India 360: Vernacular by choice?

If you live in Mumbai, chances are you can breeze through life without speaking a word of Marathi.

Worried by the fact that the language is being used less and less and that Marathi speaking people may be materially disadvantaged, the Maharashtra government has stepped in with a drastic measure – it has made the language compulsory in all schools affiliated to CBSE and ICSE.

Karnataka government has gone one step ahead and has derecognised nearly 800 schools for being English-medium and not Kannada.

This move to compel people to pick up a tongue has set tongues wagging - Can regional languages be kept alive forcefully and artificially?

That was the big topic of debate on CNN-IBN show India 360 with Anuradha SenGupta. On the expert panel were President of NCP (also a part of Maharashtra's ruling coalition) Jitendra Awhad, Bollywood actor Atul Kulkarni and technocrat-author Gurcharan Das.

Anuradha SenGupta: What are the fears currently? We believe that legislators cutting across party lines in Maharashtra Legislature have demanded for this.

Jitender Awhad: Basically the demand was that we are not against English. We don’t want Marathi to be made compulsory across the educational system. We want our boys and girls to learn the language so they can, in future, know about the cultural history of the state. I can give the example of my daughter. She is in Class VII and is not able to read Marathi, she doesn’t know what Marathi is because that’s not taught in her school.

Anuradha SenGupta: But Mr Awhad, you are a person that speaks Marathi and that your daughter cannot speak the language. How by forcing it in schools will you ensure that this happens?

Jitender Awhad: That’s what I am saying. If Marathi is not properly taught in the schools, in later years, we will find it difficult for the language to survive. Language is linked to the cultural history of the state. How will it survive?

Anuradha SenGupta: But are you going about it in the right way – that’s the question we need to ask you. And do you have any numbers or data that shows that there are more students and even schools opting out of the SSC board in favour of CBSE or ICSE boards?

Jitender Awhad: Yes, that’s what I am telling you. There are 170 schools in Mumbai and nearby areas which have opted out of Maharashtra board and gone to CBSE board where Marathi is not taught, and I am worried about 20 years from now, when Generation Next will come and not know the language.

Anuradha SenGupta: Let’s get Atul Kulkarni in. Atul you are an actor and have acted in several languages. But your widest audience has come when you have acted in Hindi. I share Mr Awadh’s concern, but what about the way he is going about it? How do you react if political leaders turn around tomorrow and say ‘Hey Atul, you are a popular Marathi actor. We want you to act only in Marathi films because we are worried that Marathi is going to die out’?

Atul Kulkarni: No, I think that’s a little far-fetched. But having said that, I must say that what Mr Awhad is saying is totally wrong because by compulsion no language survives, and if he is putting the blame of his daughter not knowing Marathi on the school, then I think the basic responsibility is of the parents. So Mr Awhad should take the responsibility of teaching his daughter Marathi on himself. And the culture too as it all begins at home. By compulsion you create hatred instead of love for anything.

Anuradha SenGupta: Well said Atul. Let’s also get Gurcharan Das in. Mr Das we are talking about times when 21-year-old IITians are earning hundred thousand dollars as starting salaries. Do you think our political leaders are being totally shortsighted here?

Gurcharan Das: I think they are being shortsighted. And it reminds me about the inferiority complex that the Swadesis and the Bombay Club suffered from in the mid 90s when they had no faith in their own companies. I think it’s the same thing. They have no faith in the ability of Marathi to survive. The fact is, I have a lot more confidence that Marathi will survive on its own because it’s a very fine language. Today 98 out of 100 people are rejected are if they go for a BPO job and you are going to make it much worse. Three-and-a-half million jobs are coming to India in the next 10 years and these jobs will require a facility in English. So our effort should be – learning both English and Marathi before the age of 10, and because we are naturally bilingual people, it will be easy to go about it.

Anuradha SenGupta: Mr Awhad, has anything that we just discussed convinced you that this (government’s move) is a kneejerk reaction and that there is a better way to go about doing this?

