Moving the Juggernaut

“THE PM’s been told to step on the gas for English.”

---“Oh? Who told the Prime Minister that?”

“Sam Pitroda did.”

---“In what capacity?”

“The PM appointed the National Knowledge Commission--- the NKC; Pitroda’s its chief.”

---“ India going China’s way, eh?”

“Think so?”

---“Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. When were Indians as serious-minded as the Chinese?”

---“Okay, cynic, what’s your take on it?”

“It’s just hot air.”

---“Cynicism doesn’t pay, y’know. Tell me what Pitroda said.”

“Oh, he made the right noises alright. Said Indians as hadn’t a good grounding in English hadn’t access to higher education.”

---“And?”

“And that those who don’t know English well enough can’t find a place in the best schools and colleges. And that this makes for a sudra class in the work field.”

---“Well, that’s true, innit?”

“Sure it’s true; only, nothing’ll ever get done about it.”

---“Why not, if Pitroda hammers at it?”

“Hah! Can Pitroda move the juggernaut?”

---“What juggernaut?”

“Our system, our parties, our teachers . . .”

---“You’re way too cynical; why not---if the NKC gets down to it?”

“And you’re way too gullible . . . see what’s involved?”

---“Reforming the system, y’mean? . . . gotta start somewhere, surely?”

“One, you’d hav’ta reorient all teachers. Two, put a stop to bogus teachers minting money by writing trash. Three, stop teachers’ cartels prescribing the trash as text books. Who’ll bell the cat, eh?”

---"How’s China going about it?”

“When the Chinese set about something, boy, they’re gonna do it---even if it kills millions. Remember Mao and his Cultural Revolutions? Can India push the teacher mafia to that kind of effort?”

---“Hey, that’s not a nice thing to say about our teachers; they do try, don’t they?”

“Do they? Look at West Bengal. Teachers are the CPI-M’s pampered vote bank---teachers and clerks. The CPI-M helps the teacher mafia bully the Secondary Board: the Board’s gotta prescribe any muck the racketeers churn out. Even downright wrong English. The racketeers get the loot; the party gets the votes, and students get the muck, see?”

---“Don’t paint all teachers with the same brush; some teachers are sincere, surely.”

“Sure some are; only, they don’t count: the racketeers bully them to keep mum. They’ll even set party goons to harass ’em if they dare oppose the mafia.”

---“Hmm . . . guess they’ll kill any move against their money-making racket, eh?”

“You bet. The CPI-M’ll let loose its lumpen brigade: to stage chakka bandh, kaam roko. Then the CPI-M’ll call a rally on Kolkata maidan.”

---“Whatever for?”

“To announce that the goody-two-shoes CPI-M always respects ‘spontaneous people’s protest’ . . . and so chuck the ‘anti-people reform’. Part of its ‘democratic tradition’. And that’ll be that. Gotta keep their vote bank in place, y’see. That’s how it’s screwed the State for three decades now.”

---“And the education baboos’ll just toe the party line, eh?”

“No effort needed; the CPI-M fixed that long ago. All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men are the CPI-M’s cadre.”

---“And they won’t put Pitroda’s Humpty Dumpty together.”

“Exactly. And other States’ll play a similar game. And it’ll all come back to square one”

---“Where y’have the juggernaut, right?”

“Bravo! You see the light at last.”

---“No way out, then?”

“Well, Pitroda’s suggested an expert group for all text books. Right till class 12.”

---“Ah, good. That’ll fix it, won’t it?”

“How naïve can you get? Education’s a State subject. Each State’ll tweak whatever the NKC lays down . . . tweak it all to suit vested interests; the ruling party’s interest.”

---“Why’d vested interests always be the ruling party’s interest?”

“ ’Cause that’s the way the cookie crumbles, man! You can’t getta rule if you don’t pander to vested interests. Scratch a politician and find some mafia’s mongrel.”

---“Shush . . . but there’s gotta be a way out . . .”

“One way out ‘ud be to move away from text books altogether.”

---“Huh? How’ll students do without text books?”

“I mean ban text books authored by the ‘teacher mafia’. No racketeering. No dumping muck on students. Let NKC arrange cheap editions of the best books, graded by reading level. No dearth of standard works on each subject. Hands off text books---that’s what the racketeers gotta be told.”

---“But you just said each State’ll tweak whatever the NKC lays down.”

