One aspect of the Modi government’s National Education Policy (NEP) has caused some consternation and debate. It is the prescription that children hereon should be taught in their mother tongue, regional language, or home language (whatever that means) up to class 5, and preferably until class 8.
The critics say this is the RSS agenda of Hindi-isation. The defenders say the children comprehend much better in their native tongues. In any case, they argue that this is only a recommendation and not a compulsion.
But, it is the first national education policy being implemented by a government of the nationalist Hindu Right with a full majority. Compulsion wouldn’t have been possible under the current constitutional scheme of things. Education is a concurrent subject. But then, a majority of Indian states, especially some of the most important states, are also being governed by the same party, the BJP.
On balance, the drift is clear. Compulsion or not, the cue is to pivot to domestic languages instead of English. The three-language formula in the NEP also says any three, as long as two are Indian. The implication is that English is foreign. We would have thought that silly definitions like that are employed by sillier Americans, who want their foreign students to pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language, the famed TOEFL. Never mind that they themselves usually can’t even spell right.
English is now an international language, often with distinct versions in different countries. In India, we have variants from north to south, east to west, from King’s English to Singh’s English.
If the cue from the Modi government towards Hindi or native-language medium is clear enough, chances are that most state governments will fall in line. Their own schools won’t dare defy this. They might decree something like this for private recognised schools too.
People will again find a way to cut corners: Nobody, not even the strongest state, can fight market forces. And if consumers want something as badly as Indian parents want English-medium for their children, they will get it. You might also then bring back the mystique of the minority institution, the proverbial convent, now so synonymous with English-medium education in most of India that you can find “convents” all over the country, named after numerous non-Christian saints such as Kabir, Tukaram, even Ravidas.
If you think the Modi government is doing it for political gain, it doesn’t pass a fact-check. Because, over the decades, our politicians have known what works and what doesn’t. They know their voters want English-medium. So, they might say one thing in public but do the opposite in reality.
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Ideological compulsions apart, if there is one thing our politicians, especially those with their ear to the ground, or, as we say in the heartland idiom, ‘dharti se judey huye’, understand, it is the reality that their voters want three things from their children’s schooling: English, English, English.
Over the past 25 years, I have learnt ground-level politics by travelling deep through the states during elections, and compiling a series called ‘Writings on the Wall’. This is a metaphor for looking around you, eyes, ears and (the reporter’s) nose open, to figure out what it is that people want. Then you see what it is that rival political contenders are offering them. One who aligns with what the ‘janata’ want according to the writings on the wall, wins. If you get this right, you can’t read an election wrong. Unless, of course, you even read the walls with your own predilections or what, again, in the heartland, would be called poorvagrah. This should also establish my credentials as a native Hindi speaker.
It is on the walls where we first read this message of rising aspiration. Especially in the two Bihar elections (the first was indecisive) of 2005. Lalu had been in power with his backward caste-Muslim vote bank and nobody gave Nitish Kumar a chance to throw him out.
Lalu’s idea of social justice was still caste-equity, empowerment to fight the upper castes. His favourite idiom was: Phir se samay aa gaya hai, apni laathi ko tel pilao (the time has come again to season your sticks with oil). This one, said the pundits, still had such oomph that Nitish stood no chance. Especially with his ‘namby pamby’ counter: “The time when you could be empowered by seasoning your lathis with oil is over. Now you empower yourselves by filling your pens with ink.”
The ‘gyanis’ might have laughed at him. But Nitish had the last laugh. He defeated Lalu, and has been chief minister since. Nitish won and keeps winning because he read the pulse of his people right. There was a new flood of aspiration and it needed the fuel of education. But, then, you can ask me, what does it have to do with the medium of instruction?
Which makes us leapfrog to another ‘Writings on the Wall’ tutorial (for me), in the West Bengal campaign, 2011. As with Nitish versus Lalu in Bihar in 2005, now Mamata Banerjee was the David challenging the Goliath in the Left Front, entrenched for 34 years.
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We caught up with Mamata Banerjee on the campaign trail at a place called Barjora near Durgapur, with its steel plant the Jamshedpur-lite of the desperately poor region of West Bengal. She strode left to right and back on the stage, holding the microphone and, at one high point, started what looked like a rhyme. It got the crowds super-excited.
It went something like ‘Aw-e ajgar aashche tere’, and the crowd would respond with a full-throated chant: ‘Aa- aamti khaabo pere’. Loosely translated, it means, A, or the Bangla equivalent, is for ajgar (python), which is coming after you, ‘aa’ is for aam (mango), which you pluck from the tree and eat. But what was the excitement about? Why did it drive that crowd, thousands of the poorest Indians, delirious?
She was reminding them that for decades, the Left Front had condemned their generations to Bengali-medium education while their own children went to English-medium schools and sang ‘twinkle, twinkle little star…’. The result, she said, was that while your children were begging for peons’ jobs, the comrades’ children were going to England and becoming barristers.
We know what happened in that election. Mamata is still in power; the Left is the last of her worries, actually.
