dalits, through the extraordinary power of English, view
Indian culture and all related sentiments with suspicion. It was that same
culture that had once deemed the Dalits “untouchable,” relegating them to
the lowest of the low in the caste hierarchy.

In Mr. Prasad’s temple, there is an idol in robes, wearing a wide-brimmed
hat. Very soon, Mr. Prasad said, he would encourage young Dalit couples to
include a ritual in their wedding ceremony in which they would sign the
letters A, B, C and D on a piece of a paper. “That would be a promise they
make that they will teach their children English,” he said.

He also plans to adopt an Islamic tradition and fix a loudspeaker in the
temple from which a recorded voice would chant the English alphabet, from A
to Z , every day at 5 a.m. All these are just symbolic gestures, he said,
and the best he can do in the absence of genuine political support for
making English the national language.

The chief beneficiaries if English attained this status would be the
children who attend the free schools run by the central and the state
governments. An overwhelming majority of such schools are not taught in
English. Indian politicians, whose own children attend private
English-language schools in India and abroad, want their constituents to
marinate in their mother tongues.

Sanjay Tiwari, the son of an illiterate security guard, was a victim of this
attitude.

Until the age of 16, he studied in Hindi and Marathi-language schools. Then,
he taught himself English, “and escaped.” He is now a marketing executive
who makes a reasonable living in Mumbai, “only because I can speak in
English.”

Low-income Christians, who have easy access to English-language schools run
by churches and convents because they are granted tuition-waivers and
discounts, have benefited immensely over the years. It is not surprising
that Christians are disproportionately represented in Bangalore’s call
centers.

Raj Thackeray, a pugnacious politician in Mumbai, is enraged by the
diminished status of Marathi and the predominance of English in the city.
His supporters have been known to beat up people who they believed
disrespected the Marathi language. He wants everybody in Mumbai to learn
Marathi.

Mr. Thackeray derives his political clout from other Maratha men like
himself who hope to push Marathi as the most important aspect of life in
their state.

When asked why his own son goes to one of the best English-language schools
in Mumbai and not to a Marathi-language school, he replied that the question
was not important and was politically motivated.

His followers would no doubt follow his example if they could. For all their
laments about the siege of the Marathi language, they would probably put
their children in English-language schools, too, the moment they could
afford to do so.