The Dual Role of English in India

SATAN AND SARASWATI: THE DOUBLE FACE OF ENGLISH IN INDIA

This blog is in reference to a research paper by E.ANNAMALAI "Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India"
As we all know that English is a mother tongue or we can say that it s a language of Britisher’s.  Before 1947 they were the rulers and we all were their slaves. Before Independence there was no official language expects English but after Independence there was a pressure to make Hindi as a National language of Hindustan (India). After this Hindi became National language of India and English became official language. Supreme Court of India declared that all the official documents should be in English along with Hindi too be used for official purposes as authorized by the President of India. A state of union can adopt any language only for their state official work. There was growing political opposition in some states for making Hindi as an official language. It is to be a prestigious language and is in great demand English is the lingua-franca. Providing for the continuous use of English without time limit giving legal status to the assurance given by Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the parliament. India is a multilingual country where people us English as a second language. In many of the schools which is run by private trusts and central government  where all the subjects are in English language and teachers are also using English as a medium to teach students in secondary and primary level as well. English is a prestigious language and also in a great demand. In higher education many of the universities keep English as an optional subject and replaced it with many other languages like Hindi, Sanskrit etc. Most of the students prefer Hindi as they feel shy because they don’t know English well so they choose Hindi language. I would like to give an example when I participated in Global Conference. A Professor was there as a participant who was presenting his research paper and in interaction session I asked him a question that “Do you really think teachers should use their mother tongue or their native language while teaching”. He answered like “yes teacher should use their mother tongue or their native language while teaching because there are many students in a class who don’t know English properly so they will not understand what teacher is teaching in the class”.




Satan transforming himself into an angle of light.




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