“That’s right. And that’s why I said the NKC’ll achieve zero. To end the teachers’ racket, the NKC’d hav’ta be armed with teeth.”

---“To bite whom?”

“To bust the teachers’ racket, of course. But that’ll need legislation. Take it out of the reach of States. Or else, the States’ll sabotage it all---so that the racket goes on, and teachers remain the ruling party’s vote bank.”

"Gosh, it’s so difficult to move the juggernaut, eh?"

"Nothing moves the juggernaut; you gotta demolish it."

From China - With Love

“In a decade, Indians’ll need to learn English from the Chinese.”

---“Rubbish! The Chinese’ve only just begun; we’ve had English for two centuries.”

“D’you know what the Chinese’re up to? They’re importing Americans and Brits and Aussies to teach English in their schools! They want whites.”

---“No, they want ‘native speakers’ . . . ain’t the same thing, you know.”

“But d’you see what that means? They start late, but are up with the latest---English as it’s spoke today . . . Indian English rots in East India Company muck.”

---“Is Company English nothing like English? Has the language changed altogether?”

“You bet it’s changed. Most native speakers can’t understand Indian English easily.

---“Nonsense! Would London English be the same as up north---say, Manchester? Do Bangalore Tamils speak the same quality of Tamil as Tamils in Madurai?”

“Mounting your hobby-horse, eh? Your old theory: dialects . . . and Indian English is one of the ‘Englishes’.”

---“Why not? English varies everywhere; varies even in England. Our Inglish or Hinglish, might be peculiar, but Ausslish is peculiar too, and so is Amlish or Yanklish.”

“Use your head, man! The Yanks, the Aussies---they’re descendants of the Brits. The Brits colonized America and Australia; so the settlers’ English evolved a bit different from English as it’s spoke in England . . .”

---“But that’s what I say . . . English in India evolved different from the Brit version, and became Indian English; that’s all.”

“But we aren’t descendants of the Brits, damn you! If the Brits had settled here and spewed an Indian version of English, sure that would’ve been a dialect. But the Brits didn’t settle here, did they?”

---“But it evolved here, surely?”

“No, it did NOT. The Company merchants dumped their commercial English here. And Indian English is the same yucky commercialese, don’t you get it?”

---“Well, writers like Salman Rushdie keep using Indian English as a dialect alright. His characters speak this funny Indian English . . . sounds comical . . .”

“Nice and comical, huh? Bloody colonial stereotype! The bloody sahib finds pidgin English comical, and so all wogs are gooks! As though the native didn’t have his mother tongue, and wasn’t eloquent in it. And you find that supercilious nonsense funny, do you?”

---“Hmm . . . you have a point there. Yeah, I guess the sahib underestimated the native just because the native spoke pidgin. But what’re you getting at?”

“That all those goofy things about Indian English were all coined by the bloody stupid baboos of East India Company. The Brit the Company recruited was just about semi-literate, see? So he had formats for letters he had to write. As soon as he could---after a promotion---he’d hire a baboo to copy those letters for him. These baboos were semi-literate. And they coined those pidgin terms . . . native place, and dwelling place, and respected sir, and in the backside . . . and what have you shit that the Rushdies keep mimicking.”

---“May be you should tell Indians the Indian-ness of Indian English is only its baboo-ness.”

“I did. And when I did, some people argued like you about Indian English.”

---In your book, INDLISH, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

---“Did reviewers take note?”

“Not many reviewers read beyond the back cover blurb . . . now, your hobby-horse: I don’t see why any self-respecting Indian should accept pidgin-loaded nonsense as ‘Indian English’. Indians can do better.”

---“How?”

“By hearing native speakers---over the TV and radio, of course. It’s easy.”

---“Aha, so you want native speakers too---like the Chinese?”

“No. I don’t mean them coming out here, dammit! Unlike the Chinese, unlike all other nations, we’re the only multilingual people on the planet. Ever realize that? We can sort any language out for ourselves.”

---“Then we’ll cook Indian English, won’t we?”

“No, we won’t---not if you do it my way.”

---“What’s your way?”

“This: first we map just where and how English behaves UNLIKE Indian languages. Then we figure out what we got to do about those. Then we map where we go wrong, and analyse why. Put that together, and Indians’ll figure it out for themselves.”

---“You make it sound so easy. Explained all that in your book, have you?”

