The mystique of Managementspeak

IT ALL BEGAN with Sathya’s e-mail.

“In our company,” Sathya mailed Deb, “when someone seeks a superior’s help with a problem, they call it escalate”.

Sathya’d quoted a sentence:
’In the event the Senior Support Executive is unable to resolve the problem, the issue is escalated to the Support, QA, Product Managers---in that order.’
“It doesn't sound right,” Sathya’d written, “but my manager says the term’s used in our organization.”

“And what did you tell her?” Chhanda asked.

“I told her”, said Deb: “ ‘If your manager sucks his foot into his mouth and insists on keeping it there, don’t suggest he quit eating toes---he'll only victimize you’. . . Spirited little Tamil girl; training to be a technical writer; mails queries now and then.”

“You should’ve told her most Indian males talk patent NONSENSE,” Anjum said. “They rant automatic expressions. In the highly unlikely event you can get ’em to understand it’s rant, they’ll still say ‘But it is used’.

Deb agreed: “I guess his mug-and-vomit education makes the Indian a zombie. He gets no soft skill training in school---speaking or writing. Gets so used NEVER to using his head that he refuses to weigh what he blurts. He utters---or mutters it---only because ‘it’s used’.

“Why ‘Indians’?” Chhanda sounded cross. “Indians don’t have monopoly over inflated language, surely?”

“No,” said Deb. “I guess Yanks take the cake.”

“Hey, let’s not generalise,” said Anjum. “The Yanks’re always for plain language. It’s their politicians and their masters---those who oil America’s war machine---that cook up Pentagon’s doublespeak and Weapons of Mass Obfuscation.”

Deb mused aloud: “And who’s behind American MBAspeak?”

“The latest fad,” snorted Anjum. “On the Net I saw how a corporate training director described his function:
“ ‘My job,’ he said, “ ‘is to ensure proper process deployment activities take place to support process institutionalization and sustainment. Business process management is the core deliverable of my role, which requires that I identify process competency gaps and fill those gaps’.”

“Sounds hideous,” Chhanda wrinkled her little nose. “What’s it mean?”

“ ‘I'm the training director’,” said Anjum. “That’s all.”

“The MBA pestilence has spread, y’know,” Deb said. “It’s screwed sales talk, ad talk too. How about this:
‘Performance metrics consistently indicate an exceptional consumer-measured response to the proliferation of our creative deliverables.’

“Is that meant to mean something?” Chhanda pouted in disgust.

“That’s sales management lingo,” said Deb. “For: 'Sales are up since we started the new ads.' Get it?”

“No, I don’t get it at all,” Chhanda said sharply.

Deb explained with his Virgo clarity: “It’s a jackass’s con game: take a familiar word like product; and stretch it to an abstraction. A product is delivered to the consumer. So the jackass uses deliverable instead. When you don’t understand his rant, the jackass plays egghead, and tells you condescendingly that’s managementspeak. To bray louder than another, each jackass strings abstract nouns to muddle sense: nouns ending with ~ation, ~ment ~sion, ~tion. Some of their staple: utilization, realization, upgradation, implementation, procurement, engagement, incentivize, facilitate, synergistic, and so on. If the jackass is American, he’ll go for noun strings; if an Indian, he’ll go for abstract nouns and participles.

“Many of them’ll go for terms such as competency---in the belief that’s more high-sounding than competence. A favourite among them is the ‘~able’ tag. NGOs did the same with their adjectives: sustainable development, and what have you shit. Maybe we should coin a word for these consters: asscons, perhaps?

Here Kanchan tweaked the focus: “Chhanda, Anjum didn’t say just ‘Indians’; he said ‘Indian males’.”

“Hey, I know where that’ll lead,” said Deb. “Let’s not start a battle of the sexes.”

“You don’t like the truth how males spew crap, eh?” Kanchan jabbed.

“Testosterone at work,” Anjum muttered mysteriously.

