Speaking in Tongues, Partie Trois

Today I was reading an article on Rediff.com about some Dalit (low-caste) activist in India claiming that the only way India can be successful and have no ethnic and caste based issues is by getting rid of all the other languages spoken in the country. His solution is to make English the ONLY language.

The activist, Chandra Bhan, feels as if removing the rest of the languages in India would create harmony and unity between the caste structure.

I myself find that hard to believe in a society like India, where you can't force people to do only one thing, and that is speak only in English. Currently, India cannot make its population of a billion plus to accept Hindi as its national language, so what makes this guy think that this would be possible?

And English, being a foreign language, is not something that will be accepted as the only language so easily. Even to this day, the language draws ire from people who feel it is the remnant of the British Raj. Though that being the case, India is very well off due to those remnants. The IT industry, call centers (although some might argue), and current economic influx in the country are a big indicator of that.

As I have written before, I feel language is a key to people's identity. Knowing about India, or Indians more like it, everyone is different and unique due to their cultural ethos. Language is one primary part of it. Me being a Maharashtrian and Marathi speaking sets me apart from the Gujaratis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Tamilians, and whoever and what not from the desi community. There are differences, which do set us apart, yet there is a lot to learn when you have different cultural aspects to things in life.

I feel that the emancipation of the lower caste people or certain races is not related to language at all, although to a certain degree it might. Looking at the African-American population over here, their gradual rise hasn't been due to language, but more due to the educational and economic resources available to them. And of course with education, comes language. But even with that being said, it wasn't that African-Americans weren't speaking in English before that. So it wasn't that common factor of language that led American society to gradually accept African-Americans over time.

Changes in society usually don't happen overnight, and with India it is hard to accept such things will happen. What is ingrained in society for centuries isn't going to die down so easily. Steps have been put into place to give more accessibility for lower caste people, but still they lag far behind. As I said, it won't happen overnight. Majority of India's population lies in the villages and small towns, which doesn't come across a cosmopolitan brand of life like in Mumbai or New Delhi, where you have to accept these differences. Old traditions such as socially set barriers don't die down so easily in small places. That is not to say that caste differences don't exist in big cities, but those differences have gradually lessened.

As for language, English is the key to gain a place in modern day Indian society and even in this world, especially a good job. But it doesn't mean you have to forget your "mother's" language.