Politics of Development in Postcolonial India: English-Medium Education and Social Fracturing Author(s): David Faust and Richa Nagar

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 30 (Jul. 28 - Aug. 3, 2001), pp. 2878-2883 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4410920 . Accessed: 09/11/2013 02:32
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Politics of Development in Postcolonial India

Education English-Medium and Social

Fracturing

While education in English has been advocated as a unifying and modernisingforce, it is also seen as a marker of imperialism and class privilege and a terrain bf struggle among elite groups. Ruptures in such a class-divided educational system in turn shape specific debates over development, democracy and social change. Uneven empowermentthat an education in English generates also has its fallout in an increasing polarisation, fracturing and violence against caste, gender and religious lines.
DAVID RICHA NAGAR FAUST,

Class dividedsystemof education hasplayeda central rolein mouldof ing the processesand patterns unevendevelopmentanddisenfranchisement in postcolonialIndia. In much of urbanIndia,thereprevailtwo systemsof andvernacueducation-English-medium lar-medium.1On an individual level, hasbeena ticket education English-medium to verticalmobilityin Indiansociety. At educathesocietallevel, English-medium tionhasplayeda criticalrole in producing whatKothari calls a modernised technoto have elite that continues managerial influencein shapingthe disproportionate discursive terrainof development, and andprogrammes that affect policies thereby the social fabricof the country.Less viseducationwidens ibly, English-medium in Indiansociety by cresocial fractures ating and reinforcinga social, cultural, economic,anddiscursivedivide between the English-educated andthe majority. In this essay, we consider how Englishin Indian medium educational institutions discitiesfacilitate economicandcultural enfranchisementby acculturatingnew membersof the expandingmiddle class and those movinginto moderntechnical and managerialcareers. This is not to education suggestthatvernacular-medium is eitheregalitarian or free of a political Rather,our agenda- quitethe contrary.2 aimhereis to highlight theroleof Englishmedium education in creating ruptures between the past and the future of upwardlymobile studentsin termsof their cultural theirideas about understandings,

the nation,and theirbeliefs aboutdevel- of construction of particular discoursesof Weargue that theseruptures, anddevelopopment. along nation, citizenship, modernity with a devaluationof vernacular values ment, as is insightfully elucidated by and perspectives, make it difficult to Srivastava's (1998)institutional ethnogracommunicate meaningfully across the phy of the elite Doon School as a site of elaboration of a particular Indianliberaclass/linguisticdivide. Wemakeourargument usingwhatmight lism and citizenshipproject. Srivastava be called a materially-grounded "the post- (1998:13)illuminates processthrough modernist to Grewal whicha widerangeof seeminglyconflictapproach. According and Caplan (1994:2) postmodernism is ing positionsin the discursiveformation critiqueofamodernist agendasas they are of the postcolonisednationstatebecome manifested in variousformsandlocations imbricatedand producean agreementaroundthe world.A materially-grounded one which is built aroundthe 'truths'of Advani's then, can highlight the modernity". (1996)work postmodernism, complecon- ments Srivastava's,showing how curriways thatdifferenceis contextually structed along multipledimensionsat the culum,particularly state-produced English nexus of processes operatingat scales textbooks, are anothersite of the same from theglobal to thebody.Such project. Bothexplore"thebondthatunites ranging an approach and the functioning of capital; helpsus to navigatebetween modernity theoretical approachesthat are homo- and the mannerin which it marginalises that arerelativist [Grewal thosewho areseen to fall outsideits ken" genisingandthose andCaplan [Srivastava 1994:2]. 1998:168].Ouressayexpands Postmodernistcritiques of developmentsuch as Escobar'shave uponthese studiesby investigating how, made important contributions to under- in postcolonialnorthIndia, membersof howdevelopment institutions standing give non-westemised,non-elite social groups shape to and reproducediscourses and are initiatedinto the techno-managerial thatservetheparticular interests elite andsimultaneously acculturated into practices of the middle and upperclasses even as globalcultural processesthrough Englishas universal. Institutional mediumschools. theymasquerade to Escobar The next section of this paperbriefly (1995:105) practices according are crucial "becausethey contributeto sketches the role that English-medium andformalising socialrelations, education has servedin Indiahistorically. producing divisions of labour,and culturalforms". Wesubsequently useinterviews conducted Thus, for Escobar(1995:105),discourse, in the city of Lucknowin the mid-1990s of middleclass political economy and institutionaleth- to explorethecompulsions mustbe woventogether in order familiesto send theirchildren to Englishnography to understand how developmentworks. medium schoolsandtheresponses of those Educational institutions areanother site students and their neighbours to this

