Language Nationalism in India: No more jobs

The Govt. of Karnataka has recently announced the closure of about 800 schools, and why, because their medium of instruction was English and not Kannada. I’m going to tackle the language nationalism with English in this article, not the hotter one regarding Hindi.

All the schools closed are in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India where thousands of jobs have come fleeing from the USA and UK. And now, the JDU-BJP govt. goes self-destructive. The BJP’s nationalism is for most of the time highly mis-directed and in vain. Thousands of children are being denied their birthright to learn English.

I don’t know which Govt. gave permission for thousands of schools to be established if their medium would be Kannada. So now, this right-of-centre govt. has decided to close them as that promise was not being kept. And there are indications that hundreds more schools may be forcibly closed!

Who are we kidding? English is the global language today. We are among the very fortunate countries to have been left the colonial legacy of this language. Of course the British were horrible to us and we probably can’t forgive them, but their biggest gift to us apart from the Railways is the English language. Having blossomed into the language of science and technology, we have to be fortunate to have an edge over the Chinese at least in this arena.

But misguided nationalism poses a great challenge to India’s modernization. English also acts as a bridge between the urbanites from various states of India. I also think that it would do India good if English were adopted as the catalyst for national integration. Being a neutral language without the North-Hindi-hegemony, it may find wider acceptance among the masses.

Non-English speaking people desire that their children learn it. Why, many words from English have slipped into popular usage even in regional languages that people have forgotten their regional translations. The biggest advantage urban Indians face over rural Indians is the ability to speak English well also fuelling the ascend in the socio-economic sphere.

Considering all this, as well as the fact that it is this ability to speak good English that is bringing jobs, it is a highly retrogressive step taken by the Karnataka Govt.

It would actually do good to make English the mandatory medium of instruction for education in India. That way, we would not deny poorer Indians the chance to climb up the socio-economic ladder.