“Of course, but even if the reviewers’d read it, they wouldn’t accept my method.”

---“Why not?”

“Because I’m an Indian, don’t you see? Indians believe no Indian can possibly have the answer to ANYTHING. They’ll want foreigners to certify it ---especially, whiteskins.”

---“Hmm . . . you’re all cut up, ain’t you? So how do you think Indians’ll get to learn today’s English?”

“Get the Chinese to teach it my way.”

---“But you just said Indians would never accept an Indian’s way.”

“If it comes through foreigners, they will. Native English speakers’re training the Chinese. So that’s phoren twice over.

---“Is that why you want Indians to learn English from the Chinese?”
“Yes, give the Chinese just about a decade.”

Gobbledygook at Work

“BUT . . .” I said flabbergasted, “what explains his charisma if people can’t understand him?”

“But don’t you see,” said Mrs Kumar, surprised at my naivety, “that’s just what his charisma’s all about . . . He spews old classical Tamil . . . scholars in Madurai might get some of it; people in Chennai can’t follow a word . . .”

“Good god!” I said. “He leads the masses, and not one in the herd can figure out what he utters . . . Tamil’s your mother tongue . . . can’t you follow what he says?.”

“No . . . well, a word here and there . . . but not enough to understand his speeches . . . but isn’t it the same in Bengal? Do the people there understand what Jyoti Basu says . . . or the others of what do you call it---Left Front?”

“Isn’t it the same with all our netas?”—Mr Kumar chipped in.

North-east monsoon showers had cooled Chennai, though the fan in Mr Kumar’s Thiruvanmiyur flat whirred rather too gently, I thought.

“You can view the beach from our balcony, you know . . .”

But I wasn’t interested in the surf. “Well, yes, Mr Jyoti Basu was never an orator . . . never completed a sentence . . .”

“Ah, there you are . . . and they voted Jyoti Babu to power every time, didn’t they? That proves the point doesn’t it? ---our netas always use language so it all adds up to nothing . . . at least nothing the common man can make head or tail of . . .”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Take Laloo Prasad . . . there’s a neta who breaks out into dehati ever so often, you know . . . right down to earth . . .”

“That’s only a stunt.” The diminutive Mr Kumar was a Kannadiga; had married a stout Tamil: both knew Hindi well; he’d worked mostly in Lucknow for a pharmaceutical firm. “Laloo’s a clever manipulator . . . he always played the buffoon . . . got the crowd giggling . . . here was their neta mouthing their very dialect, see? . . . they lapped it up . . . just swept dissent aside . . . so it boils down to the same thing, don’t you see? . . . The idea is to fool the people . . . our man here does it with high-flown Tamil . . . Laloo there used low-brow stuff . . .”

The plain-language campaigner in me felt uneasy. If Indians worship obscure language, I thought, what chance I’d ever succeed with my campaign?

The presentation I’d made for bigwigs of Kolkata Municipal Corporation came to mind. I’d strained four hours with a Powerpoint presentation, asking them if the language of their ads and public notices was at all what the ordinary person ever used. Their ads use strange Sanskritised coinages. Any of us ever heard the monstrosity atikraman? That’s the word KMC people chose to tell shopkeepers they must not encroach on pavements to display or dump their wares.
But a woman officer defended it: it was in their “official dictionary”. “But why do you use such a dictionary? Why don’t you go outside and hear what the ordinary man uses for ‘encroachment’?

Wouldn’t plain dakhal do?” I got a hostile stare.

Worse was to come. I showed them a 200-word paragraph from the Right to Information Act, worded in atrocious gobbledygook. “If the Right to information Act is worded in such obscure language, doesn’t it amount to denial of information?” I asked.

I then enthusiastically showed them my rendering of that chunk into 60 words of plain language, broken down into two sentences.

Nobody showed the slightest interest. I overheard two KMC officers admiring the 200-word slab. “All 200 words in a single sentence . . . a genius---wow!”

Mr Kumar went on to other things, but new light was dawning on me even as the evening darkened outside. Language, I’d always believed, had to convey sense. But here was irrefutable evidence we Indians worship babble!

Isn’t this why mountebanks and ‘godmen’ always succeed in our country? Suppose a political party were to field a vocal schizophrenic. Would his babble take the gang to victory at the hustings?

I shuddered, and didn’t want to face the probable answer.

The author’s website: http://www.clearenglish.in/