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educational experience. Finally, we reflect on the relationship between English-medium education in north India and widening social cleavages by highlighting the contradictoryways in which such institutions help to createand legitimise the social hierarchiesandinequalitiesassociated with the contemporarymodels of development, even as they open doors for individual advancement and create an advanced techno-managerial workforce.

India's English-Medium Schools: Modernity vs Social Fracturing

A sketch of the history of Englishmedium education in India will demonstratethat such education has always been political. Today's English-speaking elite and the social fracturescreated by English education have their beginnings in colonial times [Kumar 1991]. In her study of English education in colonial India, Viswanathan (1989:167) emphasises the importanceof studying curriculum, not as a receptacle of texts, but as an activity and as a vehicle for acquiring and exercising power.3She argues thatcolonial education in India was always geared towards furthering colonial rule. In the early 19th century the British introduced English literary study to the Indian curriculum as a way of inculcating English morals without directly placing European religion in conflict with Indianreligions [Viswanathan 1989]. By the late 1850s, there was a shift in emphasis to using English as a branch of practical, rather than moral, study and a correspondingemphasis on the rhetoric of social stratificationand division of labour [Viswanathan 1989: 142-43]. "The moral motive, which brought English literature into the Indiancurriculumin the first place to reinforce notions of social duty, obligation, and service to the state, is disengaged from English studies as a result of British apprehensions that their Indian subjects were being encouraged to rise above their stations in the name of selfimprovement and so challenge the authority of the ruling power". The humanistic idea of education was revised to one that sought to confirm individuals in the social class into which they were born [Viswanathan1989: 143-44]. Froman 1854 dispatch on education evolved an educational scheme that "set out to create a middle class serving as an agency of imperialist economy and administration

through a process of differentiation" [Viswanathan 1989:146]. It is worth noting, however, that this curricular change did not prevent the growth of a nationalist movement imbued with some of the ideals that the British had hoped to short circuit. The process of social differentiation through the medium of English has continued unabatedafterindependence. First, the dual system of education prevailing in India is class divided, with Englishmedium schools being accessible primarily to families with more resources. For example, Shukla(1996:1349) observedthat "(p)rivatisation and separate schools for the well-off are being resorted to in increasing measure, with the English/nonEnglish distinctiontendingto coincide with the private/publicmanagementdichotomy. A divided system leading to an even more divided society appears inevitable." Second, English serves as the language of expertise and management in post-colonial India. Dasgupta (1993) notes that politicians, whether from the left, right, or centre have helped in preserving the role of English as a language that intentionally or unintentionally perpetuates the centrist development discourse and agendas. (O)urnationalconsensuson lettingexperts runthe developmentprocess has led us all to surrenderour discourse to English as the languageof expertise,andhas eclipsed the serious national discourses - which nonetheless continue to take place at the regional level, in the regional languages, in accordance with dialogic conventions which are deep-rooted in the history of Indiandiscourse which our official theories have remained incapable of taking cognisance of, because our standardconception of development has forced us to surrendernot only our freedom but even the language of our thought to the workaholic frenzy that passes for modernity [Dasgupta 1993:219].

municationwith Richa Nagar,February14) between the English-speaking elites and the non-English-speaking majority. English-medium educational institutionshelp to construct this divide by providing not only linguistic skills but also a set of value laden technical and managerial tools that are presented as value neutral. They also inculcate particular values, world-views, and ideologies of modernisation and development that, in turn, tend to legitimate and increase the economic gaps between rich and poor [Srivastava 1998]. In a multilingual, multicultural postcolonial society such as India's, the widening of this discursive divide between the modern elite classes and the marginalised masses brings into question the compatibility between the institutions of the liberal-democratic state governed through representativedemocracy and the political and economic processes engendered by the current phase of globalisation [P Jha, PersonalCommunicationwith David Faust, March 8, Kothari 1993]. Inorderto understandhow families select English-medium education and its effects, the next section uses interviews to explore the experiences of middle class women and men from Lucknow.

