By K Elango

India recognises 22 languages as scheduled languages but has 1599 other (number disputed) languages and many other dialects spoken across the country. India has a unique place in the world as the home for giving birth and developing many languages. Ancient languages such as Tamil, Sanskrit and other languages combined with the different foreign languages such as Arabic, French, and Portuguese spoken widely have collectively shaped a multicultural and multilinguistic country of what we call India today.

Yet another aspect is the scheduled languages that began with 14 moved to 22 and another 38 languages awaiting the parliament approval. Significantly, when English was introduced from the early seventeenth century into our country it brought in new ideas, culture, and literature, which has enriched our centuries’ old cultural ethos. So, prioritising one language over others can only tear down the rich linguistic tapestry. The sane thing for the ‘emerging superpower’ is to let all languages flourish and as Mahatma Gandhi emphasized learning languages as a ‘source of pleasure’ and build a strong sense of nationhood.

Indian English: The novelist, Raja Rao, in Kanthapura, published as early as 1938, prophesizes that someday our dialect (Indian English) will prove to be ‘as distinctive and colourful as the Irish or the American’. What a visionary statement! Indian English of the twenty-first century has grown to have its own ‘distinctive words, idioms, grammar, rhetoric, and rhythm’ and which can teach ‘the rest of the world some lessons not only about multidialectism but about multilingualism too’ mentions David Crystal, an authority on World Englishes.

The country enjoys a unique position in the English-speaking world, he adds, as it can act as a bridge between the first-language dialects and the major foreign-language variations. It today has the largest English-speaking population far exceeding all the native-speaking countries put together. Indian English has grown organically despite the whipping up of anti-English sentiments by those who wield power.

English education: The whole of student’s population about 350 million in different educational institutions and at different levels are exposed to English, even in vernacular mediums. English medium institutions springing up in every nook and cranny are evidence enough for people’s desire.

English is taught-learnt for multiple roles: those who presume it is for basic communicative purposes are sadly mistaken; learners have bigger aims, namely, to get employed in multinational companies, engage in burgeoning fields such as the Internet of Things, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, content development, Crypto, FinTech, proactively partake in issues affecting humanity, and to be global citizens, setting their eyes on other lands to migrate. The dynamic role of English ought to be redefined and not as thought of 1950s.

Diaspora: The first wave of the diaspora which began in the nineteenth century continues unabated and the United Nations reports that India has the largest diaspora population of 18 million living in almost all the countries. Many are still clutching to their passports but what holds them back to their homeland is their English proficiency level. ‘If only I know English…’ is the sigh of the youths. If the 18 million were to remain in our country, it would have burst at the seams, hence, better to have ‘brain drain’ rather than the ‘brains going down the drains’.

Information Technology (IT) industry: India’s ‘sunshine’ sector which has made us a global power is one of the highest employment generators holding about 30 million workforces, that is, about 25 per cent and 40 per cent of the country’s GDP that relies essentially on English skills. The IT companies, spread all over the country and about 80 countries abroad, provide jobs for other nationals as well. Work from home aggravated by the pandemic and Indian BPO industries have made the geography irrelevant bringing opportunities where talent is and the English India prospered.

Services industry: Although integrated into the IT industry, services sector is the kernel for its vibrancy by inviting foreign investments and foreigners into the country to experience our hospitality, community, social and personal domains. The tower of babble is dismantled by the welcoming signs of English, drawing them in rather than driving them away.

Publishing industry: When the whole world faces a slump, our country experiences a robust growth in the publishing industry. The print media has more than 1,44,000 newspapers and periodicals, occupying the second largest newspaper market globally and the English newspapers the second largest published from our country with 13,661 and Hindi with 42,493. And it is sought after as the ‘hot destination’ for outsourced e-publishing: while ranked sixth in the book market, English offers it the second position, exporting largely to the native speaking countries and earning revenue of $720 million.

Indian English literature: Indian Writing in English has established itself as a critically acclaimed field. Numerous writers are expressing the indianness in all literary forms. The trios, R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, laid the solid foundation in 1930s and Rabindranath Tagore got us the first Nobel Prize as early as 1913. The Indian diaspora award winners such as Salman Rushdie, who won Booker of Bookers and Jhumpa Lahiri, who got Pulitzer Prize earned the international recognition. Today Chetan Bhagat’s books are sold more than 7 million copies; the Indian youth devours his novels. Moreover, in a land of many tongues the inevitability of translations among Indian languages and between English and others hardly need to be established.

Social platform: India’s 448 million active users of social media are the largest worldwide and their preferred language is English, and the distant second is Hindi with just 6 percent. YouTubers of about 467 million, Facebook about 240 million and Instagram about 230 million make them giants and used for manifold purposes ranging from leisure activities to connect with their contacts to express themselves creatively such as insta stories, insta poems, and to job searches.

Upward mobility: The rise of Indian middle class, expected to be 800 million in the coming years, is the growth story attributable to English education. Migration to cities, multinational companies, salaried class, white collared plus blue-collared jobs, malls, multiplexes, Netflix, hitting gyms, and many more have become the common parlance of their lifestyle and but for English the class must be wallowing in the past.

Unifying force

If we were to resist reverting to the pre-British days as in the famous words of Churchill, ‘there was no Indian nation… no more than the equator’ and a land of nawabs and maharajas, we need a unifier which can only be English. Let not the glue dry up at a time when north-south-east-west divide is acutely felt.

The contributions of English, unfortunately, remain an unacknowledged truth. Can declaring something as national bring about any transformation? We already have declared national game, nation animal, national flower, and national bird but do they mean anything to a common man?

The author is national secretary, English Language Teachers’ Association of India, (formerly) professor of English at Anna University.

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