India's war on English makes no sense
India's Hindu nationalist rulers are waging war on the English language. They like to claim it is the language of colonial subjugation. Amit Shah, the home minister and a powerful ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has predicted that the day is coming when Indians who speak English will feel 'ashamed' to do so. In his eyes, the English language is a legacy of colonial rule and should be stamped out.
It is hard to think of anything more stupid and counterproductive than this shameless campaign. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress party, was withering in his condemnation: 'English is not shameful; it is empowering. English is not a chain; it is a tool to break the chains.' Hear, hear to that!
The English language has helped, not hindered, India in the modern era
Shah has long railed against colonial rule in India. He and others in the Indian government argue that the British Empire 'enslaved' Indian minds long after the Raj. 'I believe that the languages of our country are the ornament of our culture. For our history and culture to be understood, it cannot be done in foreign languages.' This is nonsense.
Attacking English speakers in India ignores the larger truth that the country has no real national language of its own. Hindi, the official language of central government, is little more than an artificial 20th century construct. Even the Hindustani of Bollywood films is spoken mainly by Indians concentrated in the 'cow belt' of northern India. The rest of the subcontinent speaks hundreds of regional vernaculars. English is the only language that binds the whole together, a genuine lingua franca. Why belittle it?
Much official daily business across India would be difficult, if not impossible, without English. It is the language of business, science and technology across the country. Proficiency in the language can often lead to better employment prospects and higher earnings. That's why many aspirational Indians want their children to go to a school where lessons are taught in English – it is a means of escape from the rigid caste and class hierarchies that persist across the country to this day. Roughly 129 million people speak English across the country; that is second only to the United States in terms of overall numbers of English speakers.
When Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first post-independence leader, delivered his famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech on the eve of India's independence in August 1947, he did so in English. That speech, widely celebrated for its eloquence, marked the real end of colonial rule in India. How odd that Nehru's modern-day successors don't appreciate the language he spoke in.
Shah's assault on the English language has inevitably sparked nationwide debate about the enduring legacy of British rule. That is what he wants to focus on. It has also prompted renewed suspicions about what this campaign is really about, which is less welcome for the government.
Ministers would prefer Hindi to take precedence over English when it comes to language. Why would that be? Is it just a coincidence that Hindi is spoken primarily in northern India, which is where the ruling BJP party gets most of its votes? Voters elsewhere, who do not speak Hindi, are right to be suspicious. Opposition politicians likewise have their doubts. The Congress party claims the government does not want poor Indians, trapped at the bottom of society, to learn English because it doesn't want them to move ahead in society and attain equality. Maybe, maybe not.
What can be said with certainty is that the English language has helped, not hindered, India in the modern era. Its rulers should be celebrating the country's English-speaking millions, not denigrating them in a petty and manufactured language war – to make a meaningless point about the colonial past.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Scotsman
Gaelic officialdom is failing to engage with its existential crisis
The Scottish Languages Bill is simply a rehash of the status quo, writes Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin, the co-author of a landmark study published in 2020 Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The remaining Gaelic communities in Scotland are in the final stages of their absorption into the UK's dominant culture of English monolingualism. The recently passed Scottish Languages Bill suggests nothing of consequence to counteract this troubling situation. From the Gaelic perspective, the Bill is an unfortunate example of legislation that deteriorates as it moves through the various parliamentary stages; its final version is weaker than what was originally proposed. As we saw from many of the parliamentary debates, this poorly drafted legislation put Scotland's parliamentarians in the invidious position of feeling obliged to support a less-than-optimal parliamentary response to the critical situation of the Gaelic communities. Cognisant of its weak relevance to societal reality, the parliamentarians could only muster a lacklustre ratification, rather than a much-needed ringing endorsement of a new departure in Gaelic affairs. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A sign in Gaelic and English on a road in the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides | Getty Images Excepting Scots, the Bill is a rehash of the status quo. It is, therefore, largely pointless. Much of what is proposed could be achieved without recourse to such a bureaucratically cumbersome legislative approach. As the Bill's provisions are intended to be mostly symbolic and performative in their implementation, it is reasonable to enquire what justifies the legislative expense, time and official effort in devising a Bill that evades social reality. It is apparent that the Bill was initiated to address the challenges posed by Soillse's 2020 Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community sociolinguistic evidence, but the Bill fails to respond coherently and credibly to the documented reality of Gaelic community demise. What has led to this hapless situation of proposing a variant of the official approach which led to the crisis in the first place? The failure in the Bill to prioritise support for fragile Gaelic communities is largely to blame. The official and academic failure to engage sincerely with the reality check which the Gaelic Crisis evidence engendered is also implicated in this misguided legislation. The book's evidence was subjected to an irrational academic and official antagonism in which custodians of existing Gaelic promotion colluded to ensure that the Gaelic Crisis