Costs of Upward Mobility Middle Class Experiences

To gain a deeper understanding of how people experience the politics of education in their everyday lives, we interviewed 20 men and women in the city of Lucknow. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, is a medium sized city with a population of just over two million. Although the size of the English-speaking elite here is considerably smaller than in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, Lucknow is one of the few cities in the 'Hindi belt' from

Dasgupta does not go far enough in recognising the fact that,while the development discourse has no doubt brought together an internationalcadre of Englishtrained, like-minded elites, there is also a significant, English-trained,scientificallyskilled 'counter-elite' that is having a degree of success in problematising the politics (and economics and ecology) of development both domestically and internationally. Yet, what is important to recover from Dasgupta's comments is the suggestion that there are not only significant class and linguistic divides, but also and, throughit, to initiatesocial change a discursive divide (P Jha, Personal Com-

of middleclass wherea significant number in theEnglish-medium urbanites educated intotheeliteclass.Themiddle getrecruited class is an important groupfor this study
because of the particularsocial position it

occupies in relation to the politics of anddevelopment. Theparticular education choices and constraintsthey face with respectto Englishandvernacular-medium themembers of themiddle education makes class deeply cognisantof the mannerin and social which economicadvancement prestige are intimately connected with of English-medium education. acquisition is widelyseen education English-medium meansto gain by thisgroupas theprimary

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upwardmobility,yet for this group it is ofteneitherjustwithinorjustout of reach andit,therefore, sacrifices. School requires fees are costly for many middle class familiesandtherecan be otherhurdlesto suchas selectioninterviews or admission, required'donations'.And it is the experiences of first-generation English-medium school attendance and the rifts createdat the level of the individualstudent, the that household,and the neighbourhood canprovide social insightsintothebroader facilitated by thedualeducational ruptures system. The following analysis is based on interviews with middle class women and men of various ages, who were either educated in the Hindi-mediumor who constituted thefirstgeneration of Englishmedium intheirfamilies,and school-goers sometimes in theirneighbourhoods. Their narratives highlighthow membersof the middleclass, differentiated variouslyby their backgrounds, aspirations,and genthedualsystem ders,view andexperience of education, theunevensocial marginalisationandempowerment embedded in this andthe ruptures createdby Enstructure, education. glish-medium As inotherparts of India, thebestEnglishmedium schoolsin Lucknowareprivately ownedand managed,and the costs associatedwiththemareincreasing rapidlyas fortheseschools,especially is thedemand in the face of steadily worseningquality of Hindi-mediumgovernment schools for 1996:61 [Kumar ]. Selectioninterviews well knownEnglish-medium schools are in Englishwithboth conducted frequently andchildren, andparents who are parents notfluentin Englishfeel thattheirchances children admitted aremuch of gettingtheir worse in this selection process. Furthermore,gainingadmissionto such schools can also requirecostly 'donations'.For example,a news storyfromLucknowindicatedthatin the mid-1990s,'donations' rangingfromRs 5,000 to Rs 25,000 were to gainadmission to top Englishrequired mediumschools [Team 1996:1]. Nonetheless, parents educated in the Hindi-mediumoften feel compelled to educatetheirchildrenin English-medium schools. This is not only because such educationprovidesan 'entryticket' into the elite class but, perhapsmore imporand tantly,becauseof the discrimination sufferintheir humiliation theyincreasingly own lives for notknowingEnglish,or for not knowing it well enough in specific contexts.English has come to prevailin

