Dalits liberated by English?

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Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad just celebrated the 206th birthday of Lord Macaulay, with a party in New Delhi [via Shashwati]. Why celebrate the face of English imperialism? Because for some groups domination by a foreign overlord was better than domestic oppression.

…. Prasad … hails Macaulay as the Father of Indian Modernity, for it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854, that Dalits got the right to education, he says. [Link]

Bhan has three reasons for revering Macaulay – his insistence to teach the “natives” English broke the stranglehold of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic teaching, a privilege of only the elite castes and, he argued,for the European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. “Imagine, if we had only followed indigenous study,” said Bhan, “we would be like Afghanistan or Nepal today.”… [Link]

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p>These activists go further than celebrating Macaulay’s role in the past, however, and call for English to be central to Dalit education in the future. They unveilled a portrait of “English, the Dalit Goddess”:

Dalit poet Parak sang a couplet to the portrait – a refashioned Statue of Liberty, wearing a hippie hat, holding a massive pink pen, standing on a computer, with a blazing map of India in the background – Oh, Devi Ma/ Please Let us Learn English/ Even the dogs understand English, to cheers and laughter, …

Bhan … declared … “Hereafter, the first sounds all newborn Dalit and Adivasi babies will hear from their parents is – abcd. Immediately after birth, parents or a nearest relative will walk up to the child and whisper in the ear – abcd,’… [Link]

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p>Is English a tool of liberation? Are indigenous Indian languages oppressive?

The remedy … is to … become English speaking at the earliest. Goddess English is all about emancipation. Goddess English is a mass movement against the Caste Order, against linguistic evils such as Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telgu and Bangla for instance. Indian languages as more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications. [Link]

Or is this just a PR stunt, to stick a finger in the eye of the local intelligencia? Is the best path for Dalit advancement to reject Indian languages in favor of English? Lastly, should they learn International English or Desi Hinglish?

279 thoughts on “Dalits liberated by English?”

  6. So Razib the “bangladeshi nordicist” has shown up.

    Whats your excuse for Bangladesh’s even greater poverty and backwardness? It certainly is smaller, more homogeneous and mono-lingual isnt it, so those excuses are inapplicable. Why dont you apply your race and DNA obsession to this issue? Or is that obsession with genetics only limited to skin color, “attractiveness”, and other such superficial racial attributes?

  7. razib or sahej:out-trolling the troll? 🙂

    look, the mods are busy. a certain enlightened someone tends to take a superior and abusive toward their interlocutors in thread after thread. and people sit around and watch. it needs to stop at some point.

  8. Macacaroach, i am not participating in the conversation here, i’m watching. since you are a participate and are demanding answers from others, now the tables are turned: what is your answer? educate us!

  9. look, the mods are busy. a certain enlightened someone tends to take a superior and abusive toward their interlocutors in thread after thread. and people sit around and watch. it needs to stop at some point.

    i concur brother. late realization…

  14. Macacaroach, you are about to be banned. For weeks now you have been making trollish statements on thread after thread. Nobody wants to hear your endless preaching. Please cut it out.

  21. razib,

    i’ve always been a soft spoken person. you’re a pleasure to converse with dude

    🙂

  24. and yet the stick of your will is a fury to behold! you’ve ‘educated’ us, that’s for sure….

    by the way thats gross

  25. Nice move.. I see a lot of comments here.. Just a Q. How many of you know of Dalits personally??.. There is a big and emerging Dalit middle class. They are (along with OBCs) going to become rulers pretty soon. and already are.. in a few states… English is better. But I’d avoid the unnecessary diatribes against local Indian languages..

    If you look at colonial / Mughal / Kings’ rule generally they conduct their government businesses in languages (English/Persian) that the people who they rule over don’t know or don’t have means to know. This logic applies to the religious domain too.. Sanskrit and Arabic are examples..

    There are two ways for the people to get a grip on the language issues.. Either make your language as the govt/ business language or adopt the language that is more suited for the times.. Even though I’d prefer native languages like Tamil / Kannada etc..to dominate the respective regions I won’t mind English either..

    Regarding the Sati/Indian GDP before English rule etc.. I think we are just repeating partial truths depending on each one’s perspective.. Sati is probably restricted to a few upper caste Bengali households and probably mostly voluntary or forced by relatives for economic reasons.. I have no reason to believe the common man/woman was better served by Kings/Sultans/Mughals/Rajas/Ranis than the Brits..

  28. Q. How many of you know of Dalits personally??..

    Poonniyin,

    Quite a few (close friends too), and I am not in a minority. Anybody, who has spent time in India knows them through education, work, and play. The only way I did know they were OBC is when they get admitted to a college, and they themselves share the knowledge that they were admitted through reservation. If one makes it through regular list then nobody even knows about it. If a generic “Singh” surname is used, then it is never known unless shared.

    Also, also, remember an OBC in one state is high caste in another.

