There are many shades of opinion on the comments on English of BJP president Rajnath Singh and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. let me quote them first.
Sourcing their coverage to a news channel, news websites report that Rajnath said at an event in New Delhi last Thursday, “English language has caused great loss to India. We have started forgetting our religion and culture these days. There are only 14,000 people left in this country who speak in Sanskrit ... Knowledge acquired out of English is not harmful but the Anglicization penetrated into youth in this country is dangerous.” Clarifying his remarks on Saturday, Rajnath tweeted: “Came to know about the controversy over my speech on English language. I have been quoted out of context. I am not against learning or expressing in English language. Watch my speech before you draw any conclusion.”
News sites report Bhagwat saying at a function in Gaya, Bihar, on Saturday, “This is an illusion that English is the only means of progress ... this is not true.” Bhagwat did not limit himself to the power, illusory or real, of English. He also spoke on the education system in our country. English and education are related issues and there are many views on the role of English in our education system. It will be interesting to reflect on the English angle in Bhagwat’s comments on education. He said, “True education is to develop feeling and dedication for the country ... Earning money is not everything. Children should have sanskar (morality, values) and they should know relationship and love ... Maximum cases of corruption and irregularities are done by such educated people.”
The views of Rajnath and Bhagwat may be unimportant or flawed. But the issues they are talking about are important. While focusing on the points Rajnath’s initial comment raises, it is okay to set aside his subsequent clarification. If we filter them, his and Bhagwat’s remarks highlight ways in which English and all that it stands for have affected the people of India. Picking key words from the quotes of Rajnath and Bhagwat, we get a thread of crucial issues. Here it goes, “English, country, language, culture, religion, Sanskrit, Anglicisation, progress, education, money, sanskar, relationship, love, corruption”. There are many ways in which the words in the thread are connected. Different people will have their own interpretation of these connections. These connections go back in history, for at the root of this thread of ideas are the words English, Sanskrit and Anglicisation. It is essential to go back in time to the period these connections were being created. The link between the rest of the words in the thread and their importance are quite clear. We need to see how English, Sanskrit and Anglicisation join this thread.
To see one critical way in which the ideas in the thread are connected, we need to examine the life and work of British historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay. He came to India in 1834 and was a member of the UK’s Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838. Britain, for Macaulay, was the most glorious among what he considered civilised nations, in contrast with barbarism elsewhere. He played a key role in India’s history. His Minute on Indian Education of February 2, 1835, led to the introduction of English as a medium of instruction in colonial India. Many of the words in the thread of ideas given above come together in the term Macaulayism derived from Macaulay. Wikipedia says Macaulayism is the “conscious policy of liquidating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonising power via the education system”.
Macaulay’s vision very powerfully shaped the destiny of India. There can be numerous assessments of the quality of the impact of this vision. Some may say his policy ruined India, others may see immense benefits in it for India. But the India we see today is in many ways the outcome of this policy. It was the cornerstone of the British approach to education in India. Many will maintain that the essence of this policy stayed in place even after the British left India. Para 8 of Macaulay’s Minute lays ground for the future of English in British India, and, as some people will argue, even in independent India. It says, “All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be affected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them.”
lord William Bentinck, governor-general of Bengal from 1828-33 and the first governor-general of India, from 1833-35, was in favour of English as the official language in place of Persian, English as the medium of instruction and English-speaking Indians as teachers. Macaulay supported him on all these fronts. Finally, Bentinck replaced Sanskrit and Persian with English as the medium of instruction in secondary education in the institutions supported by the East India Company.
The Anglicisation Rajnath talks about goes back to Macaulay’s Minute, to which Bentinck’s response was: “I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments expressed in this Minute.” Para 34 of the Minute says, “In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”
let’s go back to the thread of words created from the statements of Rajnath and Bhagwat: “English, country, language, culture, religion, Sanskrit, Anglicisation, progress, education, money, sanskar, relationship, love, corruption”. It may be argued that the British rule linked the words in ways that prevail in today’s India. It may also be argued that these words are linked in ways that aren’t good for India. But this is a hugely subjective area, a free-for-all. In this case, no objective reality waits to be acknowledged. At least that is my considered view. But again, that’s just one point of view.
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