more and more social spaces, and those educated in Hindi-medium schools often feel peripheralised. A 35-year old lower middle class man who does not speak English but is educating his two daughters in English-medium schools, pointed out that: Children who are educated in Englishmediumschoolsenjoya highersocialstatus in every way...Thereare morejob opportunities for the English speakers...Ifyou are interviewing in English, the job is guaranteed...l know that accepting the of Englishis like following the superiority herd mentality,but my wife and I want to educateour daughtersin English-medium schools so thatthey don't suffer the same disadvantagesthat we did. It is even hard to find a suitablematchfor yourdaughters these days if they are not educated in the English medium.4 A 53-year old woman who has been teaching Hindi in a wel' known primary school of Lucknow since 1972, expressed how her reasons for educating her three children in English-medium schools were closely connected with the hurt and discrimination that she herself suffered for not knowing English: I still remember the painI felt when I went to my [eight-yearold] daughter's school andshe didn't let me come inside herclass because she was afraidthatherclassmates would laughat herbecause I did not know English. If I hadbeen educatedin English, I wouldn't get insulted like that...With English-mediumeducation,I would have got a promotionand a much highersalary in my school. I have a Master'sdegree in Hindianda teacher'strainingdiplomaand I have been teaching for 20 years in that school. Yet, 18 or 20-yearold women who have been educated in the English medium, join straightafter college and start from a salary that's at least twice as high as mine. And on top of that when parents come to see me in school I am always worried about my English. Since the last five years, the managementhas made it compulsory for school children to speak in English at all times except during the Hindi class. And if the teachercan't show off her English, the parents think she is worthless.5 The above testimonies pointout, in subtle but forceful ways, the symbolic and material power that comes from Englishmedium education, and the manner in which those who do not speak English experience social marginalisation and disenfranchisement. The material dimension of this disenfranchisement is evident

in the lack of well-paid jobs for those educated in the vernacular medium. The symbolic dimension [Bourdieu 1990] of this disenfranchisement is apparentin the greater prominence and recognition that English speakers enjoy in public life, and in the humiliation and peripheralisation sufferedby those educated in the vernacular medium.Those educated in the Englishmedium often use derogatory labels, such as 'vernacs' or Hindi Medium Type (HMT) (derived from the popular acronym for the company, Hindustan Machine Tools) to mock those educated in the vernacular medium.6 English education, along with the changes in attitude, lifestyles, mannerisms, and aspirations that it brings, becomes a formof culturalcapital thatbrings higher economic and cultural status for those who have access to English education and disenfranchises those who cannot gain access to it. It is their keen familiarity with the benefits bestowed by an Englishmedium education and with the economic marginalisation and social indignity suffered by those who cannot speak fluent English, that compels middle class families to enrol their children in Englishmedium schools. The recognised role of English-medium schools is to give their students access to social prestige and well paid jobs. These schools, however, also engender a process of social fracturing which alienates students, particularly those who come from vernacular backgrounds, from their own., families. This alienation is often gendered, class-based, and generational; mothers, aunts, grandparents,and members of lower castes and classes become more distanced for the students, who increasingly come to identify with the culture of the English speakers.7 This social fracturing begins throughthe constructionof differentspaces that create rifts in their lives. The geographic fracture is between the Englishmedium school- the space of 'modernity', and home and neighbourhood - the spaces of 'tradition'. A 25-year old recalled the sense of alienation she experienced when she was first admitted to an Englishmedium school, while at the same time pointing out the irony of the material privileges that such education brought for her. (F)or me (thatschool) was a prison.Nothing could providea moreshockingcontrast to my home and familialrelationships,my the kids I playedwith, and neighbourhood, the people who I was attachedto. As soon

as I started going there,I lost my voice.

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I had to translate my feelings and experiencesin orderto communicate,and I could not do that...Goingto that school at the age of nine meant loss of selfexpression for me. Yet, ironically, when I grew up, it gave me choices that I could have never dreamed of had I not been educated in that school.8 The references to the loss of voice and self-expression that the narratormakes in above quotation symbolise the cost of upwardmobility for those who come from 'vernacular'backgrounds. The above testimony also vividly illustrates Kumar's argumentthat when 'children whose only competence is in their mother tongue meet children studying in English-medium schools (they) face public evidence of theircrucial handicap, namely, the lack of English language skills. The evidence induces the inevitable desire to stay silent ratherthan reveal one's handicap. In symbolic terms, the desire translates into loss of one's voice [Kumar 1996:71-72]. For some, this process of alienation occurs not in childhood but at a later stage when they enter professional institutions to become the 'experts' of the technomanagerialculture.A 23-year old engineer expressed thathis admission to an Englishmedium engineering school (Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi) alienated him from his family and neighbours, but provided him with a culturalcapital that aided his entry into the elite class: WhenI firstjoined my engineeringschool at 17,I was a misfit. I was not into boozing or smoking or body building or English music andfilms. I didn't eat out in expensive places...So...everyone [in my hostel thought] I was stingy and boring. Soon enough,I hadto learnto drinkand smoke, I had to learn to love Heavy Metal, and I had to learn to enjoy eating out and spending money. Before going to that interestswerediverse...I school,myreading read a lot of Hindi fiction and Hindi magazines. In the technology institute, people read computerjournals and stuff aboutautomation andproduction.I did not even.understand that stuff but I felt pressured to look at them. I started reading English books and English fiction there. All my Hindi reading was left behind. There my philosophy was: 'In Rome, do as Romansdo.' But even when I left that school,thosechangesstayedwith me. And now due to my professionalfield [it is hard for me to return]to my old interestseven thoughmy new life alienatesme from my family and neighbours.I have continued to move in the directionof my new inter-