perspective would be denied a fair hearing. In censoring the Gaelic Crisis, these custodians have merely reasserted a version of what constitutes Gaelic promotion while at the same time refusing to accept any responsibility for its societal failings. They have washed their hands of any linkage between their institutional power and the consequences of official inertia. The efforts of the MSPs to focus the parliamentary debates on the Gaelic Crisis evidence are to be especially commended, given the hostility of Gaelic officialdom to it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In discounting the challenging lived reality of Gaelic speakers, the Bill was destined to veer back towards the ideological rigidities of established promotion efforts. Its social denialism is exacerbated by reiterations of official pieties and reassertions of symbolic appeals to the importance of Gaelic to a sense of Scottish culture, despite the obvious constraints on that social culture in supporting actual and viable Gaelic communities. The reality is that the Gaelic Crisis evidence has never been properly considered or debated in Scottish academia, in official language bodies or in governmental circles. Five years on, nobody in these key sectors for Gaelic affairs has sat down with the authors for an in-depth discussion on the implications of their research for the sustainability of Gaelic in Scotland. The Bill is an undemocratic reaction to the Gaelic Crisis, rather than an engagement with its evidence leading to its integration into policy developments. The Gaelic affairs power class in Scotland decided to enact a Languages Bill despite the demise of Gaelic communities, rather than instituting strategies to assist the Gaels in their current predicament. The official rejection of the third-stage amendments tabled by MSPs Pam Duncan-Glancy, Michael Marra and Ross Greer were instructive. The common denominator in these amendments was to propose strategic indicators of community agency and progress. This rejection would suggest that the status of 'Areas of Linguistic Significance' is to be adhered to more in a symbolic rather than in a practically productive manner. In the absence of a clear strategic intent, the Bill is more likely to generate a cottage industry of navel-gazing language politics, rather than offering practical help to a language community in existential crisis. The policies that emerged from the 2005 Act failed to generate much traction among the Gaels. Given the irrelevance of this Bill to the social circumstances of the Gaels, it is likely that this legislation will become the sociolinguistic equivalent of a religious liturgy for a non-existent congregation. In practical terms, the legislation amounts to a rebuff to the remaining Gaelic communities. In this situation, it might be wise for council and community leaders, Gaelic activists in the Gaelic districts and representatives of other Gaelic networks to call a Gaelic community summit to identify sources of practical and societal support, outwith the political sphere, which can bolster the remaining capacity. Besides availing of the limited opportunities from the Bill, it is clear that the Gaels are going to require a bespoke fund to support their collective efforts to reverse the current trajectory towards social erasure. The terminal decline of native-speaking Gaelic communities can be the only possible outcome of anaemic and untargeted official Gaelic promotion. Gaelic is in dire need of community protection rather than more symbolic promotion.
NBC News
8 hours ago
- NBC News
'Insane and destructive': Elon Musk resumes attacks on Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill'
Elon Musk launched a series of attacks on Saturday against a massive spending bill that would fund much of President Donald Trump's agenda, renewing his criticisms as Senate Republicans rush to pass the package, dubbed the "Big, Beautiful Bill," in order to meet a July 4th deadline set by Trump. "The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!," Musk wrote in a post on X. "Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future." The billionaire and former Trump adviser amplified a poll that suggests the "big, beautiful bill" is politically unpopular due to its budgetary effects, a notion that was affirmed this month by several separate surveys. Forty percent of Republican respondents to a recent NBC News Decision Desk poll said "ensuring the national debt is reduced" is the most important issue as Congress considers the Trump-backed mega bill. Overall, a majority of respondents said maintaining current spending levels on programs like Medicaid is the most important issue. "Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party," Musk wrote on X. Musk has long been a critic of Trump's "big, beautiful bill," balking at its expected impact on the national deficit and arguing that it would offset government savings brought in by the Department of Government Efficiency, an organization Trump appointed him to lead earlier this year. He maintained that opinion Saturday, expressing it through several posts on his platform, X — including one post that attacked the bill's expected effect on the deficit "as "putting America in the fast lane to debt slavery!" Trump previously argued that Musk only opposed the legislation because of provisions aimed at stripping away electric vehicle tax credits. Musk today called a provision in the bill that he framed as targeting clean energy production "incredibly destructive to America." The Tesla chief's departure from the White House, where he formally served as a special government employee, came a day after he publicly expressed his criticisms of the bill during an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning." 'I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, I don't know if it can be both,' Musk said at the time. While Musk no longer commands similar levels of influence in Washington, his past opposition to the bill emboldened Republicans lawmakers, some of whom, like Musk, took issue with its expected $4 trillion increase to the national deficit. The renewed criticism by Musk comes as Senate Republicans rush to whip enough votes to pass the 940-page megabill amid breaks in the party over certain provisions, including expected cuts to Medicaid that could strip funding from rural hospitals. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C, cited the loss of rural hospital funding in explaining his decision to oppose the bill. Earlier this month, shortly after the House of Representatives passed its version of the bill, Musk urged his more than 200 million followers on X to tell Congress to "kill the bill."
