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Two faces of English
Pramod K Nayar / DNA
Sunday, November 15, 2009 3:15 IST
That English is a unifying and divisive factor is something we have
all recognised. The nature of the accent sets you apart in terms of
your ethnicity, race and nationality, and the prose style can locate
you within a distinguished tradition. Alok Mukherjee's book This Gift
Of English is an ambitious attempt to map the shifting politics of
using the English language in India.
Mukherjee opens with his personal story: of how he came 'into'
English, his studies, and research, all the while arguing that his is
a symptomatic case. He presents, via his own experiences, the
dissemination of English literary studies in 1960s and 1970s India --
the period of the great 'modernisation' of the country. He then
outlines his theoretical framework, adapted from the work of
sociologist Pierre Bourdeiu and the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci.
In order to map the early moments of English education in India,
Mukherjee does a time-shift into the 19th century. He examines the
Anglicist and the Orientalist debates: whether English alone is
necessary -- as the Anglicists believed -- or should the vernaculars
also be encouraged, as the Orientalists argued. Mukherjee proposes
that English language arrived in India as a means to create Babus for
the empire.
It was to aid in the training of Indians to think and administer like
the British, and thus extend their hegemony over the subcontinent.
Interestingly, the Englishmen were supported in this project by select
sections -- mainly Brahmins and upper classes -- of Indians
exemplified by people like Raja Rammohan Roy. Mukherjee suggests that
these sections of Indians saw in English a chance to enforce their own
dominance over their fellow countrymen.
That is, English was seen as an instrument of social power and
dominance by both the British and the native elites. The enforcement
of English values was to be achieved through a study of English
literary texts. These were read through the aesthetic and critical
prisms developed by Europeans, where both the frameworks and the texts
were distant from the students' daily lives and cultures.
Turning to post-Independence India, Mukherjee argues that the
stranglehold of the elites over social and cultural realms was
facilitated by the use of English. Reading the autobiography of CD
Narasimhaiah, the doyen of English studies in India, Mukherjee argues
that this generation of English teachers was attempting a
Sanskritisation and Hindu-nationalist appropriation of English. He
also notes that this begins to change in the 1990s when affirmative
action enables Dalits to enter the university and acquire English.
This brings Mukherjee to his key argument. In the post-Independence
era, English is the language of emancipation and hope for the Dalits
who, for a long time, have been denied access to any instrument of
power. Using the works of Dr Ambedkar, Kancha Ilaiah, Sharan Kumar
Limbale and other Dalit writer-activists as examples, Mukherjee argues
that the Brahmanical dominance that was achieved through English is
beginning to erode.
However, Mukherjee is also quick to add that the adoption of English
cannot be a mindless acceptance of the 'West', as he sees some Dalits
like Chandra Bhan Prasad doing. As Mukherjee puts it, such a
glorification of the West in Prasad puts him "in the company of the
early high caste Hindu proponents of English education."
Mukherjee's is a useful historical account of the way English has
arrived and spread in
India. He is right to point to English as the language of emancipation
and empowerment for Dalits.
Those who moan the disconnect between their 'local' cultures and
languages when Dalits take to English -- a common feature of social
commentary today -- are in fact proposing a ghettoisation: that upper
castes will keep English and the Dalits will keep their local
languages. This hierarchy has to be broken and, as Mukherjee shows,
English is a means to achieve this dismantling.
Mukherjee is also critical of the use of English in the present
context which "produces an army of workers for the multinational
corporations, such as call centre operators, computer program writers,
journalists and middle managers."
This, he claims, is reminiscent of the early stages of English
education in India where colonial and indigenous elites used it to
reinforce their hegemonies. This is a harsh indictment of youth and
workers who need English to survive in contexts not of their choice or
making.
If I might intrude a personal note, I have heard Professors of English
make disparaging remarks about 'accent training' for call center
workers, all the while ignoring the fact that these critics have made
their fortunes teaching certain accents and writing textbooks on
'English language teaching', but would hypocritically deny this act
born of economic necessity to the new generation.
This Gift Of English demonstrates how English becomes a double-edged
sword, for dominance and emancipation, for the hierarchic organisation
of society, and for dismantling hierarchies. Anybody interested in the
history of the language, or its literature in India and the cultural
politics of education will find Mukherjee's book a useable starting
point.
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