ests because five years ago, I wasn't acceptedby my upperclass classmates.I was afraidof them.But now I am acceptedand admired by the same people.9 A set of technical skills and the ability to speak English are, therefore, not the only pre-requisite of becoming a part of the techno-managerial elite. To truly become a part of the elite, one has to adopt a new set of cultural values (including English reading, western music, and expensive restaurants) and give up the 'old habits' that intimately connected that person to her/his familial and neighbourhood environment. While some feel siuffocated by the necessity of making this choice (see Sujata's testimony above), others accept it as a change they must undergo to become a part of a privileged social strata (e g, Pracheta's testimony). Thus, while English-medium education may providea bridgeacrosstheclass divide, one must often discard ones inherited cultural baggage to cross it successfully. The majority of the people who are educated in the vernacularmedium inhabit the other side of the social divide. They feel that a huge social and cultural gulf divides them from the English-speaking elite. A 37-year old, lower middle class man who was educated in the Hindimedium, commented: An Englishspeakeralways wantsto show himself off as separatefrom us, the common people. And in doing so, he distances himself from the traditions,customs, and values of his society. Those educated in English-mediumschools have a hardtime basicthingsthatI learnnatuunderstanding rally from my social context. This is because they are alienated from the culture of common people. Their world is totally different from ours.l? The point made above about separation and distance between 'us' and 'the English speakers' is an importantone. This, comhined with contrasting sets of values and priorities and significantly different ways of constructing the world constitutes the discursive divide between the elite and the common people. What makes this divide problematic, however, is not so much that it exists but the fact that it translates into unequal access to power, authority and social status. The culturalcapital delivered by English education is recognised from a very early stage, particularly by those who do not have access to it. A 16-year old Hindi-mediumcollege studentfroma lower middle class background,several of whose

teenaged neighbours are educated in English-medium schools, summed it up well when he remarked: English-medium students never talk to Hindi-medium students as equals. They talk to us as if they rule us...When I was a kid, I used to think that children who spoke English were cleverer than us. But now I know that it doesn't matter if we are smarteror better students. It is only those with English education who will always be considered superiorto us, and who will become big and famous in the future.1 Furthermore, this social, cultural, economic and political fragmentation leads to increasingly unequal access to resources and power in a period of growing transnational networks among the elite. Under the liberalising trade regime, the elite see their futures as tied to the global economy and increasingly detached from the future of the common people. In fact, some of the people we interviewed in 1995-96 linked a steadily increasing dominance of English with the restructuringof the global and national economies, and the globalisation of culture in which the Englishspeaking national elite benefit from transnational capitalism while the ordinary people are left out. This sentiment resonates with GPD's (1996) view of elites as a cultural compradore who speak English to do business with multinationals and speak the vernacularto mesmerise the unsuspecting masses. For example, a 57year old middle class man who was educated in the Hindi-medium, remarked: Western thinking and consumerist behaviouris increasinglydominatingour middle class youth...The lure of the materialistculture and the dominanceof the culturearethe mainreasonswhy corporate everyone wants to go to the US. The increasing preoccupationwith English is connected to this lure of the US....MNCs and industrialists are benefiting greatly fromthe promotionandgrowthof English in this country.Managementhas suddenly become a big profession in India because corporationsand industries want to capture markets here...and hundreds of managementschools have sprungup. But every qualifying test, every special trainandeverycompetitive exam ingprogramme is in English.To get two jobs, 200 Indians are forced to study English...The propagation of electronics and computershave also led to the worshipping of English. ...Last year, there was a hike in the cost of newsprintso pricesof Hindinewspapers doubled. But the Englishnewspaperscost

