Indian English and a new spring of hope

On October 5, Indian English Day, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd gives a clarion call to make English accessible for the marginalised and the downtrodden of India. 

—

October 5, 2023 is the 206rd Indian English Day.

English education came into our national life in 1817 and paved a new way. Two reformers of our education system, William Carey and Rammohun Roy, opened the first English-medium school on October 5, 206 years ago. 

In the two hundred six years of its survival in India as an administrative language, English has remained a rich people's property. Only the very rich or the properly employed regular salary earners manage moderate-to-high class English-medium education for their children.

All politicians of all parties educate their children in English-medium schools. National parties such as the Indian National Congress that ruled the country for the longest period from Delhi and the Bharatiya Janata Party that has ruled the nation more than 15 years, have kept the English language as a preserve of the rich. English-medium government school education is given the least priority in their model of development.

Universal English-medium education is imparted in government schools only in small states in the Northeast such as Nagaland.

Where children from the economically vulnerable sections or marginalised castes and tribes managed to get English-medium education, it was despite the system in place rather than due to it.

A new hope in Andhra Pradesh

But Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had dented this elite English-medium education model in a short duration of four years.

In my 71 years of life, I have seen several chief ministers in united Andhra Pradesh, which has now been bifurcated into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. I have travelled in many states, and read about the administrative methods of chief ministers and prime ministers. But no chief or prime minister spent as much time on the agenda of school education as the current Andhra Pradesh chief minister is spending.

As a person who was born in a remote village in a backward Nizam State, without even a proper Telugu-medium school, and having gone through the tortuous course of learning English, I never imagined a chief minister of a state would focus so much on promoting English in government school education as Jaganmohan Reddy is doing.

Under the model he has instituted, the children of agrarian labour, Adivasis, artisans, and even those of the poorest of the poor, are getting not just English-medium education, but a model of education that is entirely different from the conventional practice.

Also read: The necessary politics over NEET

I spoke to Siddaramaiah when he was the chief minister in his earlier term in Karnataka, and Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of Kerala for two terms, and requested them to introduce English-medium education in the government schools of their respective states.

Both were scared of upper caste intellectual backlash. Until today, even Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have not gone for English-medium education for the poorest of the poor in government schools.

No chief minister spends as much money, time and energy on school education as Reddy does to keep on reviewing the working of the education system of the state.

Jaganmohan Reddy has repeatedly said, "I want to give the best education to my state's children as that will be their future property". School- and college-going children's mothers get about 35 thousand rupees per year in their bank accounts. They spend that money on the educational needs of their children.

The chief minister reviews the quality of children's shoes, bags, midday meals and toilet facilities on a regular basis. In no part of India was school infrastructure so good as Andhra Pradesh children have at present.

The construction of government school buildings was never defined as development of a state's infrastructure. Jaganmohan Reddy has changed the idea of development from enriching big contractors to assigning work to small contractors.

Such small contractors spend money in the village and town markets. Labourers who used to receive wages in construction work only in big cities and towns have been able to spread out to villages and smaller towns. This model does not concentrate development to big cities. Village markets are booming with this model of development.

I have seen the first five years of N. Chandrababu Naidu's rule in the same state of Andhra Pradesh and ten years of rule of K. Chandrashekar Rao in Telangana. They never reviewed the school education structures in their respective states. The chief minister's office was never a place of discussions on the lives and development of children of poorer sections of their society. Their governments are known for handing over school and college education to corporate business houses.

Jaganmohan Reddy, on the other hand, not only keeps on reviewing school education but also keeps on adding national and international innovative educational techniques to village schools, apart from providing Wi-Fi internet and smart televisions to village schools.

This is the background of the country and states run by national and regional parties in which we need to celebrate Indian English Day this year. All regional languages get celebrated by those who send their children to rich private English-medium schools.

I saw Chandrababu's son Lokesh and his daughter-in-law Brahmani speak on TV channels after he was arrested. Their English is much better than their Telugu. Why? They were educated in top English-medium schools and also in the US.

That family and his party opposed introducing English-medium in government schools in 2019. Jagan had to fight court battles and media battles to introduce English-medium in government schools.

Also read: Fraudulent promise of education: The case of Patna

Former vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu and former Chief Justice of India M.V. Ramana, both of whom hail from Andhra Pradesh, opposed the policy of English-medium government school education. Yet Jaganmohan Reddy stood firm.

What has been the result of the policy?

Children of labourers have spoken in United Nations education conferences and also in the US White House with courage and confidence. They got applause from the audience wherever they went. This is certainly a motivational example for the future school education system of India.

Conclusion

This year, on Indian English Day, we must reiterate the need for children from poorer backgrounds and from rural areas to learn English.

The fruits of that language have not yet reached the children of agrarian masses and urban poor. No educationalist coming from the high-end English-medium school education fights for the right of an equal medium of education.

Nobody is opposed to celebrating the regional languages of our country. But at the same time, celebrating Indian English and expansion of the global language into our villages shapes our own variants of English. 

For 206 years, English has remained a preserve of the upper-caste rich people. It is a crime to confine the language to rich houses, high-end offices, malls and airports. It should reach out village markets, village bus stops and agrarian fields. That is where it will acquire Indianness more and more. No language should be treated as the property of one class alone.

Jaganmohan Reddy's government has taken that first step. Let us celebrate Indian English Day from now every year and make our children and youth read a book on that day.