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Senate Republicans scrambling to pass tax-and-spend bill by Trump deadline
The US Senate is preparing for a key procedural vote Saturday as Republicans race to pass Donald Trump's package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his Fourth of July deadline. Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all Republican senators are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn in Trump tax breaks. Before the expected vote to advance the measure, the White House released a statement saying it 'strongly supports passage' of the bill that 'implements critical aspects' of the president's agenda. Trump himself was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday with Republican senators, including one of the holdouts, Rand Paul of Kentucky. 'It's time to get this legislation across the finish line,' the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said. The 940-page bill was released shortly before midnight Friday, and senators are expected to grind through the days ahead with hours of potentially all-night debate and countless amendments. Senate passage could be days away, and the bill would need to return to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House. With the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, leaders need almost every lawmaker on board in the face of essentially unified opposition from Democrats. Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump donor who came out in strong opposition to the House version of the bill, denounced the Senate draft on his social media platform, X, on Saturday. 'The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!' Musk wrote above a comment from a green energy expert who pointed out that the bill raises taxes on new wind and solar projects. 'Utterly insane and destructive,' Musk added. 'It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.' Bernie Moreno, the Republican senator from Ohio, opened the day's session with an impassioned defense of the package that he said had been misrepresented by its critics. 'Read it for yourself,' he said. Senate Democrats intend to do just that, with the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, announcing on social media Saturday afternoon that his party will force the entire bill to be read aloud before a final vote on passage can take place. Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said Republicans had released the bill 'in the dead of night' and were rushing to pass it before the public fully knows what's in it. The weekend session could be a make-or-break moment for Trump's party, which has invested much of its political capital on his signature domestic-policy plan. Trump is pushing Congress to wrap it up, even as he sometimes gives mixed signals, allowing for more time. At recent events at the White House, including on Friday, Trump has admonished the 'grandstanders' among GOP holdouts to fall in line. 'We can get it done,' Trump said in a social media post. 'It will be a wonderful Celebration for our Country.' The legislation is an ambitious but complicated series of GOP priorities. At its core, it would make permanent many of the tax breaks from Trump's first term that would otherwise expire by year's end if Congress fails to act, resulting in a potential tax increase on Americans. The bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350bn to national security, including for Trump's mass deportation agenda. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion But the spending cuts that Republicans are relying on to offset the lost tax revenues are causing dissent within the GOP ranks. Some lawmakers say the cuts go too far, particularly for people receiving healthcare through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives worried about the nation's debt are pushing for steeper cuts. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said he remains concerned about the fundamentals of the package and will not support the procedural motion to begin debate. Rand Paul has opposed the measure on the grounds that it will raise the nation's debt limit by $5tn. And Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican pushing for deeper cuts, said he needed to see the final legislative text. The release of that draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the bill to ensure it complied with the chamber's strict 'Byrd rule', which bars policy matters from inclusion in budget bills unless a provision can get 60 votes to overcome objections. That would be a tall order in a Senate with a 53-47 Republican edge, and Democrats unified against Trump's bill. Republicans suffered a series of setbacks after several proposals were determined to be out of compliance by the chief arbiter of the Senate's rules. One plan would have shifted some food stamp costs from the federal government to the states; a second would have gutted the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But over the past days, Republicans have quickly revised those proposals and reinstated them. The final text includes a proposal for cuts to a Medicaid provider tax that had run into parliamentary objections and opposition from several senators worried about the fate of rural hospitals. The new version extends the start date for those cuts and establishes a $25bn fund to aid rural hospitals and providers. Most states impose the provider tax as a way to boost federal Medicaid reimbursements. Some Republicans argue that is a scam and should be abolished. The nonpartisan congressional budget office has said that under the House-passed version of the bill, some 10.9 million more people would go without healthcare and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid. The CBO has not yet publicly assessed the Senate draft, which proposes steeper reductions. Top income-earners would see about a $12,000 tax cut under the House bill, while the package would cost the poorest Americans $1,600, the CBO said.