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Sontag 1996 (a and b)]. Sontag makes an instructive contrast between the linguistic politics of Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and Laloo PrasadYadav in Bihar. She suggests that because of their class and caste background, both need a political strategy that validates common speech, thus Mulayam Singh Yadav introduced policies to banish English in UP, an approach that can be coopted by traditional Hindi-speaking elites. By contrast Laloo Prasad Yadav sought to reintroduce compulsory English in Bihar's schools and thereby 'hijack' English, making it available to the masses as a boon to employability [Sontag 1996b]. Sontag's formulation highlights the divide between elitesponsored Sanskritised Hindi and the vernaculars, and the fact that English [T]he effect of legitimation provided by does not have to be the sole preserve of We quote Pratap at length because his modernising theories as well as by sup- elites. This recall's Sheth's (1990) argutestimony vividly illustrates Kumar's institutions(the school, the media, portive ment that a progressive language politics (1996:71) concern that dependence on an the state) can be seen to have created a Indian language has become a 'symbol of 'blockedmajority'in thethirdworldcoun- should emphasise universal high quality deprival' under the circumstances created tries, whose values and ideas are being training in English as a second language by the ascendance of English in a neorejectedby its childrenas being irrelevant while phasing out English-medium colonial context. As English increasingly education. for the problems facing them. becomes "the language of social advanThere is a need to further explore the Thus, English-mediumeducationin India contradictory impulses and political postage andexciting economic opportunities," those educated in state-run vernacular plays a central role in shaping the dis- sibilities created at the intersection of the schools face "a chronically unfaircompul- courses aroundmodern social institutional class-divided educational system with the sion to participatein the mainstreammarket structure and existing class inequalities, current round of globalisation in the coneconomy from a weak position" [Kumar while also widening and deepening social text of postcolonial India. On the one hand 1996:71]. gulfs between the privileged elite and the we need to explore more fully how the common people to an unprecedented ruptures created by this education shape Reflections degree. The role of English and English- the specific debates over development, medium education has been a perennial democracy andsocial change. Forexample, Questions for the Future subject of political debate in postcolonial a 'growing amnesia' about the poor Foregoing discussions have shown some India, but market forces and globalisation [Kothari 1993] means that the social and of the reasons why middle class people are having their own impacts on linguistic who are not of English-speaking back- diversity. In the interest of efficiency, ground feel compelled to send their chil- globalisation processes produce pressure Higher Education Through dren to English-medium schools, and how for the homogenisation of language, and Television: those students feel forced to give up their in multilingual India, market forces, the The IndianExperience cultural values in exchange for the antici- mass media and the state are supporting the creation and spread of a few common pated benefits of a higher socio-economic by status. The incorporation of the middle languages at the expense of the majority Binod C. Agrawal (Editor) class youth into an English-speaking elite of regional languages and dialects [Mohan is accompanied by increasing alienation 1995]. Shukla (1996:1349) sees English 2000 Rs. 200 144pp from the lives, experiences, and values of "gradually but inevitably asserting its in southernAsia, the common people. In this way, a discur- dominanceinternationally The collected essays discuss the sive divide between those who are English even as spheres of autonomy arepreserved, stuctural predicaments in providing educated and those who are not, is re- primarily by Chinese and Japanese". In light of these conditions how do we education to all in India inspite of inforced. This discursive divide "threatens think about a progressive politics of lan- technological revolution. the very foundation of the community the web of social interaction and relation- guage? On the one hand, English has been Concept Publishing Company ships which Appadurai calls sociality" advocated as a unifying and modernising A/15-16, Commercial Block, [Marglin 1990:21 ]. Maintaining this soci- force in India and an international link to Mohan Garden, ality becomes increasingly difficult, not the latest ideas and technologies. On the New Delhi-59 only due to political, economic, and social otherhand,it is seen as a markerof imperia- Ph.5648039, 5649024 Fax: 091-11-5648053 trendstowardsincreasingcommodification lism and class privilege and a terrain of Email : publishing@conceptpub.com and consumerism; but also because of the struggle among elite groups [Sheth 1999,

half as much as the Hindi newspapers because English newspapers are full of advertisementsof industries,firms, business pages, jobs, and matrimonialadvertisements. Hindi newspapersget none of these advertisements. As a result,...middle class people like myself who would rather readtheHindinewspaper,arebeing forced to buy the English newspaper...Thepromotionof English in recentyears has a lot to do with the demise of the public sector and the celebrationof the private sector in India...[and] the rise of the MNCs. The alliance between the new culture and the new money is disconnectingthe common person from the popularmedia, and it is breaking the back of the common person...What will people educated in Hindi-medium do? They will die of 12 starvation!

