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India Shining - The Death of Angrezi Hatao
Shantanu Dutta
Angrezi Hatao! or "Down With English!" was once a very potent slogan in the fifties and the sixties. It was part of a political campaign which made the destiny of many politicians of the time on either side of the language divide. Prominent names who come to mind as leaders in the Hatao movement are Ram Manohar Lohia and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, then with the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. The country had gained independence from the British and the English language was considered the most visible symbol of that rule and one that needed to be abolished as quickly as possible. Indeed, the constitution itself stipulated that English would be in use as a transitional measure for fifteen years and from Republic Day, 1965, Hindi was to be the sole official language.
Indeed with towering figures like Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru wanting Hindi too, it would not have been difficult to impose Hindi and displace English. That it did not happen and indeed the Official Languages Act of 1963 was enacted allowing English to continue was primarily because of one man and one movement, the Tamil Nadu based DMK and the Dravidian movement which loathed Hindi and the North Indian domination that they associated the language with.
With a violent anti-Hindi agitation taking a separatist turn, and the DMK coming to power in 1967, on a largely anti Hindi platform, English was finally given some place under the sun as an associate official language with the clear understanding that one day an atmosphere would be created that would allow Hindi to be the sole official language. But the Dravidian parties have held continuous sway since that election victory in 1967 and kept up their unrelenting opposition to Hindi and gradually the fire to impose Hindi died out.
Hindi, however, enjoyed state patronage in the cow belt, as did the various regional languages in their respective states, thus gradually chipping away at English by restricting its use in official correspondence, reducing its importance in school syllabi and glorification of the mother tongue.
The turning point for English probably came with Rajiv Gandhi, a man very visibly more comfortable with English than with Hindi. Although he just lived to serve one term, the changes he set in motion outlived him. The next regime to last a full term after his – that of Narasimha Rao - brought in reforms that English more or less indispensable. The last nail on the Angrezi Hatao campaign was nailed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, one of the earliest war horses of the anti English movement when he ran an election campaign based largely on an English slogan “India Shining” and introduced reforms and policies that have for the moment at least, made English virtually irreplaceable.
All these years however, the Hindi states continued to promote Hindi, even as savvy states like Gujarat and slow moving behemoths like the Left Front in Bengal gradually abandoned the emphasis on the mother tongue they had hitherto promoted. Their interest was in playing catch up with the Southern States which promoted English instead of Hindi and where knowledge economy businesses began to flow naturally. Present chief minister Mayawati’s decision to introduce English in schools from Class I itself is in that sense the end of an era with states like Uttar Pradesh, which earlier eschewed English, having done a 180-degree switch, realizing that it is increasingly the only way to transact with a wider world.
Today, Mulayam Singh Yadav is the only known figure still to favor Angrezi Hatao and is known to hold the conviction that English has been the major stumbling block in the development of regional languages in the country. He has gone to the extent of terming it as "the language of destruction, which has had a telling impact on the economy of the country". But considering his principal lieutenants like Amar Singh are silent on the subject and are themselves quite comfortable in English, it is not known how much of Mulayam’s polemics is for the gallery.
Come what may, with the silent decline and death of the anti-English movement, which was once an extremely emotive issue has definitely come to an end. And probably very few are even noticing its passing.
Harsha
July 3, 2008
01:33 AM
I see it as a continous flux.
There is another way of looking at it. The regional languages have grown using english.
I being a techie marvelled at the way I could type tamil/telgu/punjabi/malyallam literals even though I never knew it just using english. This in a Indi Yahoo Plug in.
The level of english among commoners has decreased with the Tech age. I know more computer languages than regional languages. I have recently started learning the new lingua franca of Internet as well. My english is just street usage. But my tech language is good.
Another intresting contender is the Mandarin Language. Sooner or later, Chinese dominance will make our MBAs to have that language also in their biodata.
In short, India is an huge state of Flux, culture, technological, regional and colonial english replaced by american english.
Amar Shildi
July 3, 2008
02:11 AM
We should have all praises for the DMK which resulted in making English irreplaceable,
and put an end to forcing Hindi on non Hindi States
K R Iyer
July 3, 2008
05:29 AM
Learning a language is not a sin. But karunanidhi and his hooligans completely barred one full generation from learning a language which is spoken widely in India. But he was very clever. He allowed his son, daughters grand sons to learn the language so that they could excel in Hindi land. I met an old man recently, who was ruing, because he could not speak Hindi, his promotion was delayed in Bank and he could not cope up well when he was posted in a northern Indian city. Now the situation has changed. You can see a lot of ads coming up for Hindi coaching in Chennai. Most of the parents prefer that their wards learn Hindi and hence prefer CBSE schools. But what happened to that generation which was not allowed to learn an important language, which could have helped them seek career enhancement? No answer from MR MK.
Man Singh
URL
July 3, 2008
02:19 PM
There ia no doubt that to be get a good `naukari' (become serant) all over the globe English is pretty important tool.
There is no harm in mastering any skill to build career including mastering the language.
But when English is used a symbol of supereority over poor less-educated people it damages the self respect of people.
Purpose of Angreji hatao was simply a demand for a level field playing, a uniform competition between a villager and convent educated person.
How come a village boy whose teacehers themselves do not know English can perform equally with convent educated person in a UPSC interview even if this village boy is more intelligent and hard working.
The demand for Angreji hatao was mainly focussed on providing equal opportunity to all Indians.
Either English for all or Mother tongues for all.
The dangerous results are open out here.
5 Crore English speaking elite are enjoying 95% wealth of India and remaining 100 crore are leading their life with less then a dollor a day.
