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English - boon or ban
The British ruled in India for a period of around 190 years. During this time, whether for their own benefit or not, they introduced a series of structural organizations in India that we still reap benefits from. Although it is argued that 190 years of foreign rule is too high a price to be paid for these, the fact that if not for them, these would have taken far too much time to enter into the Indian societies, cannot be denied. So what exactly did the British leave behind? A totally new system of education, law, administration and politics. Some of these enduring legacies of the Raj have become a big part of its identity and symbolize much of what was right with it, as well as what was not. Some scholars are of the opinion that India prospered at a faster rate after the British Raj than what it would have had if the British hadn’t introduced their superior ways. Others are of the opinion that civilization was suppressed under the Rule. Be that as it may, the fact that we have inherited many aspects of our present institutional structure from our colonisers, is undeniable.
The basic and perhaps the most prominent legacy that the British have left behind is their language. “Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern school system. That is, if you leave out cricket!” said former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in one of his speeches at The Oxford University. India is home to at least 200 to 300 million English speakers, potentially the largest English speaking population in the world. The inheritance of language and, to some extent, the university system of education, has put India on the global map to a great extent and has resulted in billions of dollars’ worth of earnings for the country. Indian citizens trained in their respective fields get better opportunities internationally and are preferred over their counterparts from other countries because of their ability to communicate their work and ideas in English. This has also gone a long way in putting Indian authors on the global literature map. Indian authors and literary figures who write in English are now honoured worldwide and their works are highly read and appreciated.
However, the result of the English language being a part of our societies today goes beyond just its measurable benefits. In the words of the renowned author and historian Ramachamdra Guha, the English language has cemented its position as one of the most prominent medium of communication among the pan-Indian elite. The idea of superiority of people being able to converse in English is etched in the minds of common people, regardless of what they quote their stance to be. According to them, the language of our colonizers has become synonymous to power, prestige and social advancement. There is an association of a class symbol to English language prevalent in the society today, so much that the ones who are not fluent in English conversation are looked down upon. India is a nation of diversity where not everyone comes from the same educational background or the same family structure. There is a pronounced sense of difference in status among English and non-English speakers.
The development of this thought process can be traced way back to the British themselves. Initially, when the English East India Company set foot in India, their main aim was to only trade and not to educate the people. Their focus was in educating only a certain mass of people from the higher classes who could be “Indian in blood and colour but English in taste”, the ones who would serve as interpreters between the administration and the common people, popularly called the “downward filtration theory”. This is where the idea of superiority of people who can communicate in English started. Looking at the institutional structure of the country at the time, the class division was very significant, which often got intermingled with caste division as the people belonging to a “higher caste” were naturally the ones with proper access to better resources and hence, were the skimmed “higher class” of the society, the ones who got English education. Thus began the association of a class symbol to English education, something that is vibrant in the society even today.