That flabbergasted Chhanda: “Is that Anjumspeak? What’s with the male hormone and gobbledygook?”

Kanchan took over: “The male hormone spurs gobbledygook. Testosterone gives the cock its comb, the peacock its strut, and the vainglorious male his blather . . . y’see Chhanda, Anjum got the bull by the horns. Ever heard a woman spew crap? It’s always men. Men never grow up; they only grow senile. The braggart schoolboy becomes the buncombe, the windbag, the loudmouth . . .”

“Whoa!” Deb stopped her. “I knew this’d lead nowhere. Yes, MBAs spew stupid jargon. They’ve spewed so much of it they’ve achieved a communication black-out. Their business letters, brochures and client presentations are polysyllabic hogwash, spattered with abstract-noun strings. Their mountebank instructors stuff trainees with bullshit way too much for the space inside their skulls, and it spills over as blather. But the shit’s in their brains, not between their legs.”

“You scratch only the surface, man,” Anjum cut in. “Dig deeper, and you’ll see a whole culture of fanfaronnade. The Indian male always jettisons meaning and jumps to drivel--- prefers form to substance; mumbo-jumbo to clarity; buzzwords to specifics. Just read our English-language newspaper editorials.

“Dig deeper yet, and you’ll see how chanting meaningless mantra has screwed our culture.

“Spew a fad mantra, and watch it froth. Take driven. The management-wallahs tell us of market forces being impact-driven; tie-ups relationship-driven; business initiatives mission-driven.

“Their pep talk asks salesmen to become target-driven; communicators content-driven; accountants data-driven, women secretaries engagement-driven, and all executives vision-driven. And for variety, values-driven.

“They’ll advise managers to promote data-driven interaction; introduce data-driven metrics, ensure data-driven deliverables.

“And all that mumbo-jumbo, they’ll tell you, will bring about a new data-driven drive in India’s corporate world.”

“Only,” Deb chimed in, “they’ll first need data-driven data.”

“The truth,” said Anjum, getting at Chhanda, “is that Indians are to gobbledygook born, and Indian males are gobbledygook-driven.”

Dinosaurs on the Campus.

DEB LET FLY that India’s education system could only turn students into dinosaurs.

Predictably, Anjum jumped at this. Anjum’s a Gemini: you’ve only to throw an idea his way and he’ll tear at it like a puppy a pair of old leather slippers. “What else can you expect when our universities stick to their Sepoy Mutiny syllabi? They’re Jurassic Parks, man.”

Chhanda, petite, babyfaced just-retired professor of English, forever the vacillating Libra, decided on a public defence of the system (though in private she mostly deplores everything about it). “I don’t think it’s all that different in other countries,” she said.

That irked the tall, fair Pathan. Anjum focused his well-groomed white goatee on Chhanda indignantly: “In which other country can you find dinosaurs grazing on a university campus?”

Chhanda smelt an insult to her clan. “I’ve spent an entire career on a college campus, and I don’t think I’m a dinosaur. First be specific what you mean.” Her second sentence trailed off into a gurgly whisper: she always swallows her sentence endings.

“I’ll tell you,” said Anjum. “It was only after the Sepoy Mutiny that the Brits invested in education in India. They believed Indians wouldn’t have mutinied if only they’d been educated about what do-gooders the Brits were. Inspired by Macaulay’s idea of creating a class of wog collaborators, right?”

Chhanda played huffy: “Maybe. And so?”

“And so,” Anjum went on, “by 1859, two years after the Mutiny, they’d built five universities: Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Allahabad, and Lahore. Their syllabi must’ve been drawn up in a hurry, right?”

“I don’t know; I wasn’t there”, Chhanda pouted.

Anjum fluttered his long eyelashes, and smiled sarcastically: “No, you weren’t. But you’ve just retired after a career chewing the syllabus they cooked up after the Mutiny. Began with the same old Romantics and ended with the Victorians--- where the Jurassic world of your university ends.”

