I spent three fruitful years of my life in the Indian city of Hyderabad. One of my most cherished memory is that of making friends with Rahul, a “local” Telegu. I vividly remember that when I first met him, I introduced myself in Hindi. He could not comprehend my words in “one of our national languages” and we had to switch to English. Since then, English has been the only mode of communication between me and my Telegu friends. This is not pertinent only to the state of Andhra Pradesh or any particular region within India. One would experience the same in many parts of the nation, especially when we travel beyond northern part of the country.
English was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by the Britishers who, for the purpose of administrating our large and diverse country, recruited Indians with the know how of their language. Since then, it has percolated to every strata of the Indian society. It has become the primary language of not only our educational institutes but has permeated into our professional lives. One cannot imagine to get a good well paying job without having an ability to speak, read and write in this “foreign language”, as many Indians label it. The question that comes to my mind is, should English be the preferred language in schools and educational institutes in the country? I strongly believe it should be.
While I do have a great reverence for the local languages or our “mother tongue”, I think it does not binds us in a common strand as English does. It has become historically evident that people from many Indian states won’t accept Hindi as their language, especially in the southern parts of the country. One of the foremost reasons for that is the natural inclination or what I call as an emotional attachment towards their language. Tamil, as an instance, is one of the oldest languages in the world and is renowned for its literary depth. The same goes with other languages like Marathi and Bengali.
There is an argument that since many European countries like France, Netherlands, and Belgium teach students in their own native language, why should India not make Hindi as its primary language in its schools. I think it is a flawed argument and does not takes the colonial history of these countries into account. Wherever these colonizers went and established their control, they spread their language among the populace of the “ruled” country. The colonized countries adopted the language of the colonizers and it became one of their official languages. Post independence, when the migrants from these “occupied” countries reached their former colonial countries to bridge the gap of shortage of workers, they brought with them the same language to their new lands. There was not much diversity when it comes to the language, at least within the geographical area of that country thereby creating a linguistical homogeneity.
India, on the other hand, with twenty two officially recognized languages and more than 270 mother tongues, is one of the most multilingual nations on the planet. Albeit this heterogeneity gives India a cultural depth, it has “failed” to create a common strand that binds our massive, multifaceted population together. English, as we have seen historically, acted as a “glue” to bring our diverse countrymen on a common platform.
In my view, the real growth story of India accelerated after the liberalization of the economy in 1991 under the able leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh. One of the primary reasons for the foreign investment to pour into the country from United States was our large “employment ready” middle class English speaking population. Indians, with their savvy skills, especially in speaking, reading and writing in the English language paved the way for the establishment of ubiquitous call centers and then later Information technology “back offices” across the nation. Indian employees became a de facto with “white color” professional jobs providing services to the corporates based across the Western world.
Another argument on the side of having Hindi as the primary language in our schools is that many countries without a colonial history like Japan and Germany teach their students in their native languages. I believe this rational is incomplete and fractured as well. We need to take into consideration that the aforementioned countries have a very strong research output and most of their scientific research is published in their own languages. On the contrary, how many research articles have been published in Hindi or lets say Punjabi or Tamil? Unfortunately, very few if none. A vast majority of the research published in India is done in English language.
Another perspective in this context is that many non English speaking countries are now establishing business schools that impart business education in English language. They cater to students from around the world and are producing the next generation of “Global professionals”, who can manage multinational corporations in a multilingual environment. This cannot be done in their vernacular language. It can only be done in the language that the corporate world speaks which is English. Like Dollar is the currency of the world, English is the language of the world.
While I reiterate that I have utmost respect for the native Indian languages and I also agree that it is imperative to learn these languages in order to have a sound understanding of our history, culture and traditions, I steadfastly believe that we need a language that can catapult our youth to the global stage and strengthen our “say” in the international arena. English is the instrument to achieve that goal.
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