status of sociality "as an externality which nobody takes into account in determining his or her behaviour in an atomistic, individualistic context" [Marglin 1990:21]. At a personal level, students of Englishmedium schools experience the discursive divide and loss of sociality most painfully as alienation within the vernacular spaces of family and the neighbourhood. At a broader scale, the social values, beliefs, and practices thatare 'basic' to the 'culture of the common people' become unimportant in the eyes of English-speaking elite who do not recognise their meaning or significance. It is this process of social distancing that makes the common people what Banuri (1990:46) refers to as a 'blocked majority':

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economic transformations favoured by elites (who, themselves are heterogeneous and struggling for power and wealth) may be incompatiblewith the needs of the poor, even as the poor are excluded from discussions of nation and development. Protests against elite projects are increasingly likely to be treated as law enforcement problems and met with repression, rather than with negotiation as was more often the case in colonial and early postcolonial India [Kothari 1993;Viswanathan 1989]. Another manifestation of this uneven empowerment and disenfranchisement is the increasingpolarisation,fracturingand violence along religious, caste, ethnic and genderlines [Kothari 1993:144]. This situation, furthermore, increases the strains between the formally democratic political institution and the elitist economic machinery.13 On the other hand, we need to map out more clearly some of the counter-impulses and political possibilities potentially opened up (even if paradoxically) within the push by transnationalcapital to create a class of functionaries (and consumers) in its own image. Among the elements of this project is to better understand the development of the 'counter-elite' and the spaces opened up for this counter elite to mediate a coalition between marginalised social groups and the urban middle class as well as internationalsocial movements, NGOs or other progressive elements of an emerging international civil society.14 Conversationsabout democracy, development, and the nation in India are incomplete withouta serious consideration of the mannerin which politics of education and language determine whose voice is heard, by whom, and on whose terms. 113