Here I chipped in: “Only, when they drew up the English syllabus, they were ultra-modern. They prescribed poets like Browning, and novelists like Dickens, who were still writing then.”

“Really?” asked Anjum.

“You bet”, I expanded. “Browning came into form with his dramatic monologues around Mutiny time. Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities was published the year of the Mutiny. Thomas Hardy wrote his poems in the 1860s---soon after the Mutiny, then went on to novels . . .”

Here David, the tall, unassuming American who’d married a Malayalee girl, groaned exasperated: “But to go on with such antediluvian stuff to this day . . .”

“But can’t you see the design behind keeping things that way?” The Pathan would now come up with one of his conspiracy theories, I thought. And he did: “What purpose do these universities serve? The Brits wanted ’em to brainwash Indians into being their lackeys. Now India’s ruling classes use teachers the same way.”

Her alabaster babyface reddening, Chhanda shot back at Anjum: “I don’t know that I’ve been used; you tell me how.”

Anjum tore at his leather slippers: “You teachers’re made to dole out things that mean nothing to your students. What the hell in Hardy’s writing can the Indian identify with, tell me? But that’s the stuff and nonsense you shove down their gullets. They’ve to memorise so much irrelevant muck.”

That stung Chhanda to the quick. “I never asked my students to memorise anything, ever. Can we stop them buying bazaar notes and mugging them? Their parents encourage them.”

“Only because you teachers award marks for such muck”, Anjum retorted. “The idea is to cripple students. So they come out of those Jurassic Parks with yesteryear’s mindset. No dissent, all conformity, gobbling all that’s thrown at ’em . . . mindless zombies.”

“Are you trying to say we teachers turn them into zombies?” Chhanda was on the verge of tears here.

“I wouldn’t flatter teachers,” Anjum was relentless. “Teachers are equally zombies who never protest against the system. They’re groomed to become part of the system. They don’t even realize they’re used to numb young minds into torpor.”

Here David tried to turn down the heat. “Yes, but what’s the way out?”

The Pathan was in his element now. “The way out is for students to get together and shove those fossils away from their syllabus committees, or whatever they’re called . . . demand that students must have their representatives on such committees.”

“Hah!” Chhanda was now mocking. “You think students will protest? And as for students on the syllabus committee, Jadavpur University has such a plan.”

Oh no, not the J.U. hogwash,” Anjum moaned. “J.U.’s the CPI-M’s den. That’d be a CPI-M trick only to get all students in their bag. Brainwash ’em into their vote bank, that’s all.”

“How the hell would you want it to be?” Chhanda was sharp.

“You teachers gotta get students to be argumentative,” said Anjum, “and not gobble whatever you dole out. But no, you turn them into non-think tanks. Just what suits the ruling classes: so many unthinking voters who’ll never question how the CPI-M’s been ruling for three decades now; be smug with the status quo.”

“Three decades of unbroken rule?” said David. “Whew! And nobody has doubts?”

“If you can halt thinking, you can kill doubting,” said Deb. “Brits didn’t want dissent; our rulers want no dissent either.”

Then he added after his mathematical bent: “In India, literacy and illiteracy are directly proportional. Our educational institutes are programmed to promote ignorance about the ways of our rulers---so they can rule peacefully. Amen!”

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."

The Black Gold of Brittany

“DON’T BELIEVE we’re still a British colony?”

---“What nonsense is this?”

“Look: the State Government’s asked the British Council to train teachers.”

---“Just a business deal. Why see a colonial ghost in it?”

“Know what the Council does?”

---“Umm . . . guess they work for the uplift of the standard of English . . .”

“And like missionaries, scatter wisdom about the English language, eh?”

---“Dunno about the missionary bit, but guess they’re authoritative about British English.”

“Ah, authoritative---the very fountainhead of wisdom on English, eh?”

