English off the curriculum in India
If you have made a customer service call in the last few years from the UK or the US, your call may have been answered in one of the many call centres in Indian cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai, which handle customer service enquiries for a large number of UK and US companies.
Bangalore has gained a reputation as the “world’s back office”, an “information-technology outsourcing champion”, says the Toronto Star. But it is a reputation which could be in jeopardy if state government plans to close schools which continue to teach in English, rather than the local language Kannada, go ahead.
You only have to look at the changing names of Indian cities (Calcutta to Kolkata, Bombay to Mumbai) to see the success of movements to promote indigenous languages and shake off colonial-era legacies. But the move to change the language of education in Karnataka state (of which Bangalore is the capital) has sparked criticism from educators, parents and, of course business leaders who say that Bangalore could”lose its competitive edge if it shuns one of its greatest assets”.
What do you think? Is English indispensable for India to continue its economic rise? Or should the trend to promote indigenous languages over English continue? Post a comment below…
February 19th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
This is an interesting issue – maybe especially so because I think for a lot of people English (as opposed to Hindi) is the “neutral” option. People would rather learn English, a “second” language for mostly everyone, than be compelled to speak Hindi, a first language for many in India.
I spent five months in India in 2005, and the linguistic diversity is really amazing. But the languages are different enough that, as far as I understand, they are really not (all) mutually intelligible, as, for example, many Slavic languages are.
I guess I don’t see English “going away” completely in part because of the economic angle, but in part because I still think non-Hindi speakers prefer it to Hindi…and without one of those languages, people within India will not be able to communicate with each other. If some schools (the older ones, the article implies) are allowed to continue, English may become more expensive and exclusive…but I don’t think the demand will vanish.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Why not try bilingual instruction (such as half the day in each language)?
April 3rd, 2010 at 12:10 am
I agree with Katie. As opposed to what most Westerners believe, Indian languages are not really as mutually intelligible and people often fall back on English in a neutral and formal situation instead of Hindi.
Even though it is the national language, Hindi is often bastardized in different parts of Indian with local slang or the native regional language and the purer form of the language is almost exclusively used in the northern regions – or maybe not.
Well, English is sadly being out on the back burner by self-serving politicians but with any luck, Indians will be able to see through that and continue to use and love the beauty and expressiveness of the English language. And hopefully, given the cost of education in the better schools, if the cost goes up, the demand may be in jeopardy.
P.S.: Couldn’t resist…do people in the West really expect the cream of Indian professionals to be sitting in call centres when they outsource to India and then whine?