The revenge of the Company clerk.

DEEPAK DELIGHTED US with his quiet humour: “I've worked for a government set-up for the past 29 years, and now I’m more ‘the undersigned’ than Deepak Bellur.”

“That reminds me of a Chennai businessman’s letter,” said Anjum. “In 12 lines, he used ‘the undersigned’ seven times: ‘Two weeks ago, when the undersigned had met you, the undersigned had told you . . .’ He seemed to abhor the personal pronoun.”

“That’s sarkari tradition,” Deepak said. “Cloud information in verbosity. The personal pronoun’s too lean.”

“And that sarkari tradition,” said Anjum, “goes back to the East India Company clerk.” “Wonder why Indians love to sound pompous.”

“And sanctimonious,” said Deepak. “It’s our national character.”

“Every time I hear pompous talk,” Anjum mused, “I’m reminded of what Rudolph Flesch said: ‘Typically, formal language is the language of minor clerks, secondary officials, cogs in some social machine. It’s their . . . psychological substitute for personal importance. The farther toward the bottom, the thicker the coat of assumed dignity’.”

“Quite,” Deepak said. “Wonder if Indians mouth bits of angrezi also for ‘personal importance’?”

“But it’ll be angrezi of the Company clerk variety;” said Anjum, “never everyday language. You see it in those letters government officers and clerks write to this day, spattered with 18th century commercialese and Raj-day officialese---the stupid formulaic expressions like as per and inter alia, the noted and duly filled in and the grotesque same/the same instead of a pronoun like he/she, him/her, they/them/it, and those awful ‘impersonal passives’, such as it is regretted/it is advised---and what have you.”

“That’s hardly limited to sarkari letters,” said Chhanda. “All Indian organizations use nothing but such hideous formulae---from industry and business houses to colleges and universities. People use as per even in conversation.”

“Exactly. Indians know only commercialese and officialese ,” Anjum said. “A friend got a letter from his bank the other day. It used the same this way:

‘We have inadvertently provided a credit for Rs. 4,500 to your credit card account 4477 XXXX XXXX 6008 and thank you for bringing the same to our notice. We have made the necessary changes and the same will feature in your subsequent billing statement.’

“That,” said Deepak, “goes back to 18th century British baniyas. Only 23 plain words would’ve done for those 40: ‘Thank you for telling us we inadvertently credited Rs. 4,500 to your credit card account. Your next billing statement will carry a correction’.”

Anjum sounded disgusted: “Isn’t it a shame that even highly literate Indians use the formulaic phrases of semi-literate clerks? Why can’t they use plain, everyday English?”

“Perhaps only when you’re at home with a language,” said Deepak, “can you use its plain version. Uneasy wags the tongue when one lacks language skill.”

“But educated Indians use their mother tongues grotesquely too,” said Anjum. “They’ll always come up with ugly Sanskrit formulae instead of the easy colloquial.”

“Yes,” said Deb. “I wonder if Indians’ pomposity doesn’t go back to the curse of Sanskrit trickling down to the hoi polloi.”

Chhanda, the academic, didn’t like that: “Why a ‘curse’? Sanskrit gave us great literature.”

“Yes,” Deb snorted, “and smothered beautiful poetry in our dialects. Sanskrit formulae became the language of every zombie. It divided him from the humble Indian who knew no Sanskrit, but spoke spontaneously. But the zombies were viewed as the elite because of Sanskrit. We’ve always clung to wonky values.”

“And English meant a second divide,” added Anjum. “Between those with baniya English formulae, and those without.”

“Quite,” said Deb. “And Sanskrit and baniya English have moulded the Indian whose language is limited to formulaic words and phrases.”

“That means,” said Anjum, “a nation poor in language skill.”

“And that means,” said Deb, “a people impoverished in thought.”

“And people incapable of thought,” echoed Anjum, “will always fall back on formulaic expressions.”

“Or maybe it’s the Company clerk’s revenge,” suggested Deepak.

Anjum thought that was funny. “What revenge?”

Deepak explained: “Once upon a time, every Indian aspired to write like a Company clerk, who’d brought baniya English to Indians. Then, as neo-literate Indians read English in universities, they gradually realized Englishmen looked down on what Company clerks wrote. Soon, the clerk became the butt of ridicule. That’s when clerks turned vengeful and as one, uttered their curse: Indians would never rise above their formulae. Their curse’s stuck.”

We all had a good laugh. “Company clerks’ lingo lives on,” said Anjum. “Teachers write baniya English: they call it writing formal letters. Look at this ICSE Council’s prescribed composition guide. It bristles with absurd translations of Indian idioms. Here’s a ‘model letter’---a boy pleading with a neighbour who throws noisy parties that disrupt his ‘studies’. It asks the neighbour to ‘do what you think is proper, putting your son in my place’ instead of asking what the neighbour would have done had his son been in the boy’s place.”

“That’s how the Company clerk arrived at pidgin,” said Deepak. “He merely translated Indian words into what he thought was English.”

“For instance?”asked Chhanda.

“Company clerks coined double mother for ‘maternal uncle’, said Deepak. “They split mama into ma uttered twice. That’s the kind of Indlish you’ll see in school textbooks. Students fear they’ll lose grades unless they write their teachers’ pidgin.”

“No wonder the Indian adult keeps to Company clerks’ lingo,” said Anjum. “He might read contemporary English, or hear it in movies. But the moment he’s got to write in English, back he creeps to his school-day models. And those models from inept teachers can only retard young minds, for they negate language skill---in English or the vernaculars.”