SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ELT IN INDIA

ABSTRACT The paper wants to argue that why English continues to enjoy sociological significance in India despite political freedom from British rule. New demands are emerging from the grassroots levels the Dalits and the villagers with their expectations conditioned by socio economic forces. ELT is facing challenges of providing quality education because of a vicious cycle of seemingly unavoidable problems. The paper tries to find a way out that might bring a change of the conditions. ARTICLE Despite political freedom from the British imperialism, English in India, more than ever, continues to enjoy sociological significance. Thomas Babington Macaulays Minutes on Indian Education presents his confidence that introducing English-language schools would civilize India. He emphasized that as the European languages civilized Russia, therefore, he says, I cannot doubt that they will do for Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar(Macaulay). Macaulay in India is now spurned by the intelligentsia, because of his Eurocentric notion of language and culture. It is needless to say that English is the practically working channel of communication between the varied linguistic compositions in the country. Even needless to say that it is the global lingua franca. That

English in the Indian context is a form of cultural capitalism at its purest, cannot be but emphasised. The second part of my paper is about the authentic institutions, by which I mean the educational institutions in India on which the academic stake holders count upon. However, these institutions continue to function just as para-academic bodies. Though there is much hype of English in India, it is a matter that causes anxiety as well. English is the language of higher education in India. However, without English medium root at the school level, one ends up with absolutely not good enough English. The dire situation is overshadowed by the condition that at the pinnacle we have a very small percentage of world class excellence. Because of mammoth population of India that small percentage is quite a large number of people who migrate out across the world and achieve extraordinary heights. This disguises ninety five percent or may be even higher of those who lag behind in oblivion. Reforms are taking place and it is being reflected in the education policies. Some of the states in India, like West Bengal, has resumed English teaching from the first year of school in the primary level after decades of castrating English from the primary level. The political party of the ruling government believed that the mother tongue should be given more emphasis, and the strange way out was by uprooting English from the primary curriculum. The same government now, not out of any

sudden epiphany, but by pressure from the grass root proletariats have taken recourse to English. Globalization has obviously brought new opportunities to those who know English. This is obviously in the voice based industries like international call centers and BPO agencies. The professionals working in these sectors have a quality of English that is often somewhat workable in the international scenario. Compared to the CEFR or other framework, the proficiency will probably be much lower than what is actually desired. Contemporary discourses in newspapers and articles tell us that India has not engaged itself seriously with the idea of multilingual education. This implies that Indian education policies in its practice tend to undermine the need of multilingual education. The global market is opening up newer scopes in India, where there is real need of educated people who can work in several languages with competency. Now the situation will be more complicated, as we go further. English is not just the language of higher education; it is also the language of business, finance and the corporate world. Therefore there is a need for getting people up to the terms of the CEFR before they leave school; but there is hardly anyone near the mark. We can get them to that by starting very early. There is no doubt that India needs to start delivering quality English language right at the beginning of primary education. But if we consider the situation in India, it is possibly the worst place to start. In

our first few years of certain government schools, the teachers who are teaching are coming through a completely different training. The educational background of the teachers reveals that they never learnt English, particularly those belonging to the rural areas. We can hardly provide quality English education in the first and second standards in government schools in most of the parts in India. It is a long journey to go on. If we try doing it rapidly or assume that the job is done in terms of educational progress, the result will be disastrous. There are demands that at present cannot be readily met with. We need teachers who know English, who have enthusiasm and can work. But here lies another catch: if we teach a primary school teacher good English, s/he can earn a lot more money elsewhere in the economic system than in rural primary schools. Next we would like to probe into the matter that why people at the grass root level, people of rural areas and Dalits, want English. They are one of the major sects in the society who believe that English is the source of economic mobility, geographic mobility and the only agent to achieve social justice. But can a language really deliver all those? English in India does certainly give geographical mobility; because English, of whatsoever standard, is the language of communication among the linguistically divided state. But when people look forward to the voice based industry and think it to be the site of attaining economic mobility, they are perhaps

over expecting. It is an emerging sector and hardly there is any study that tells us that it can be the backbone of Indias economy. However, it is probably not to overemphasize to say that English can act as a tool for social and political justice allowing individuals and groups to overcome caste barrier. English education allowed cohering people of various linguistic groups in a national platform to fight for independence. Dalits were left out, devoid of English education. In the same way as the independence movement relied on English, the Dalits want to cohere themselves who are distributed among people speaking multiple languages using English as a tool. It appears that many of them feels uncomfortable in the way they are imprisoned in their own languages; about the way the caste system is reproduced through the very vocabulary of the discourse of their own language. So to escape from it they feel it necessary to escape out of the bondage of language. We cannot argue English to be a liberal language but it does not carry the caste specific positioning which is integral part of their imprisonment. Recently BBC on 14th February 2011 aired a news that the Dalit community is constructing a temple, for a new goddess, goddess of English Language(Pandey), in Banka village of Uttar Pradesh with the flagship of a noted Dalit writer Chandra Bhan Prasad. The English goddess is modeled on the Statue of Liberty. Prasad believes such initiative will motivate the Dalits to encourage their children to learn

English, which in turn will transform their lives and make them job worthy and help them gain social and economic mobility. The discrimination is extended to education too with the school system dominated by the higher castes. Even today in many rural schools, Dalit children are often made to sit and eat separately their midday meal. When on one hand such desperate attempts are seen on the part of the oppressed to come up in life, on the other hand their efforts are being counter fired by caste based discriminations. For instance, Meera, a Dalit woman from Bisakhedi village of Dewas district in Uttar Pradesh reports that Dalit children are made to sit separately during meal time.(Documentation)

It is essential to take measure in teacher development through orientation programs that will make teachers sensitive enough that will prevent them from indulging into caste apartheid. I want to make a strong point here that ideologies govern our attitudes in the society and any social institution like school. The problem is neither with what we know, nor is the problem with what we dont; but the problem is that we dont know what we actually know. To put it in other words this is what Marx defines as ideology in its most elementary form in Capital encapsuled in one phrase, They do not know but they are doing it. Slavoj Zizek in the modus operandi of any ideology in the subconscious; says, The fundamental level of ideology, however, is not an illusion

masking the real state of things but that of an unconscious fantasy structuring our social reality itself(Zizek 30) Ideology can be changed through a psychological training which is commonly known as education. Necessary emphasis should be given to subaltern and Dalit literature in the English major curriculum in the institutes of higher education culturing future teachers and as well as those in service through teacher-training programs. This is one of the major roles which English departments of higher academic institutions have to play because it is this language in India to which the marginalized stake holders have high expectations. Only then education can be meaningful and schools will become sites of social inclusion.

WORKS CITED Discrimination in MP schools alive and kicking. Action Aid International. 2006?. Web. 30 Apr. 2011. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Minutes. 2 Feb. 1835. np: np: 24 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2011 Pandey, Geeta. An English goddess for Indias down-trodden. BBC South Asia. BBC News Banka village, Uttarpradesh. 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2011. iek, Slavoi. The Sublime Object of Ideology.London:Verso Books, 1989. Print.