  29. Kush,

    Right, people who grew up in India and studied there would definitely have come into contacts with Dalits.. 60 years of affirmative action programmes (20% of education and 20% of jobs in the government sector) though implemented poorly in a few regions have resulted in a substantial Dalit middle class. But I doubt people outside india have had any real life contacts with Dalits other than reading the news stories and articles..

  30. As long as the concept of caste is sanctified by social planners, even for worthy causes, caste will remain a self-perpetuating cancer.

    Exactly! The issue seems to be caught in self-sustaining cycle of hatred. Remember what Gandhi said “An eye for eye will make the whole world blind”. It probably be more effective to have social programs based on economic status while making caste based discrimination strictly illegal and concentrating on law enforcement rather than appeasement. But then politics has its funny way of working. Maybe we should first try to fix the political structure and help the government fix the social structure.

    Thats what I plan to do create a database of the Indian politician and help understand them! Who is with me?

    BTW a roach never produces anything it feeds off of the crumbs, why feed it?

  31. Q. How many of you know of Dalits personally??..

    I suppose you are implying that not many commenters here know dalits and so not qualified to say anything. I can’t speak for others but I have studied with lots of dalits (and been friends with). I could see the caste system being practiced first hand. I have lived my first 17 years in a small village where I could see the transition away from hard caste system as time progressed. I roomed with one in US. I have first-hand experience of both the good and the bad sides of the caste system.

  32. All statistical rankings are based on medians and averages, and these are valid comparisons only when comparing countries of similar size and similar stratification. In other words, you can have a small and homogenous country with 50% of the population dying at child birth rank very high on average life span.

    Whaaaat???

  33. circus,

    I was just asking a Q. I was not implying anything.. This is basically a blog of second gen. browns living in America and once in a while Indian issues are discussed.. I try to disabuse many myths that are taken to be as facts in America.. (For ex. Indians are vegetarians while around 80% (or more)of Indians are infact non-vegetarians..) I don’t claim to know everything. I have an “Open minds” policy.. 🙂 If I came to know of facts and truths that are contrary to my beliefs I’d gladly accept..

  35. Regarding the Sati/Indian GDP before English rule etc.. I think we are just repeating partial truths depending on each one’s perspective.. Sati is probably restricted to a few upper caste Bengali households and probably mostly voluntary or forced by relatives for economic reasons..

    False.

    BTW, there are some orthodox hindus including a Shankaracharya of Puri who wish to revive this “glorious” custom.

  36. BTW, there are some orthodox hindus including a Shankaracharya of Puri who wish to revive this “glorious” custom

    Yeah, so what, some clerics wanted a rape victim to be divorced because she was raped by her father in law.. These religious folks talk BS all the time.. Is this new??.. Recently we had one Shankaracharya do his “tapas” in a local jail on a murder chargs. Maybe this dude belongs there too..

    So how many cases of Sati you know in a country of 1 billion and atleast a few million husbands dying every year before their wives..

  37. Q. How many of you know of Dalits personally??.. There is a big and emerging Dalit middle class.

    Yes, I know a few, mostly people I met in my engineering college. Most had an urban lower-middle to middle-class background(there was only one guy I knew with a completely rural background). Overall yes, there is a growing dalit middle class, and I have personally not heard any claims of discrimination in the professional sphere. It is true most are not very fluent in english, but then that is true for most Indians who did not grow up in any of the big cities(I do not rate myself as particularly fluent in english, though I am not dalit). Also, while knowing english can give you a big leg-up in many professional spheres, and it would be stupid for the dalits(or anyone) to neglect it for some vague ideological reasons, a reasonable fluency in English is not so hard to acquire. And there are many technical jobs where the skill emphasis is elsewhere, so its not the big prerequisite for success it is often made out to be.

    At the same time, many still feel themselves victims of social discrimination. I had a friend who had trouble getting her boyfriend to take her home to her parents because she was dalit(they eventually broke up).

    Differences in living standards of the upper and lower castes are, however, is still quite prominent in the villages. One of my friends would come back fuming with rage whenever he visited his native village. The upper castes(this included the so-called OBCs) owned all the land and his caste constituted mostly of landless laborers, who were constantly brutalized and discriminated against. My impression is that the situation in the villages is no different today from what it was a hundred years ago.

  38. Poniyinn Selvan:

    For ex. Indians are vegetarians while around 80% (or more)of Indians are infact non-vegetarians..)

    My mom claims that most Indian immigrant vegetarians weren’t vegetarians in India….they only adopted the practice in the U.S. as an affectation of high-caste status. I always wondered if vegetarianism had as much to do with social climbing as moral convictions.

    CS

  39. It is true most are not very fluent in english, but then that is true for most Indians who did not grow up in any of the big cities(I do not rate myself as particularly fluent in english, though I am not dalit)

    Sakshi,

    The key is growing up in cities. That is the key.