---“Well, er . . . they’re meticulous. They’ve carved the world into EFL and ESL zones, y’know : places where English is taught as a Foreign Language and as a Second Language.”

“And they’re the experts how to teach in each zone, right?”

---”Cut the sarky stuff; spill the beans, will you?

“Been wondering . . . found this in the Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur, Oxford: OUP, 1992.”

---“That’s authoritative. What does it say?”

“This:
‘In 1989, the [then] director general [of the British Council] Sir Richard Francis, said in an interview: 'Britain's real black gold is not oil, but the English language' (to William Greaves, The Times, 24 Oct 1989).

‘He referred to the Council as brokers who assisted the British ELT industry to promote a product around the world, adding that
'it's difficult to quantify [English] as a national resource. . .’

---“ELT . . . that’s English Language Teaching, right? And it’s their
INDUSTRY? Oh my god!”

“And the Council’s gotta act as its BROKERS.”

---“Hmm . . . and sell ELT packages across the globe---how much do they make?”

“Must be phenomenal. The Council chief said that was Britain’s real black gold. Like they once sold Birmingham steel to the colonies, eh? And the former colonies lap it all up---just as they once lapped up British goods.”

---“Or were made to---like opium they once shoved down Chinese gullets.”

“And when the Chinese would’ve no more, they started the Opium War: how the hell dare they refuse when the Brits wanted to sell the stuff, eh?”

---“But do you doubt the British Council’s expertise?”

“Read about the The Royal Literary Fund study in March '06?”

---“Didn’t the newspapers headline that ‘British undergraduates can’t write English’?”

“That's the one; was based on evidence from 71 universities. They’d 130 professional writers on the project; found even English literature students in elite universities couldn’t write a clear sentence. Hey, if the Council’s frothing with expertise, how come Brit universities don’t seek its help, huh?”

---“You’re on the dot there . . . but what’s wonky about those ELT packages?”

“Don’t you see, people in former colonies can’t ever identify with ELT packages cobbled by Brits who know nothing of their languages, or anything about them.”

---“How’d you want them---in Hindi for Indians, in Malay for the Malaysians . . .?”

“Partly, yes. They could use Hindi sentences and their English equivalents to show how English behaves UNLIKE our languages. Indians would then understand the difference. And they’d also have to have something the people can identify with . . . like reference points. Ditto for all other languages and cultures.”

---“Why don’t you suggest that to the Council?”

“You crazy? It’s the Council’s job to sell those packages, not explore how those’d work better.”

---“Why don’t you tell our education authorities?”

“But I did. After many a mail, the Secretary for Higher Education referred me to the Directorate of Public Instruction. The DPI chief said that wasn’t his business. The Institute of English said it would send its assessment of my proposal to the DPI. The Pro-Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University said he’d read what I’d given him; would get back to me later. Been over three months; he never will.”

---“Any idea why?”

“Can’t prove it, of course; but First World countries always stage Bofors in Third World ones, don’t they?”

---“You mean some people in former colonies that buy the ELT packages get paid under the table?”

“Well, whichever politicos can okay the deal, I guess. The East India Company paid the old Rajah or Maharajah to trade in his territory. Territory-grabbing began soon after. Obsolete guns, submarines, helicopters, obsolete phone exchange gadgetry, ELT packages, toxic waste, or just muck--- anything the First World wanna dump. You name it; the game’s the same: loot the wogs.”

---“You mean the education authorities in former colonies don’t evaluate those ELT packages?”

“Hah! whether a phoren thingy’s bogus or no; they work, or they don’t; the politico mafia in Third World countries pass ’em once their pockets get lined---and Bob’s your uncle!”

---“But if Indians don’t make something better, that’ll go on here too, won’t it?”
“If Indians do make something better, that’ll be IGNORED---unless our politico mafia gets its kickback. And Indians won’t touch anything home-made and not smelling phoren, see? Man, it’s the mindset. Once a colony, always a colony---amen!”

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/