English Language in India

A Dichotomy between Economic Growth and Inclusive Growth

Jaskiran Bedi

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138384576
• eBook ISBN: 9781000586848
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book examines the relationship between the English language and growth – economic and inclusive – in India. It explores why English continues to be the language of aspiration long after Independence. With the second largest English-speaking population in the world today, India is testimonial to how a linguistic legacy continues to cast a long shadow on its contemporary discourse in the economic arena.

The volume:

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• Explores how English language proficiency constitutes as human capital.

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• Draws in the latest India Human Development Survey data.

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• Investigates the relationship between the language and economic indicators such as wages, household income and state growth.

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• Purther investigates the role of English language in the inclusivity of growth.
  
• Provides a snapshot of the pedagogy of English in the Indian education system.

First of its kind in scope, this volume will be of great interest to scholars of economics, education, sociolinguistics, development studies, politics and sociology. It will also be of great interest to the general reader.

1
Introduction

The unexplored link

Language.

Take a moment to think about the concept, and what it means in your life. Now, define it.

Did you describe it as a method of human communication? Perhaps a medium of social interaction? Or did you take a more linguistic approach and think of it as understandable utterances and sounds? Perhaps you thought philosophically and dwelled into the ontologies?

Take another moment and deconstruct what made you reach your definition. Particularly, what aspects of your life struck you when deducing your description of “language?”

When I ask this question, generally and broadly, the answers I receive are along the lines of education, social surroundings and work. Indeed, language is the medium of sharing knowledge, our day to day interactions with society and our communication at work. However, what if you’re put in a school where you don’t know the language of teaching, or a society where you don’t know the language of preference, or a workplace where you don’t know the language of transaction? What is the concept of “language” to you then?

A man named Giri from a rural village of Rajasthan in India defined “language” as a medium of discrimination. This description highlights that contemplation on the links between language and development is well overdue.

A discussion on the said link ensued in the seventh Language and Development Conference held in Addis Ababa in 2005. Debating on the role of languages in the domain of education, experts at this conference pressed on African countries to reinstate their local languages so as to achieve socio-economic growth. Education consultant John Clegg famously stated that “you can’t learn if you don’t understand lessons and you can’t teach if you’re not confident in the language of learning,” emphasising that language policies that promote the use of a non-mother-tongue (often English) as the medium of instruction could be working against education attainment in Africa, hence hindering development in the region.¹ Understandably, this came as a shock to many, as today’s common belief dictates that children who start learning in the global languages as early as possible are inevitably advantaged nationally and globally. Regardless of the belief held by the audience, from this debate, it became clear to all that better understanding of the impact of language on development should become a high priority for policy-makers.

This book is an attempt to further the nascent discussions on the language-development link, shifting the geographical focus to the Indian context. Given the diversity of global languages² and the breadth of the concept of development,³ it will be ambitious and foolish of me to not circumscribe the two. The geographical context of this book as well as other reasons (discussed in the subsequent chapters), cull out English language and growth (economic and inclusive) as the fathomable focus areas. This book, as a literal elongation of its title, will provide observations on the paradoxical relationships between the English language and growth in India.

Prior to starting, however, I make the following set of disclaimers that readers must note.

1. 1 The relationship of a language on economic growth and development is different for different countries since its implications are through factors including diffusion of knowledge and promotion of trade for the former and through institutions including educational, political, legal and administrative for the latter. For instance, while English can act as a lingua franca in the European Union without hampering the region’s development conditions, it can be a marker of elite status, and ergo a discriminatory factor, in India and Africa given its dominant position in government and higher education.
2. 2 The consequence of language on development is further determined by added variables such the diversity of the zone, diversity of languages and the origin of the diverse languages. For instance, though the economic zones of both Europe and India prosper from economic growth arising from English proficiency,⁴ yet unlike the multilingual EU, the multilingual India might suffer from inequality of English-speaking skills, perpetuating into inequality of income. This could, perhaps, stem from the fact that English borrows largely from Latin, the mother tongue of various European Languages, while most Indian languages, including Hindi, originate from Sanskrit, hence making it easier for non-English European speakers to fathom the language relative to non-English Indian speakers. Moreover, the colonial legacy of English in India gives it a special elite status in this specific country. Therefore, the use of non-mother-tongue English is not a universal hindrance to development.
3. 3 Furthermore, prominent usage of non-mother-tongue English can affect different facets of development differently. For instance, though legitimising socio-economic class disparities in India, English has deterred marginalisation of smaller language groups that Hindi could have stirred had it been proclaimed the sole national language of India. In doing so, the English language has pacified and prevented civil conflicts. The language has also made political administration easier in this diverse multilingual country by bridging the communication between the linguistically varying regions.

Evidently, the degree and facets of development that are affected by the English language vary in different contexts. Therefore, readers must keep in mind that this particular book is based solely on the unique case of India, and the particular facet of development it concentrates on is growth – both economic and inclusive.

English: the global language

The British Empire may be in full retreat with the handover of Hong Kong. But from Bengal to Belize and Las Vegas to Lahore, the language of the sceptred isle is rapidly becoming the first global lingua franca.

