Seventy-five years after they left, the English continue to divide Indians. The English language, to be precise.
Over the past few days, Kolkata has seen two groups of people pitted against each other. For simplicity, let’s label them #BanglaMedium and #EnglishVinglish (apologies to the late Sridevi).
The cause of the outrage was a notice by Kolkata’s premier Loreto College outlining the eligibility criteria for admission to its BA/BSC course for the 2023-24 academic year. The language used in the notice that went viral on Monday was objectionable, unpardonable, and condemnable. “The medium of instruction in Loreto college is ONLY English. Examinations will have to be answered ONLY in English… Students whose medium of instruction in Class XII was the Vernacular have not been considered for Admission,” it read.
At a time when casteist, religious, and racist bias is triggering trouble across the world, a policy that discriminates on the basis of language is inexcusable. Loreto College is off Park Street in the heart of the city, not on some remote island in the Indian Ocean, cut off from reality. It is shocking that it unabashedly announced that applications for admission by students from “vernacular” schools had been trashed.
The outrage was so vociferous that Calcutta University, to which Loreto is affiliated, summoned college officials and read them the riot act. An apology came within hours — “The college apologises for inadvertently hurting the sentiments of the students.”
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Colonial hangover?
Initially, on social media, Loreto College was the lone punching bag. Twitter users said that an apology was not enough. The questions ranged from ‘have you changed your admission policy’ to ‘have you refunded the fee charged for the admission form’. Some, probably former Loreto students, offered feeble protests. They responded by asking why there are no Bengali or Hindi medium colleges where English medium students would want to study. “Might as well ban all English medium institutions and turn them all into Bengali medium,” wrote another user.
That irked the #BengaliMedium group even more. Don’t try to defend the indefensible, they said. The camp had expanded its target to all those with a colonial hangover “who show off their English accent but have little else to show”. The #EnglishVinglish camp felt it was all misplaced Bengali chauvinism. But #BanglaMedium thundered back, “Bangla school e pora ta ki oporadh?” Is it a crime to study in a Bengali medium school?”
I confess that at this point, I squirmed.
By sheer accident of birth — an Army father meant I went to multiple schools, including convents, a madrasa, and two Kendriya Vidyalayas — I don’t belong to #BengaliMedium. At the ripe age of 60 plus, I am learning to write Bangla (I can read and speak). But, hand on Tagore’s Sahaj Path — books of Bengali alphabets for novices that are sitting on my desk — I want to ask most humbly: is it a crime to study in an English medium school? (English medium school e pora ta ki oporadh?)
But I won’t. Instead, I ask for #BengaliMedium’s indulgence and propose that in a world that is a global village, where English and Mandarin are neck and neck as the most widely spoken languages, why can’t we view the aspiration to learn English as mere skill acquisition, a means to communicate, make a better living and not as disrespect to the mother tongue?
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Need for English
Though my Bengali is wanting, I love my mother tongue as much as the next person. As much as my next-door neighbour, erstwhile East Pakistan, where the Bengali people fought a bloody battle for freedom because of the love of their language. In fact, Bangladesh was born as a protest against Urdu being thrust upon them.
There was no such scope for conflict when the British began colonising India. In fact, in the early years, English and Bengali languages happily coexisted. Missionary and educationist William Carey (1761-1834) came to Serampore near Kolkata around 1800. He set up Serampore College and the Serampore University, translated the Bible into Bengali, and wrote a Bengali-to-English dictionary. Even before him, Orientalist Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1751-1830) had engaged with the local language and put together a book on Bengali grammar in 1778.
Some of Bengal’s greatest writers first wrote in English. Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), a pioneer of Bengali literature, wrote the poem The Captive Ladie, in English. Dutt’s Bengali works came to be much more acclaimed in due course, including his celebrated Meghnad Badh Kabya.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94), who wrote Vande Mataram, holds the distinction of being the first Indian to write a novel in the English language. His debut novel Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) is now taught to English literature students of Calcutta University.
A lot of today’s Bengali versus English medium acrimony dates back to the Jyoti Basu-led Communist government’s language policy. In 1984, the CPI(M) government banned the teaching of English to students from grade 1 to 5. The Left argued that teachers in primary rural schools were not equipped to teach English and that the mother tongue was a more effective medium of instruction at the primary stage.
The backlash was huge and the Left Front in 1999 decided to reinstate English in primary schools. It made a return to class 3 in 2001, then class 2 and subsequently to class 1 in 2004. Now English medium education is one of Mamata Banerjee’s many key promises. Each of the state’s 341 blocks, she has said, will get one English medium school.
So, on paper at least, every effort is underway to spread English across Bengal. The need to learn the language is now a recognised fact. It’s time for those who have done well in life with English medium education and those who have done well without it to bury the hatchet and lend a hand to those aspiring to learn the language and find better economic opportunities. Maybe it is time to start demanding that schools also offer Mandarin. You don’t want to miss the qi che, Mandarin for bus.
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)