Here are two leaders with their ear to the ground. One swept an election promising knowledge and education. The other specified it would be in English medium. Their voters did not come from any entrenched social elites. Those types mostly don’t even go out to vote. Check out the voting percentages in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill.
And since we live by the three-example rule, I will give you one more and then rest my case. Especially as our three examples would be all from different parties and ideologies. Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh passed orders in 2017 to turn 5,000 (yes, 5,000) government primary schools into English medium, so his state could have at least one in each block. Is Yogi elite? English-obsessed? Westernised? A brown sahib?
He is, on the other hand, a saffron-clad priest. But he is dharti se juda hua. He knows what his voters want. That is the wall this NEP will run into if ideology drives this government to push that native language-medium idea too strongly.
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First, I am not Indian though I have visited India many times and know many Indian nationals where I work in KSA. I am very fond of India and her people. I also have a masters in linguistics. Do you want to kill Indian languages? The beautiful Dravidian languages with centuries of literature embodying your culture? Then switch to English medium education. Look at the example of Ireland. Why do they not speak Irish? Why is Irish a dead language? English medium instruction. Why do immigrants to the U.S.A. lose their mother tongues in a generation or two? English medium schools. I see Indians in the Emirates or even in India speaking to their children in English. You are a worse enemy to your culture than the British ever were. Please I ask all Indians, keep at least elementary education in your mother tongues, or in 100-150 years Indian will be an English speaking country.
I can see lot of amazing set of people here can write an eloquent piece of English, and I’m sure that each one of you must have attended good English medium schools, barring few, who might have struggled during school days, but any how landed up at some standard. Ladies and Gentlemen, few points from my side:
(1) This country was in 552 riyasat prior independence, who had different set of languages, customs, diets, living styles etc.
(2) We have 22 official languages available with us, lets start think about to learn these languages through out the country, put option in front of kids to learn any 22 official language ( I’m damn sure this is possible), this will create an interstate camaraderie, good for govt officials especially law enforcement employees.
(3) People who are good in English , don’t have any right to tell upcoming generation that don’t focus on English ( those people are sheer hypocrites, do not bother about them)
(4) Do whatever you can, parents will put their kids into English-Medium Schools ( The way present generation has started working at MNCs , Im sure none of the Hindi medium parent would like to miss it, and they will definitely gonna put their kinds in English-Medium School for better advancement.
(5) As an additional Interest, students can read regional texts, Like we use to read sankshipt Ramayan (Class VI) and sankshipt Mahabharat (Class Viii).
Rest everything is sheer marketing, don’t get diverted, let everyone get education, that should be the mantra, weather brahmin, shatriya, shudra or vaishya , or any other religion be it Islam, buddhism, jainism, sikhism etc. aim is to provide education through which a kid can contribute to society through confidence, logic and empathy.
Only you people wants this. MC Machle had made English medium only to make us their slaves and to teach us that they and their authors scientists mathematicians are Great. Besides them there is no one talented in this world were their moto. Sanskrut is a Great language and this is a same on us we know English but we even don’t want to listen Sanskrut. Every temple even Tejo Mahalaya has efficient work only due to sanskrut because every mechanics are written in Sanskrut.
Our Sanskrut is not Limited only to A Language only. It’s a ocean of knowledge.
But people like you THE PRINT always wants to be a slave of the Fair People.
It’s due to you people Pythagoras is highlighted but not Ramanujan.
We also want a corrected History not today’s biased History where every Black Matters are hidden and that are written as Hindu Birodhi. If you today want to be a English medium Bhad Me Jao.
The argument that people want English based education is true to the extent that people observe that those educated in English medium today have both better employment outcomes and higher wages. Thus, people naturally express a desire for English medium education as they assume it will translate into better outcomes for them.
However, the contention that English medium education is the best way to achieve it is unsupported by existing pedagogical research. All existing evidence, including a body of my own work (see blog post summarizing our work “https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/human-development/language-and-development.html” and publications titled “Language Policy and Human Development” and “The Legacy of Colonial Language Policies and its Impact on Student Learning: Evidence from an Experimental Program in Cameroon” available at ” https://sites.google.com/site/ramachandranecon/research/publications and a blog post summarizing the research ) points to the fact that learning in a language that is the language of everyday social interaction and complementing it with strong instruction in the desired language, English here, as a subject would be a much better strategy to impart English language skills.
The route being promoted by this article is identical to the one that most of sub-Saharan Africa has followed with disastrous consequences for student learning. There is need for evidence based research and debate to help guide the discussion and policy.
THIS ESSAY COMPLETELY REFLCT S THE VIEWS OF TAMIL NADU. 49.5% OF TAMIL PEOPLE HAVE
LEARND TO WRITE AND READ TAMIL AND ENGLISH
Here are some ‘Hindu nationalist’ ministers who sent their children abroad for English education : Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Bahman Seetharamam, Javedkar, Jaishankar…
Duplicity is their innate character.
True, their chai wallah and chowkidar did not study abroad. But he claims a MA in All Political Science and has a forged degree ! He is uneducated in any language. He claims Hindus did plastic surgery and Ganesha is the proof. And Hindus see wonders in a NEP from such a person.