"English Is Here to Stay": A Critical Look at Institutional and Educational Practices in India

Abstract

Based on an ongoing ethnographic project, this article examines ways in which the Indian middle class, with its relatively easy access to English, represents an inner circle of power and privilege that for a variety of reasons remains inaccessible to particular groups of people in India. Specifically, the data revealed that certain institutional and teaching practices keep English out of the reach of lower income and lower caste groups and push them into outer circles. The students central to this article are Dalit (lower-caste) students and students from the so-called Other Backward Classes who have been socialized in Gujarati-medium schools in Grades K-12 and who have to contend with English at the tertiary level.Confronted by the double authority of the book itself and the English teacher endorsing and buttressing it by painful explication, they read and listen patiently in the classroom. Then they go back to the colorfully translated Hindi version of the text in the crib and memorize the "proper" answers from the same source, thus making both the text and teacher redundant; or they improvise in halting English their expressions of sympathy for Desdemona and Joe Keller and make clear their incomprehension at original sin, and contribute their own malapropisms to an account of Mrs. Malaprop's contribution to the humor of the play. (Rajan, 1986, p. 33)

Colonization and English ideologies in India: a language policy perspective

“…Sheorey (2006) has thus called English a ''divider rather than a unifier'' in India, pointing out that the ''advantages and the 'power' inherent in English literacy are enjoyed primarily by the middle and upper classes'' (p. 18). These are beyond the reach of students who are hindered by their financial and social conditions (Ramanathan 1999). Either they cannot access English instruction or the kind of English they acquire is insufficient for the demanding job market (Mohanty 2006).…”

Squaring the circles: issues in modeling English worldwide

“…While some stress the role played by these varieties in perpetuating socioeconomic divisions between those who have English and those who do not (e.g. Canagarajah 1999;Ramanathan 1999), others emphasize the way in which they encapsulate aspirations to modernity through participation in worldwide trade, access to technology, and the tying together of new and typically multilingual nations (e.g. Kanyoro 1991).…”

Reducing dominance in multiple-mouse learning activities

“…English is taught as a subject by late primary school in almost all schools in India and is generally accepted to be a desirable subject for upward mobility (Ramanathan, 1999). Moreover, rote learning of material is common in Indian state school curricula at the grade levels we studied.…”