Quote of the week..
English is a mark of India, not Bharat.
Here is the relevant excerpt:
Surprisingly, for an Englishman who was knighted by the British monarchy in 2002, Tully was less than enthusiastic about the growing status of English as an aspirational language of the Indian middle class. “Learning English is an economic asset,” he said. “But the problem is its impact on regional languages. English is a mark of India, not Bharat,” he added.
The interview also has some quotes on Smt Sonia Gandhi. Also read, “Secular Fundamentalism”..alive and kicking in India
Somewhat Related: “The Idea of India” – by Sk Krishen Kak whose concluding sentence is:
India divides; BhÄrat unites.
Say what you will, the lingua franca of India’s economy as it is focused on more upstream value added developments, and of collaborating with other countries, is and will remain English. We are not Japan or Germany or Korea, to demand people do business with us in Japanese, German or Korean, because we don’t call the shots. No one is going to do business with us in Hindi or Marathi or Oriya just because one of our politicians will like it.
As the world becomes more connected, we need to focus on more practical aspects of leveraging this trend for our growth, as many developing countries are doing. Mark Tully’s mind seems to be quite clouded by populist opinion.
Agreed, we will never stop using regional languages for day to day affairs but the local language fanaticism is a powerful political tool used by our great leaders to segregate vote banks and exploit them, nothing more. Dumb, obedient masses benefit our dear leaders, in fact it’s even better if we are all illiterate, can’t think, and blindly do as we are told.