This is exactly what Englihs educated elite of British generation wanted and that's what exactly hapening. It is sort of linguistic feudalism and can not be supported.
But no country on the earth has developed because of English.
Japan, germary, China, Korea, France, Spain, Switzerland or you name any?
English educated elite has become very good servants9Naukars) all over the globe and that's the ultimate contribution a foreign language can make. It can make you a very good naukar.
English could not produce great philosophers, artists, musicians, researchers , sportspersons in spite of consuming 95% of India's wealth.
English can never produce bussiness leaders, Thinkres, noble prize winners and humanists like Sri Ram Krishna or Swami Dayananda whose DAV chain of schools is the single largest NGO in education sector all over the globe.
If India's choice is to become a Naukar of the ex-British colonieys definietly English should be promoted at cost of Mother tongues.
If India wants to produce great human beings it has to educate its people in mother tongue of course there is no harm in exceling English to promote the ideas these Mother Tongue educated thinkers will produce.
As I mentioned earlire 5% English educated elites parasites have gobbled up 95% of our resources, rural India has left abandoned without any education English or non english?
It is matter of mourning if a prostitute has captured my house and kicked my mom out of it with a lure that she can bring more money then my pious mother. Therefore there is nothing to celebrtaed in death of angreji hatao movement.
It has simply made life of average Indians more uncomfortable. readers or writers in DC are not average Indians they are much above average Indians.
RukmaniRam
URL
July 18, 2008
01:14 AM
Having largely lived in urban, metropolitan India, I valued English as an essential tool. But when I started moving around different cities in India, I realized the urgent need to master Hindi as well. Agreed, Hindi is spoken fairly consistently in all of north India, and can come in pretty handy when you are in the east/west too. But I probably would have suffered when I was in Kerala if I knew no English at all!
Personally, I find the need to glorify one language and put down another rather petty!
tunnelvision
URL
July 18, 2008
05:57 AM
It's one more example of politicians pandering to fear psychosis of such non-issues.
English has provided the important link to the world and will continue to do so.
I am still amazed by "they and us" antagonistic paradigm propagated by Mr. Man Singh.
Let us not forget the "Perato Principal":
Most results will come from small segments.
Even with wider distribution of wealth, few will continue to have control most of resources due to skills, inheritances and other historical reasons.
Anzregi Hatao has benefited only crafty politicians and not the common people.
Due to their inherently anti west stand, communists have deprived the common people of West Bengal English language and they have fallen back on most of economic parameters.
Man Singh
URL
July 18, 2008
01:08 PM
Dear TV # 6
`us' and `they' is a ground reality we like it or not. Though every human being has every right to close his/her eyes from very visible hard truths of life and global society. If a pigeon closes its eyes when cat is preying on it, its foolishnbess of pigeon only though I give this pigeon full freedom to do whatever way its dealing with cat. Result is well known though.
In any part of teh world this `us' and `they' is very much existing no matter how rude uncivilised or narrowmindd it sounds.
Look at native Americans, native first nation of Canada, natives of Australia and newzealand or South America. They stll surviwe with their culture language and religions badly wounded by foreign invaders. Of course nowadays inheritors of these crime against humanity by invaders are apologising to these natives. Queen of England did it to Australian natives and recently parliament of Canada did it to Natives of Canada.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan Egypt and many other countries native civilisations has been completely eliminated and inheritors of tose crime against humanity are rather glorifying the invaders and language culture and religion imposed on them. So is the case with Pakistan and Bangla Desh.
Yes I do agree that learning English improves chances to become good `naukar' in many countries. But many counbtries have developed without English. France, Germany, Itali, Holland, Russia, China, japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and many more countries have developed along with their own languages and they learnt English as and when required voluntarily and never imposed.
In India and other ex-slaves of Britain this false propaganda is prevailing that you can not develope without this language of ex-masters who enslaved you for 190 years.
learning any foreign language definitely enhances the ability of a person to fetch `naukari' and that's why management gurus ate recommending learning chinese to become sucessfull managers.
Again I admit that to become a good `naukar' in ex-slave countries of Britain English is the best tool. But if India has to progress as a nation, as a civilisation and wants to establish itself in a respectable position in global community, its people have to learn to respect its culture, languages and religions.
Otherwise it will face insults at every international platform exactly the way China has done recently by not inviting its prime minister to Olympics opening ceremoney in spite of Govt of India's expression of extereme loyality to china during Olympic Mashal passing through India.
India's Aukat will be treated as `ex-slave' of Britain and nothing more then that as long as we identify ourselves with English language.
Again I am repeating learning any language to enhance our economy is always good. But if that language is leading us to loose our identity, out nationality, our civilisational values and provides us an ststus of `ex-slave' its not worth.
We should resepct neighbours mother course but should not abandon our own if we want to lead a respectable life no matter how rich beautiful and educated neighbours mom is and how ugly, illetral and poor our real mom is.
tunnelvision
URL
July 19, 2008
11:36 AM
Dear Man Singh # 7
I have had opportunities to deal extensively with Chinese. It is indeed very difficult to decipher so many hidden meanings and motivations of what they do and tell upfront.
Are you suggesting that China would have invited Indian prime minister, if in their opinion we had respected our culture? At the same time we do know that are the reasons for not inviting him too.
Harping back on some sordid historical events, real and imaginary injustices does not help in any way other than inciting hatred based on the past.
When the world is moving to be associative and collaborative, some learned persons are still stuck in stinking glue of past prejudices.
It's strange that being in service (Naukari) is taken as such a bad thing to do.
Long live prejudices... we need to fight till death...and destroy societies or at least hold back progress.
Lets do some real cost and benefit analysis of learning Angrezi and arrive at conclusions.
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