English Not Great Language India Should Have

English Not Great Language India Should Have

It is a sempiternal anguish or agony whatever it is called, in me, that the language English is embedded as a resplendent emerald in the coronet of India. As long as we crown English as the soul of our progress we are like a king under the emperor. Hence I used the word coronet.

English in India is synonymous to ‘progress’ ‘prosperity’ ‘technology’ ‘science’’ commerce’ what not everything put together we can call it ‘modernity’. Let us see the truth in it.

Let us take this example. The youth, encouraged by their parents, go to china mostly to obtain a degree in medicine. Lakhs of rupees they spend to the broker and the Universities and Colleges there. Learn the course in Chinese and coerce English. Somehow they obtain degree there and come back. What did they learn? Neither this nor that. Ultimately they should write another Exam to make themselves fit to be a doctor in India by the Medical Council of India. How far the present themselves in the exam. I know a girl giving up the said test as she could not get through even in more than five attempts. She said to me she is not able to present the appropriate answers in English. Now let us compare us with Chinese. They are teaching in their mother tongue and some technical terms in English. The fate of this particular student having spent so much money on the course for lack of presentation she gave up the degree. Had it been in her own mother tongue she would have definitely fared supplementing technical English words wherever necessary.

 In India though they are not catching the media’s eyes there are many villagers and dwellers of semi urban places who invent or discover so many technical needs. Our ancestors are the best examples who never knew even what English was! They Invented and dedicated to the world free of cost without patenting.

However  subsequently they were  plagiarised by several Europeans. Hence they gained knowledge, sharpened their Intelligence, developed trust in their power, potency and proficiency.

From these facts I observed, I feel English is more a barrier than a channel for the outflow.

Hence I came to realise that India’s English-medium obsession is one of the biggest barriers to India’s development.

I shall try to throw light on 5 enduring myths about English:

Myth 1: English is a language spoken by all well-educated, developed, technically-savvy people in the world

There are millions of people in the world who are well-off, well-educated and technically savvy and they don’t speak a word of English. South Coria, China and natives of Arab countries are best examples. The Arab sheiks never mind their little knowledge in English as they are capable of getting done all their wants without any hassle though the Indian population is more than their number. Especially in China even in the restaurants we cannot find English. The staff at the Chinese restaurant will ask the order to be typed in English in their smart phone. They then use the Baidu app to translate it to Chinese. Can’t we follow the same in India?

Myth 2: MNCs do all their business in English; English is necessary for an MNC job

MNCs in all major countries operate in the local language. The language of communication is Hebrew, not English in Israel. Emails, technical documents and discussions will be all in Hebrew, the native language and not any other language. Similarly, Samsung, which is one of the biggest electronics manufacturer in the world with cutting-edge technology has a CEO who did his MBA in Korean. Samsung uses Korean in South Korea, uses Thai for office jobs in Thailand, but in India it uses English. MNCs choose to adapt in different countries of the world but in India, we bend backwards assuming MNC means English. Even in India in many blue chip Organisations, with particular reference to Bombay, people speak in their native language Marathi or Hindi. Why can’t we understand the reality?

Myth 3: English is India’s “competitive advantage” and necessary to develop India

This is the most enduring myth—that English has given India a “competitive advantage” in Information Technology vis-a-vis the world. There are highly technically advanced societies, such as Japan, that do not use English.

Here I come with an example in defense of the contradiction of the above statement.

I hail from a rural place. I had education up to my eleventh class at Jammalamadugu of Cuddapah District which was only a gram panchayat then even without provision of electricity. Kerosene lamps with dim light were to glow on the streets. We had kerosene lanterns lit in the house. Under these lanterns we used to study. In the class when the teacher does not turn up to the class we the students used to spend the time on various mathematical puzzles and paper games. If teacher other than the concerned comes he used to engage the students with excellent moral stories or ask the able children to tell. At that small age of 10 to 12 I had a classmate by name Basha whose favorite of Bhima of Mahabharatha used to tell so many stories of Imagination, of his hero. These things really sharpened our brains. May be sharper than the most of the city dwellers. Intelligence   is the intrinsic quality of a human being and not the environment that can supplement. Of course environment can motivate people either for the good or bad. Again the choice is ours. A survey conducted on rural children which explored the fact that they outscored urban Indian children in IQ. English, as the language of higher and professional education alienates these children. They find math easy but English hard.

Even when it comes to outsourcing, the advantage is temporary. China’s programmers learn in Chinese and have teams with one outward-facing project liaison who speaks the client language. Thus, China is providing outsourcing to the US, using English, but also to Japan, using Japanese. Only about 5% of the world’s population is native English speakers and the importance of this segment will likely decline as the US and the UK decline as Economic superpowers. China is also investing in technological innovation, developing its own companies, like Baidu and Weibo for search and social networking while its entire technology education uses Chinese. When this is the fact how can we accept that English is our bread.

Myth 4: Indian languages are “not suitable” for science and technology education

At the very out set let me bring to your notice that The Forbes magazine July 1987 published an Article that “Sanskrit is the most convenient language for computer software programming.

Science is taught at the graduate level in dozens of languages across the world, from Japanese to Portuguese and from Thai to Polish. It is even written using the pictographic Kanji (Japanese writing system) script with thousands of characters. Even MS-DOS the command prompt operating system from Microsoft supported Kanji characters 30 years ago because the Japanese demanded it.

Indian languages, on the contrary, are highly scientific. They are phonetically sound and can express a range of sounds. They also have technical literatures and vocabulary from hundreds of years. Sanskrit-based grammars also makes it very easy to construct new words.

Hebrew was once considered a dead language, yet it was revived for science and technology education. Technion, Israel’s foremost engineering college is Hebrew-medium and is ranked much higher than the IITs. Languages need investment. India simply needs to invest their mind and deed in its languages and keep them contemporary. It is much easier to translate one thousand key books of science and technology than teach a foreign language to a billion plus people.

Myth 5: People want English, but the government keep pushing Hindi/Indian languages

It is, in fact, the other way round. It is English that is pushed in India by government policy. The government allows only English in the Supreme Court and most High Courts. Most top institutes, be it the IITs, the IIMs or the AIIMS, they are all funded by the government and operate only in English. Most government websites still use English as the primary language. But is this because people want it?

No, where people have a real choice, they prefer to consume Indian languages, not English. Only one of the top 10 newspapers in India is in English. Less than 10% of the newspaper readers prefer to read in English. English TV channels have an even smaller percent of the audience. Thus, given a choice to the populism, most people opt for reading and listening to their own languages.

The artificial demand for English is arising because of flawed government policies that are pushed by the bureaucrats or so called elite. We need to provide an equal opportunity to study Indian languages. This will allow deep technology penetration. English cannot be the vehicle for our development, rather it remains the biggest barrier to our progress.

Not but not the least let certain modern inventions. The Archaic meaning in English for car is a chariot, carriage, or cart. Is it now being used that way in the modern world by any country?

No, hence, let, the names of the modern inventions be taken as they are coined avoiding the ambiguity in dialogue among the foreigners. But let the terms that suit the local languages be adopted in our conversations.

Please give a mindful thought to what I tried to say and develop your passion to your mother country, mother language and mother culture. Don’t forget we were all one, once upon a time before the advent of Muslims and Christians and they were not converted at their own will.

Shubham Bhuyath