Jitender Awhad: I agree with what Mr Gucharan Das has said – that you have to learn both languages. English is inevitable and in the global process, English will be compulsory and is essential for survival. But that doesn’t mean that you forget your mother tongue. This is the McCauley’s pattern of education which has been traveling for the past 130 years and this is the colonial impact on our society. You go through all philosophers, linguists, ideologists, they have said this. I am quoting Lucas, the Marxist philosopher who says, ‘Language is one of the major parameters of cultural identity in the society.’ Stalin says, ‘Language cannot be separated from the basic structure of society.’

Anuradha SenGupta: That’s a very interesting thought. Why not use culture – theatre, music, movies to promote Marathi instead of forcing it via textbooks.

Jitender Awhad: If the children don’t know ABC of Marathi, what are they going to read and write? We have Naaneshwari, we have Tukaram Anse Abangar. If children are not able to understand it, how will they understand the culture of Maharashtra that has a historical link for the past 2,000 years? If the Next Genration population does not know how to read and write Marathi, how will Maharashtra survive?

Anuradha SenGupta: If you though Maharashtra was coming down hard, in Karnatalka, it’s curtains for over 832 government schools because they use English and not Kannada as the medium of instruction. Filmmaker M S Sathyu joins us. Mr Sathyu, where do you stand on this?

MS Sathyu: Well nothing should be forced on the children. They should be not be talken by surprise the way they have derecognised many schools in Bangalore. Basically, it’s an urban, middle-class problem because in rural India, the local language of every region will be carried through and will survive. It’s only in the big cities that this problem has come up and a minister can’t just offhand close down or derecognise so many schools. The fault lies with the previous government or the one before that. The official have been conniving with these schools and allowed English medium instead of Kannada. I think Kannada has to be taught in every school even if it’s an English medium school.

Anuradha SenGupta: Mr Das do you think while this is an entirely just concern and solutions need to be found, more and more students and parents are choosing to learn English. In that case, do you think, we are interfering with market forces?

Gurcharan Das: I think we are interfering with the voice of the people. Democracy says you follow what people want and a significant number of people want their children to learn English from the first grade. They want it because they know that if the child doesn ot learn English when she is young, she will not have the facility later on. Human beings are naturally bilingual. So we should teach both English and the mother tongue.

Anuradha SenGupta: Atul, tell me how do you balance your commitment to your career and your pride in knowing Marathi and any other language that you may want to learn and keep?

Atul Kulkarni: Basically if Marathi is my mother tongue, it defines that it’s the language that I talk at home. I am a Marathi-medium student so I had been reading and talking Marathi, but I must say that my language or any other regional language in India was well-equipped. Science and technology came in via English and that’s why regional languages are falling short of it. So we must take notice of that and have a comprehensive policy towards our languages.

Anuradha SenGupta: The one consistent argument against pushing regional languages is that they don’t provide a competitive edge in the job market. In fact, they can be a disadvantage. MS Sathyu, is there a case to be made of the survival of the fittest. Are some languages bound to die out if they are not relevant, no matter how hard we try to keep them alive? Latin has gone and so has Sanskrit.

MS Sathyu: You can’t compare Sanskrit, Pali or Latin to what’s happening today. Today all mother tongues are alive languages. Sanskrit and Latin are an dead languages, so you can’t compare with them. But there is a difference between the north and the south. In south, we are not only bilingual, we are multilingual. But in north, there is a resistance to learn any south Indian language. So the policy should have been that every north Indian should know at least one south Indian language, English and his mother tongue. The same way we should learn one north Indian language like Hindi or Urdu own mother tongue.

Anuradha SenGupta: Mr Das, what do you suggest.

Gurcharan Das: I think language is an evolving thing and society is evolving too. SO you cannot force things on people and the regional chauvinists don’t have confidence in their own languages. These languages are much stronger than they think. They should be taught at home and they will not die out. But we have to equip young people for future and for jobs.

Anuradha SenGupta: Atul Kulkarni, you heard both statements. What do you make of it?

Atul Kulkarni: Don’t politicise education. That’s it.

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