SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ELT IN INDIA

ABSTRACT

The paper wants to argue that why English continues to enjoy

sociological significance in India despite political freedom from British

rule. New demands are emerging from the grassroots levels – the Dalits

and the villagers – with their expectations conditioned by socio economic

forces. ELT is facing challenges of providing quality education because of

a vicious cycle of seemingly unavoidable problems. The paper tries to find

a way out that might bring a change of the conditions.

ARTICLE

Despite political freedom from the British imperialism, English in

India, more than ever, continues to enjoy sociological significance.

Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minutes on Indian Education presents his

confidence that introducing English-language schools would ‘civilize’

India. He emphasized that as the European languages civilized Russia,

therefore, he says, “I cannot doubt that they will do for Hindoo what they

have done for the Tartar”(Macaulay). Macaulay in India is now spurned

by the intelligentsia, because of his Eurocentric notion of language and

culture. It is needless to say that English is the practically working

channel of communication between the varied linguistic compositions in

the country. Even needless to say that it is the global lingua franca. That

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English in the Indian context is a form of cultural capitalism at its purest,

cannot be but emphasised. The second part of my paper is about the

authentic institutions, by which I mean the educational institutions in

India on which the academic stake holders count upon. However, these

institutions continue to function just as para-academic bodies.

Though there is much hype of English in India, it is a matter that

causes anxiety as well. English is the language of higher education in

India. However, without English medium root at the school level, one ends

up with absolutely not good enough English. The dire situation is

overshadowed by the condition that at the pinnacle we have a very small

percentage of world class excellence. Because of mammoth population of

India that small percentage is quite a large number of people who migrate

out across the world and achieve extraordinary heights. This disguises

ninety five percent or may be even higher of those who lag behind in

oblivion.

Reforms are taking place and it is being reflected in the education

policies. Some of the states in India, like West Bengal, has resumed

English teaching from the first year of school in the primary level after

decades of castrating English from the primary level. The political party

of the ruling government believed that the mother tongue should be given

more emphasis, and the strange way out was by uprooting English from

the primary curriculum. The same government now, not out of any

sudden epiphany, but by pressure from the grass root proletariats have

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taken recourse to English. Globalization has obviously brought new

opportunities to those who know English. This is obviously in the voice

based industries like international call centers and BPO agencies. The

professionals working in these sectors have a quality of English that is

often somewhat workable in the international scenario. Compared to the

CEFR or other framework, the proficiency will probably be much lower

than what is actually desired. Contemporary discourses in newspapers

and articles tell us that India has not engaged itself seriously with the idea

of multilingual education. This implies that Indian education policies in

its practice tend to undermine the need of multilingual education. The

global market is opening up newer scopes in India, where there is real

need of educated people who can work in several languages with

competency.

Now the situation will be more complicated, as we go further.

English is not just the language of higher education; it is also the language

of business, finance and the corporate world. Therefore there is a need for

getting people up to the terms of the CEFR before they leave school; but

there is hardly anyone near the mark. We can get them to that by starting

very early. There is no doubt that India needs to start delivering quality

English language right at the beginning of primary education. But if we

consider the situation in India, it is possibly the worst place to start. In

our first few years of certain government schools, the teachers who are

teaching are coming through a completely different training. The

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educational background of the teachers reveals that they never learnt

English, particularly those belonging to the rural areas. We can hardly

provide quality English education in the first and second standards in

government schools in most of the parts in India. It is a long journey to go

on. If we try doing it rapidly or assume that the job is done in terms of

educational progress, the result will be disastrous. There are demands

that at present cannot be readily met with. We need teachers who know

English, who have enthusiasm and can work. But here lies another catch:

if we teach a primary school teacher good English, s/he can earn a lot

more money elsewhere in the economic system than in rural primary

schools.

Next we would like to probe into the matter that why people at the

grass root level, people of rural areas and Dalits, want English. They are

one of the major sects in the society who believe that English is the source

of economic mobility, geographic mobility and the only agent to achieve

social justice. But can a language really deliver all those? English in India

does certainly give geographical mobility; because English, of whatsoever

standard, is the language of communication among the linguistically

divided state. But when people look forward to the voice based industry

and think it to be the site of attaining economic mobility, they are perhaps

over expecting. It is an emerging sector and hardly there is any study

that tells us that it can be the backbone of India’s economy. However, it

is probably not to overemphasize to say that English can act as a tool for

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social and political justice allowing individuals and groups to overcome

caste barrier. English education allowed cohering people of various

linguistic groups in a national platform to fight for independence. Dalits

were left out, devoid of English education. In the same way as the

independence movement relied on English, the Dalits want to cohere

themselves – who are distributed among people speaking multiple

languages – using English as a tool. It appears that many of them feels

uncomfortable in the way they are imprisoned in their own languages;

about the way the caste system is reproduced through the very

vocabulary of the discourse of their own language. So to escape from it

they feel it necessary to escape out of the bondage of language. We cannot

argue English to be a liberal language but it does not carry the caste

specific positioning which is integral part of their imprisonment.

Recently BBC on 14th February 2011 aired a news that the Dalit

community is constructing a temple, for a new goddess, ‘goddess of

English Language’(Pandey), in Banka village of Uttar Pradesh with the

flagship of a noted Dalit writer Chandra Bhan Prasad. The English

goddess is modeled on the Statue of Liberty. Prasad believes such

initiative will motivate the Dalits to encourage their children to learn

English, which in turn will transform their lives and make them job

worthy and help them gain social and economic mobility. The

discrimination is extended to education too with the school system

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dominated by the higher castes. Even today in many rural schools, Dalit

children are often made to sit and eat separately their midday meal.

When on one hand such desperate attempts are seen on the part of the

oppressed to come up in life, on the other hand their efforts are being

counter fired by caste based discriminations. For instance, Meera, a Dalit

woman from Bisakhedi village of Dewas district in Uttar Pradesh reports

that “Dalit children are made to sit separately during meal time”.

(Documentation)

It is essential to take measure in teacher development through

orientation programs that will make teachers sensitive enough that will

prevent them from indulging into caste apartheid. I want to make a

strong point here that ideologies govern our attitudes in the society and

any social institution like ‘school’. The problem is neither with what we

know, nor is the problem with what we don’t; but the problem is that we

don’t know what we actually know. To put it in other words this is what

Marx defines as ideology in its most elementary form in Capital

encapsuled in one phrase, “They do not know but they are doing it”.

Slavoj Zizek in the modus operandi of any ideology in the subconscious;

says, “The fundamental level of ideology, however, is not an illusion

masking the real state of things but that of an unconscious fantasy

structuring our social reality itself”(Zizek 30)

Ideology can be changed through a psychological training which is

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commonly known as education. Necessary emphasis should be given to

subaltern and Dalit literature in the English major curriculum in the

institutes of higher education ‘culturing’ future teachers and as well as

those in service through teacher-training programs. This is one of the

major roles which English departments of higher academic institutions

have to play because it is this language in India to which the marginalized

stake holders have high expectations. Only then education can be

meaningful and schools will become sites of social inclusion.

WORKS CITED

“Discrimination in MP schools alive and kicking”. Action Aid

International. 2006?. Web. 30 Apr. 2011.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Minutes. 2 Feb. 1835. np: np: 24 Apr.

2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2011

Pandey, Geeta. “An English goddess for India’s down-trodden”. BBC

South Asia. BBC News Banka village, Uttarpradesh. 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 30

Apr. 2011.

Žižek, Slavoi. The Sublime Object of Ideology.London:Verso Books, 1989.

Print.

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