Theories in the Social Role of Modernisation peer-group interaction among children also takes place in English. Any tendencychildren Development of the Third World' in Apffel might show to use their mother tongue [or Marglin and S Marglin (eds), Dominating first language] is expressly curbed, often by Knowledge:Development, Culture, and means of punishment"[Kumar 1996:66]. By Press,Oxford. Resistance,pp29-72, Clarendon P ( 1990):TheLogicofPractice, Stanford contrast, the medium of instruction in Bourdieu, vernacularschools is usually one of the 13 University Press, Stanford. constitutionallyrecognised state languagesof Dasgupta, P (1993): 'The Othernessof English: India. English in these schools is taught as India'sAuntieTongueSyndrome'inLanguage one of the subjects. Vernacular-medium andDevelo)pent: Volume1, Sage, New Delhi. schools are often state-runwhile the majority Escobar, A (1995): EncounteringDevelopment: of English-medium schoolsareprivately TheMakingand Unmaking owned ofthe ThirdWorld, and managed. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 2 See, forexampleKumar( 1991),Kuinar(1993), GPD (1996): 'Languageand Politics', Economic Kumar (1994). and Political Weekly, 31(22):1299. 3 See also Advani (1996). Grewal, I and C Kaplan (1994): 'Introduction: 4 Nagar's interview with Amit, July 15, 1995 Transnational FeministPractices andQuestions in Inderpal GrewalandCaren (Lucknow). ofPostmodernity' 5 Nagar's interview with Poornima, July 18, Kaplan (eds), Scattered Hegemonies: 1995 (Lucknow). Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist 6 Nagar's interviewswith Kiran,July 15, 1995; Practices, pp 1-33, University of Minnesota Shalini May 29, 1996 (Lucknow). Press, Minneapolis. 7 Nagar's interviews with Sujata,July 2, 1995; Kothari,R (1993): Growing Amnesia: An Essay on PovertyandHumanConsciousness,Viking, Rohit,July5,1995;Sudha,July5,1995; Pratap, July 15, 1995; Ramesh, July 15, 1995; Penguin Books, New Delhi. Pracheta,July 18, 1995; Poornima,July 18, Kumar,K (1991): Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas, 1995; Alok, July 20, 1995; Vishal, July 20, 1995 (Lucknow). Sage, New Delhi. 8 Nagar's interview with Sujata, July 2, 1995 - (1993): 'MarketEconomy and Mass Literacy', Economic and Political Weekly, December (Lucknow). 9 Nagar's interviewwith Pracheta, 11, 2727-34. July 18, 1995 - (1994): 'Battle against Their Own Minds', (Lucknow). 10 Nagar's interviewwith Ramesh,July 15, 1995 Economic and Political Weekly, February12, 345-47. (Lucknow). 11 Nagar's interview with Rohit, July 5, 1995 - (1996): Learning fromo Conflict, Orient (Lucknow). Longman, New Delhi. 12 Nagar's interview with Pratap,July 15, 1995 Marglin, S (1990): 'Towards the Decolonisation of the Mind' in FApffel MarglinandS Marglin (Lucknow). 13 AlthoughIndiais ademocracy,politicalleaders (eds), Dominating Knowledge:Development, who are not membersof the English-speaking Culture,and Resistance, pp 1-28, Clarendon elite are deridedas ignorant,corruptbuffoons Press, Oxford. by the elite. For example, comical portrayals Mohan, Peggy (1995): 'Market Forces and of politicalleaderssuchas LalooPrasad Yadav, Language in Global India', Economic and Political Weekly, April 22, 887-90. Mayawati, Mulayam SinghYadav,andPhoolan Devi who come fromlower-casteandnon-elite Sheth D L (1990): 'No English Please, We're Indian', Illustrated Weekly of India 61(33): backgrounds,are common in the homes of 34-37. elite,andoftenalso in English English-speaking media coverage. At the same time, the - (1999): 'Secularisationof Caste and Makingof New Middle Class', Economic and Political dispossessed majority, if they vote, may increasinglyvote for leaders who are not part Weekly, 34 (34 and 35): 2502-10. of theEnglish-speaking elite Shukla, Sureshachandra (1996): 'From Pretechno-managerial colonial to Post-Colonial: Educational classes, and who favour policies that are not [Both authors have contributedequally to this in the interestof these elites. These elites see Transitionsin SouthernAsia', Economic and We hadseveraldiscussionswith Prabhakara paper. neither such politicians nor the people they Political Weekly, 31(22): 1344-49. Jha between 1994 and 1996, which were critical as legitimate oras havinganystanding Sontag, Selma (1996a): 'The Political Saliency of represent in the conceptualisationof this project. We are to critique elite projects. Journal Languagein BiharandUttarPradesh', grateful to him, and to Krishna Kumar, Abdi 14 ArundhatiRoy's interventionin the struggles of Commonwealthand Conparative Politics Jim Glassman and Rakesh Chandra for Samatar, around the Narmada Valley projects would 34(2): 1-18. their insightful comments, suggestions, and be an interesting example to explore in this - (1996b): 'Languageand the Politics of Change encouragement.] context. in Postcolonial North India', paperpresented 1 We recognisethat there is a range of Englishat the 25th AnnualConferenceon south Asia, medium educational institutions. Here, Madison, WI, October 17-20. however,we areconcernedwith the upper-tier Srivastava, Sanjay (1998): Constructing Postof English-mediumschools in Indian cities, Advani, S (1996):'Educatingthe NationalImagiColonial India: National Character and the where not only are all subjects taught in Doon School. Routledge,London,New York. nation'. Economic and Political Weekly,31 Team, L T (1996): 'The Admission "Rites"', (31): 2077-82. English, but extra-curricular activities are alsoconductedinEnglish.As Kumar(1996:66) Appadurai. A (1990): 'Disjuncture andDifference LucknowTimes,TheTinmes of India,Lucknow, in the Global Cultural Economy', Public points out, the message conveyed by this July 6:1. Culture 2(2): 1-24. Viswanathan, G (1989): Masks of Conquest: practice is that the students of these schools will absorbEnglishin theirwhole personality. Banuri,T (1990): 'Development and the Politics Literary Study and British Rule in India, "Someschools go to the extentof insistingthat of Knowledge:A CriticalInterpretation of the Columbia University Press, New York.

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