LETTER FROM INDIA
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 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.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 17, 2011, in
The International Herald Tribune.
