Speaking English, like
Indians By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - In India, with a sizable population
of English speakers, the language is not just a medium.
It can lend itself to various permutations, while
Indians - with their distinct delivery - add to
Indianisms that further enrich the spoken word. English
is the global language - the success of India's
information technology and business processing and
outsourcing industries is pegged on knowledge of
English. Around the world, Chinese and even Germans are
starting their kids off with an English-language curriculum.
With the language being so deep-seated, English
plays a multifarious role in this country. It divides
the haves and have-nots, as there is a connection
between economic progress and English speakers. English
is a political tool to appeal to the vast masses that do
not even have access to basic education in their local
language. And it can take various forms. For instance, K
S Sudershan, chief of the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh,
the right-wing ideological arm of the Sangh Parivar that
also comprises the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party,
recently said that an English education exposes children
to lesbianism and casual sex.
Sudershan's rant
against the "alien tongue" included assertions that
English simply cannot rival the rich vocabulary and
emotional texture of India's regional languages that
should be used to the research level. To those more
clued into the Indian political scene, Sudershan's
attack was aimed more against the Christian missionaries
who work with the poor and impart the English language.
(The Sangh Parivar is wedded to Hindutva, a philosophy
that promotes majority Hindu rule.)
Socialists, including prominent regional political satraps such as
Mulayam Singh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) and Laloo Prasad
Yadav (Bihar), publicly espouse an anti-English stance to
appeal to parochial and regional sentiments.
Hindi-medium schools are encouraged in the two states,
while the children of both of the leaders have actually
studied in expensive English private schools and abroad.
Obviously, people like Laloo, Mulayam and
Sudarshan know a bit more about Indian politics than
most. Given the state of mass poverty with little or no
hope of social mobility, its appeals are based on
religion, caste and language that coalesce a vote base.
Laloo once famously said that computers are anti-poor,
though one of his sons-in-law works for Infosys, an
Indian software giant. More recently, Laloo has said
that the floods that have inundated Bihar, drowning
hundreds, are pro-poor, as expensive fish cultivated in
fisheries and available only to the rich are now
swimming freely to be caught and consumed. It's God's
way of delivering justice - live fish for dead humans.
Noted journalist Dileep Padgaonkar quoted an
incident in a recent article: "At a public meeting a
famous Marathi poet held forth on the scant interest
that Maharashtrian youth took in their language. He
cited the example of his granddaughter. She lived and
studied in America. Over the years she had forgotten her
Marathi. Cut off from her roots, the poet said, she was
an Indian only in name."
Echoing Martin Luther
King, the poet then turned lyrical: "I have a dream. I'm
walking through the forest adjoining my native village.
Suddenly I hear a haunting melody. I approach a clearing
where I find a young girl tending half a dozen goats. It
was her voice that I had heard. And she was singing one
of my very own poems. At that instant I knew that if
Marathi survives at all it will be thanks to people like
that shepherdess."
The audience was moved to
tears. Just then a man seated at the far end of the hall
asked for the floor. This is what he had to say to the
poet: "I belong to the shepherd community. I would want
my daughter to live in a comfortable house in America
and study to become a doctor. I would not mind if she
forgets her Marathi. Let your granddaughter live in a
hut in my village, tend goats all day and sing your
poems to her heart's content. Is that a deal?" The
audience sat dumbfounded while the poet wore a sheepish
look.
But Indianisms go beyond politics as the
language undergoes more and more inclusive twists and
turns due to the large number of Indian English-speaking
users. The newest edition of the 93-year-old Concise
Oxford Dictionary (COD) - considered the world's
favorite word store - has turned eclectic, incorporating
several Indianisms. "Adda" (local joint), "langar"
(community eatery) and "dicky" (car) have become bona
fide "English" words, adding to the Indian word store,
which includes "Hindutva" and "history-sheeter" among
others.
Catherine Soanes, co-editor of
the COD, has said the dictionary is simply doing its
job in telling people the meanings of words they hear
every day on the streets of cities anywhere in
the world. "Language change is happening very fast, and we
are very selective, I can assure you," said Soanes
this month. "But the Indianisms were a simple need. The
50 more new Indian entries in this 11th edition of the
COD merely reflect the wider influence and
growing prominence of Indian English in the world.
Like Australian English, with its easy, sundowner spirit
of 'barbies' [barbecues] and other TV soap-opera staples,
Indian English is literally infecting the way the world
speaks." As the COD carefully explains, it's all about
giving "free rein" to the living language so long as it
is correctly spelt.
But it is on the Internet
that one finds true free-spirited expressions. Thanks to
outsourcing, India's Silicon Valley, Bangalore, has
become the second modern city in the world to be turned
into a verb after "Shanghaied" - a word that broadly
means to force. "I am a software developer who is about
to be Bangalored. Fine. I am not going to pout about
it," a participant in the online forum Technewsworld has
written. Although there have been other geographical
places that have been turned into words, called toponyms
(for example, Frankfurter, Marathon, Balkanization,
Finlandized, Detroit), few cities have taken a verb
form.
Americans, as they are wont, turn
every controversy including outsourcing into a few
extra bucks. An online anti-outsourcing website is marketing
a T-shirt sporting the phrase "Don't Get
Bangalored", suggesting the loss of one's job to outsourcing.
The T-shirts, available in two designs, are priced
at US$15.99. A website of American infotech
professionals sells an even pricier T-shirt ($19.99) that reads,
"My Job Went to India and All I Got Was a Stupid T-Shirt".
Politics, outsourcing, marketing and sales.
Indianisms - it is not just Indians who are talking the
same language.
Siddharth Srivastava is
a New Delhi-based journalist.
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2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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