    One of my real close friend is from “reserved” castes (I usually use the term “reserved”). He is an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) – IIM (Indian Institute of Management) graduate. That is a very elitist, and not an easy combo, and his knowlwedge of English and English literature was amazing. In India, he had a Punjabi girlfriend (back when we all were in India), and few months ago, he married a blonde for second time here in States [This is a reference to social mobility issue only].

    PPS: He is not your sterotypical guy either. However, as Ponniyian pointed out there is a robust middle and upper middle class from Dalits and OBC, even it is a minority. In politics, they are the king makers or kings, especially in UP and Bihar.

  41. The upper castes(this included the so-called OBCs) owned all the land and his caste constituted mostly of landless laborers, who were constantly brutalized and discriminated against. My impression is that the situation in the villages is no different today from what it was a hundred years ago.

    And yet we have guys here blaming socialism for India’s backwardness! Casteism is the very anti-thesis of socialism isnt it?

  42. The key is growing up in cities. That is the key. One of my real close friend is from “reserved” castes (I usually use the term “reserved”). He is an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) – IIM (Indian Institute of Management) graduate. That is a very elitist, and not an easy combo, and his knowlwedge of English and English literature was amazing.

    Yes, but again there is a difference between knowledge of english language/literature, and fluency in english. A language can be learnt, but a native fluency is harder to acquire. An average joe/jitu who never read a book in his/her life but grew up in delhi/mumbai might be more comfortable with english simply because everyone around uses the language, while a guy/girl from middle India might have a perfect GRE verbal score and read the entire english literary canon, but still not have the same comfort level using the language(I am not dissing the people from the metros-just giving an example). The game for people growing in the villages, of course, is up right where it started.

  43. My impression is that the situation in the villages is no different today from what it was a hundred years ago.

    Not true. If you consider all the areas having the problem today and those that did 100 years ago, it is certainly a fraction. I never lived in a village but have visited plenty in the south as well as the north and have seen a lot of progress. The villages in the north seem to be much behind though.

    Macaroach, Nobody is blaming socialism for that situation. It is rooted in the practice of casteism, but socialism has failed to alleviate the problem (and that doesn’t mean it has had no success either).

  44. Yes, but again there is a difference between knowledge of english language/literature, and fluency in english.

    Yes, Yes, in his case No. He went to private high schools in Delhi, as a youngster he belonged to “folky crowd” (folky crowd is a slang for westernized people in India) and later even worked for MNC (Multinationational Corporations). He is not your average guy (that includes all Indians of all castes) so in that case he is a useless data point in bigger picture analysis, but not average guys exist.

    I have met kids in Delhi who go to British Commission, and American International high school. They speak English as good as it gets. Again, they are few and far between, so please do not know see them as typical Delhi kid.

    Again, key is economic opportunities and stratification.

  45. “folky crowd” (folky crowd is a slang for westernized people in India)

    Another term for them – UBI (Unfortunately Born in India) 🙂

  46. And yet we have guys here blaming socialism for India’s backwardness! Casteism is the very anti-thesis of socialism isnt it?

    tell us oh educated one, we tire of your socratic method. answer, answer!

  47. So how many cases of Sati you know in a country of 1 billion and atleast a few million husbands dying every year before their wives..

    What? No one told you that sati was banned by the british? Or that the govt of independent India continued that ban?

    BTW, in the wake of attempts by some orthodox hindus to revive this odious custom the govt of free India made abetting sati a crime punishable by death and even made the glorification of this ancient hindu practice a jail able offense.

  48. You are grabbing at straws. There are dozens of countries in Africa.

    Huh? It ranks 122/181 in PPP GDP, which is the figure that you should be using, unless you are utterly disingenous.List PPP GDP adjusts for exchange rate disparities, and reflects on the ground purchasing power. Even the Economist magazine prefers it.

    And besides African countries, there are many former Soviet colonies like Uzbekistan, Asian countries like Laos and Myanmar, Middle Eastern countries like Yemen and the occasional South American country like Bolivia in the group below India. So my point stands: India is not among the fifty poorest countries, and it should make up ground in the coming years, as its growth rate is among the top three of the major economies and its fertility rate basically under control. Provided it can kill off the self-loathing macacaroaches in its midst 🙂

  49. So how many cases of Sati you know in a country of 1 billion and atleast a few million husbands dying every year before their wives.. What? No one told you that sati was banned by the british? Or that the govt of independent India continued that ban? BTW, in the wake of attempts by some orthodox hindus to revive this odious custom the govt of free India made abetting sati a crime punishable by death and even made the glorification of this ancient hindu practice a jail able offense.

    Macacaroach: I’d advise you to seriously consider shutting up, considering you are not contributing anything of value to the conversation.

  50. I have met kids in Delhi who go to British Commission, and American International high school. They speak English as good as it gets. Again, they are few and far between, so please do not know see them as typical Delhi kid.

    I’d concede that.

    Again, key is economic opportunities and stratification.

    I agree. English is more of a symptom than a cause, and it is highly unlikely it shall be the cure.