– (Globe and Mail, 1997)

Before I discuss the economic effects of the English language in India, I must highlight why I have chosen to study this particular language. The reason stems from the introductory quote of the chapter. The statement, written in Globe and Mail’s 1997 article titled “English Rules,” has been famously cited by the renowned linguist, academic and author David Crystal in his book English as a Global Language.⁵ Crystal highlighted it not simply for its alliterative ingenuity but also because of its implicative suggestion that the English language is universal and is here to stay. This implication is evident everywhere we turn today. Simply log on to your internet and type “Global Language” on your search engine. The word “English” will populate your screen, and how!

The commonly accepted perception of the universality of the English language is the reason for my inclination to explore it. Not everyone in this world speaks the language. Not every country in this world gives it a national or native language status. Yet we have people (some, if not all) in every country speaking the language. The dissemination of the language, in terms of spread, cannot be argued against. It is of interest to analyse how this global occurrence, which might or might not get further embedded in the global infrastructure, affects individual countries like India at present.

How the English language gained a universal status has been discussed in numerous newspaper articles, blogs, academic journals and books. Most publications on the topic have propagated their own unique story to explain the rise and spread of English. Their predictive implications about the sustainability and future of the language also differ. While some say English is here to stay,⁶ others state that other languages may take over,⁷ and English may fragment into a family of languages.⁸ However, every narrative agrees on and credits two historical events as the providers of the predominant thrust to the language’s journey to universality – Britain’s political expansion and the United States of America’s economic expansion.

Though the language came into existence in the fifth century with patterns of people movement and resettlement, it was in the nineteenth century that Britain consolidated the global position of English with its distinctive mix of trade and cultural politics. Thus came about the initial creation of a “language on which the sun never sets.”⁹ What added to the spread was the emergence of the United States as the economic power in the twentieth century, aided by the era of globalisation. In other words, while Great Britain steered the introduction of English to the world at large through their imperialist expansion, the United States ensured the prevalence of the language by dominating the economic arena since the twentieth century.

These two historical events paved the way for a world which, according to linguist Braj Kachru, can be viewed as concentric circles. Each circle represents the different way in which the English language has been historically acquired and used.

At its core, we have the inner circle, which encompasses countries such as the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, where English is the primary language. This is followed by the outer or extended circle, which constitutes the non-native countries where English is important because of the aforementioned historical reasons. These countries have, over the years, entrenched the language in their institutional infrastructure and have chief institutions dependent on English. As a result, English has been granted a special “second language” role in these nations, which are predominantly multilingual. India, along with over 50 countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, etc., falls in this circle. Finally, we have the expanding or extending circle, which involves countries that recognise the importance of English as a global language and therefore use it as a foreign language but have no history of colonisation by members of the inner circle. This circle accounts for much of the rest of the world’s population, including China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Egypt and most of Europe.

Noteworthy publications exist on the chronological movement of the English language from the inner circle to the outer and expanding circles,¹⁰ thereby highlighting that English has indeed become the global language. What now needs to be explored is the within-country spread and usage of English in the outer and expanding circles. In the countries of these circles, how has the English language disseminated internally? What is the degree of this dissemination? What internal factors are enabling the scale-up? How is this foreign language getting consolidated despite the existence of other native and indigenous languages? Most importantly, how is this globally important language locally affecting the people? Does the global language requirement have a paradoxical relationship with the local language requirement? If yes, what should policy-makers of these countries do? It is fathomably fascinating to think about these within-country questions, and this book looks into exploring the local effects of a global phenomenon.

Why India?

In the classic Odia short story of the late 19th Century called “Daka Munshi,” Fakir Mohan Senapati’s memorable character, Gopal Babu, the English educated postmaster, treats his father Hari Singh as a “fool” and an “imbecile,” showering upon him gratuitous “English blows” for his ignorance of English.

– (Sachidananda Mohanty, 2012)

Fakir Mohan Senapati was a renowned nineteenth-century writer, regarded as the father of modern Odia literature. His short story, titled “Daka Munshi,” highlighted the debate over the English language and its selective appropriation by the elites in India during the colonial era. What needs to be noted here is that Senapati’s described social realism, pertaining to discrimination caused by the English language, was set in the colonial backdrop.

Cut to 2012, when Sachidananda Mohanty, professor of English at the University of Hyderabad, referred to “Daka Munshi” to repeat the point that Senapati was making, equating the thrust of the English language with the British colonising agenda.¹¹ The fact that he used a nineteenth-century reference in the twenty-first century is a comment on the persistence of the role of the language. In doing so, Mohanty, while stressing on the importance of multilingualism, extended the language-related social realism of Senapati’s time to contemporary India.

Cut to 2017, when a popular Bollywood movie named Hindi Medium released to significant accolades. In the acclaimed movie, the protagonist, post English-speaking attempts to get his daughter admitted to a “good” primary school, exasperatedly says, “India is English, English is India.” Professional critics lauded the movie for dealing with “a very relevant subject of how language divides our society.”¹² The audience reviews on Google embedded the professional opinions, with one member writing, “Hindi Medium isn’t a movie. It is reality.” A follow-up response by a fellow commenter added, “...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 History of the English language in India
• 3 The English language and economic growth
• 4 The English language and inclusive growth
• 5 The Indian education system
• 6 Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography