OUR LANGUAGE ISSUES – EARLY RESOLUTION NEEDED.

Dr.Pulin K. Dutta

How does an old man from Manipur interact with an auto-rickshaw driver in Chennai? How can I express without ambiguity in Kochi with a cobbler on the roadside for direction to my friend’s home? How will a weaver from Sualkuchi communicate comfortably with an only Marathi knowing weaver at Paithaan? (Paithaan is a small town in Maharashtra, where the famous and the costliest Paithanee saris are woven. It takes about one year to finish one sari. The price can be as high as one lakh rupees. It flourished in the days of the Mogul rulers for their Begums and also for the Maharanis in the rich princely states, like Baroda, Hyderabad, Gwalior etc.).

We are all facing such issues whenever we stepped out of our home to another region in the same country, India. In such circumstances Hindi is the language we try to use, often with difficulty by most of us. Consequently the likely scenario - you, an Asomiya and the Kannadiga auto rickshaw driver will have an argument in Bangalore on the fare he charged. You will speak to him in our very own Asomiya Hindi and he will argue back may be in Kannada, Telegu or Tamil. This is a real problem!

Things get worse when we travel to places outside India. There Hindi, Urdu, Asomiya, nothing will help you much. At the same time many of us will not have even the rudimentary working knowledge of the languages of the people in different parts of the world. It is a very frustrating and at times daunting problem we faced sometime or the other. It is almost like a verbal dual between a deaf and a dumb person. All kinds of signs and gesticulations!

At least the people with some working knowledge of English somehow managed reasonably well may not be exactly in the Queen’s language. For, you will find at least a few persons in places like a restaurant, hotel, airport, banks and shops that will be able to interact somehow and your purpose will be served. Wherever, I visited, outside India and England, across the continents, I realised that English was truly the Global tongue, for a large number of people; not one hundred percent, I confess! Not only overseas, even within India, English connects us better across the country, from the North to the South and from the East to the West more efficiently than Hindi, though again not in one hundred percent cases.

If my reasoning is right, then why do we not encourage learning and using English as a live subject along with the regional language, from day one for the three year olds?, I believe they will find it much easier to communicate without inhibition with the other children from any region, which will also create a cosmopolitan,”first an Indian” kind of attitude, which is sadly amiss today. The young ones will be grateful to us for opening the windows of their mind to the world view and derive its manifold usefulness in their lives. In the ever shrinking global village, there is no time and place for overdose of either regionalism or protection. The time is running out and if we and our children face enormous handicaps, because English was not learnt well, we will have to blame only ourselves.

The South Indian regions especially Karnataka, Andhra and Tamilnadu, are preferred by more and more investors from all over the world. For, to a very large extent more people have working knowledge of English, are essentially peaceful and have better work-ethics. These qualities helped trans-national business immensely. Also, good institutions of higher learning, with the English language provided the inspiration. Thus they got better jobs across the country and overseas in many fields.

Because cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune attracted outsiders with working knowledge of English for better jobs, a good number our boys and girls from the NE region are doing well professionally, which is a healthy  result.

Here to dispel a myth I must say, one need not go to only expensive English medium convent and Public schools. Our good old Vernacular medium schools were good enough in our time, when English was compulsory from Standard three to Intermediate classes (now the Junior college). We could move from Assam to other Indian states for higher education and professional careers without any serious language handicap. By then everyone had the opportunity to learn English reasonably well. However, some people still shied away from speaking in English, fearing making mistakes; a mental complex overtook them, though the level of comprehension was high. The question papers in the post matriculation (junior and senior college) were set in English only and there was no issue. We were fortunate that we had such a good start in our schools.

One must learn and respect one’s mother tongue certainly and also respect the other languages. I am for it absolutely! I am only suggesting at the same time to learn to use well the English language for our own benefits. For, it is live and immensely rich, allows us to see what is happening in the world, communicate with people anywhere at ease, read good literature, travel for work and pleasure and also make full use of the medium of the Internet.

The latest books and periodicals/journals of research and development required to enrich knowledge in various fields are made available in English first, before translations are published in other languages. Shall we not study them in English or wait for years to see if anybody dared to translate the same into Indian languages without distortions? How can then we hope to progress further and thrive in this new economic age?

We have been using it and learnt it quite effectively for nearly three hundred years. Therefore, making it just one subject in our teaching curriculum, without the emphasis on using it well, will mean closing the door shut behind and in front of us, which in my humble opinion may be suicidal We produced illustrious writers in English, who were equally proficient in the vernacular languages too. Therefore, I would like to argue that we stop immediately playing with the lives of our future generations. Why must they forego the many advantages that English offered and our generations enjoyed?  

The Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Spanish, the Latin Americans, all are trying feverishly to learn English and use it in large numbers to exploit the economic advantages it offered in the age of ‘globalisation’, and also learning and developing their own languages to a higher level of adaptation. I was surprised to find more and more French, Germans Russians and Italians are doing the same. For, economics – trade and commerce conquered the cultural and territorial boundaries for which Europe was known for centuries. Indeed, time has changed, since the end of the World War II. We must remember.

We had two Japanese engineers for sometime to facilitate transferring a technology from Japan to Pune and train our engineers to adapt it well. They were fluent with English.

Once at lunch, another friend asked one of them, “don’t you think the way you are trying to learn English, so intensively, may adversely impact on your own old and rich language and thus affect the culture?”

The Japanese gentleman, nodded thoughtfully and then responded saying, “No, we don’t think that way. We believe we have to be good at English to remain always Japanese, by using its benefits, just as you are still Indian wearing western outfits. Aren’t you?” I liked his reply very much, which showed a different and progressive not obsessive attitude.

Here, I see that English is not taken seriously from the early age in the Marathi medium schools where mostly the low income and the culture-conservative people send their children to. The well-off families ignore the Marathi medium schools and send their children to the ‘English Medium’ schools. Then, no wonder they are doing very well. The same is true in Karnataka as well. Is this true in Assam too?

That was not the case in our time. For such negligence, often the local boys and girls from the vernacular medium schools and colleges failed to find good jobs. I am certain they had the intellectual capacity, may be even more informed but were not encouraged to make that work. This is a sad picture.

Few politicians are demanding job reservations for the local people for their own benefits and fanning out chauvinism, saying the local people were not getting employment in the well-paying private sector organisations. How can they? They did not learn to use English in the schools and colleges the way we learnt in the past. However, the same leaders are sending their children to the expensive English medium schools.

I had the experience of interviewing graduates and post-graduates in science for technical and supervisory posts in industry and found to my utter dismay that most of the local candidates could not even understand the simple technical literature written in English. Obviously we could not absorb them for which I felt miserable. I learnt from them that even their teachers in the colleges had the same difficulties. No wonder then, they demanded protection in the job market.

The private sector managed to keep out of the sensitive political issue by recruiting locals mostly in the manual workers grade .Few, however, with their own drive and determination, managed to learn and communicate effectively in English and were well-employable in higher grades too. For this a large number of coaching classes are mushrooming in and around Pune, doing good business. However, the poor families can not afford this, so are left out to be angry.

Seeking protection indicates one’s self-inflicted weakness and loss of self-respect. So I hope in Assam, we are not making such absurd demands; instead, preparing ourselves to become employable anywhere in India and overseas, by learning to use English well. The State Governments and our educationists must think out the solution, which we already had for a long time, as early as possible to stem the rot, to be a leading economic power in this century. Or else? The problem of unemployed educated young Indians can to a very large extent be sorted out this way. Their mobility for higher studies and better jobs across the country will get a boost, which will promote mutual understanding and respect amongst the people from various regions. Insurgency like cancers can be eradicated. It will be a Win/Win situation for all to make India a happy and prosperous country. There are plenty of opportunities and our new generations must grab them and run with it.

While the use of Hindi as a link language is acceptable in many states, it has to be realised that in the South it is not acceptable publicly .Also, in the global context, it is hopelessly inadequate. So, we have to do something quickly to restore the English language at par with the Vernacular languages in our schools and colleges from the first day of schooling for our children. It can be done if we wanted to. Ignoring it will be a big mistake.

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