Amit Shah's attack on English will club him with Jyoti Basu in West Bengal

The Print

14 hours ago

While the praise for Indian languages and their rich diversity is indeed commendable, this unprovoked attack on the English language from the man who holds the second-most powerful office in the country was uncalled for. It disincentivises students from being proficient in English and seriously hampers their future job prospects, while making Amit Shah sound like former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, a comparison, one is inclined to believe, Shah would not be happy with.
Shah called for a renewed effort across the country to reclaim India's linguistic heritage , and said English would be frowned upon as a symbol of colonial slavery across the world.
Jyoti Basu had robbed an entire generation of Bengalis of the opportunities that come with English language education. Fifteen years after his death on 17 January 2010, Amit Shah is threatening to do the same. Last month at a book launch event, the Union Home Minister said: 'In this country, those who speak English will soon feel ashamed — the creation of such a society is not far away. I believe that the languages of our country are the jewels of our culture. Without our languages, we cease to be truly Indian.'
English vinglish
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, a big chunk of the Right-wing ecosystem launched a scathing attack on Indians who had a certain proficiency for the English language and were considered socially liberal. Citizens who presumably did not vote for the BJP and were Left-liberal in their socio-political outlook were dubbed the 'Khan Market gang' (a pejorative term invented for a small slice of English-educated, privileged citizenry who were regular visitors to a posh shopping centre originally built to house refugees in the heart of New Delhi). It is another matter that not only were many vocal Right-wingers regular visitors at Khan Market, the rise of Modi saw a whole host of writers, economists, historians produce critically-acclaimed books from topline publishing houses written in English.
The term, though, served its political purpose as Modi went on to win two more elections at the Centre with the government's hard push, among other issues, for vernacularity that yielded rich electoral dividends.
A few recent events should have deterred the government, if not the Right-wing ecosystem, from attacking the need for English language proficiency. One of the government's all-party delegations formed for India's global outreach on Operation Sindoor was fronted by Congressman Shashi Tharoor, who brings to the table not just his diplomatese but also his command over the English language. But more importantly, a NITI Aayog report published this February said that the lack of English proficiency was a key barrier to state university graduates getting jobs.
'In many states, the talent pool and resources employed in local industries predominantly originate from outside the state. A significant contributing factor to this trend is the inadequate English language proficiency among local youth,' the report said.
The report stated that there was a pressing need to enhance the employability skills of students, by encouraging them to remain within the state and contribute to its growth and development, not only at a regional but also at a national level. And to tackle the issue, the NITI Aayog recommended partnering with international language organisations to impart English and other foreign language proficiency programmes for students.
Then there is the point about political optics. Ideologically, the Left has been the arch enemy of the Right globally, with India being no exception. In the run-up to the 2021 Assembly election in West Bengal, a senior RSS functionary told me during an interview for my book Bengal 2021: An Election Diary that the main enemy for the Right in Bengal was not Mamata Banerjee, but the Left.
'The Left is not just a small band of political parties but a foreign, disruptive ideology that has entered the very bloodstream of the country,' he said.
Given such animosity between the Left and the Right, should Amit Shah push for the exclusion of English that Jyoti Basu, who was the sixth and longest–serving chief minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000, implemented during his tenure?
Also read: English is now code for 'Khan Market Gang'. BJP is fighting a phantom enemy
Bengal's lost years
In 1983, barely six years after coming to power, the Left Front government under Jyoti Basu banned the teaching of English till Class 6. The government justified the ban by citing a recommendation of the Himangshu Bimal Mazumdar Commission constituted during the Congress government in 1975 that had said that the teaching of two languages to children till Class 6 would be 'tortuous and unscientific'.
The Left had also justified the move by saying that one of the primary intentions of abolishing English was to increase enrolment of students in primary classes in state-aided schools in rural districts. Increasing the success rate in Madhyamik (Class 10 board examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education) was another motive behind keeping English teaching out of state-aided schools.
As the move robbed a generation of students of English proficiency, even global media sat up and took notice. 'The Marxist government in India's eastern state of West Bengal has decided to drop English as a compulsory language for primary students despite protests from intellectuals. Writers and poets have taken to the streets and courted arrest to protest the decision that English will not be taught until fifth grade in government schools and government-supported institutions,' The New York Times wrote on 5 April 1981.
Outside West Bengal, in Uttar Pradesh, English had become not just a language, but a goddess, with a two-feet tall bronze statue modelled after the Statue of Liberty.
Few members of the Dalit community in Banka village had begun to worship this goddess of the English language, which they believed would let them climb up the socio-economic ladder. 'She is the symbol of Dalit renaissance,' Dalit activist and writer Chandra Bhan Prasad, who had come up with the idea of the goddess of English, had told BBC. 'In her left hand, she holds a book which is the constitution of India which gave Dalits equal rights. She stands on top of a computer which means we will use English to rise up the ladder and become free for ever,' he had argued.
The English language, thus, is not just a means to improve job prospects, but a vehicle for social mobility for India's traditionally disadvantaged social blocks.
In West Bengal, it would take Basu's successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, to undo his blunder and reintroduce English into primary schools in 2007. But who could have compensated for the lost years of Bengali job seekers without English proficiency.
What Jyoti Basu had done to a generation of Bengalis, Amit Shah should not do to Indians.
Deep Halder is an author and journalist. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)