I will start this post of mine with an anecdote which is not only hilarious but also demonstrative of how a proper lack of knowledge of languages can hurt the cause of understanding and enlightenment. A few years ago, 2006 actually, there was an outbreak of a viral fever in the Hyderabad, India, the city which is my home. The virus was imported into India from Africa and has a Swahili name - Chikun Gunya. I believe it translates to unbearable pain. The proliferation of news channels on TV has meant that they will pick up the "hottest" subject and beat it to death and beyond. In one of these channels onto which I stumbled by accident I saw a doctor explaining the problems associated with Chikun Gunya fever. Somehow in Andhra Pradesh Chikun Gunya was corrupted to Chicken Gunya. During the course of the interview that the doctor was facing, the interviewer posed the question as to why this fever had this name Chicken Gunya, that is. The doctor without batting an eyelid said that people who have this fever have extreme pain and therefore they have "gooni", Telugu for hunched and since they walk completely hunched they look like a chicken. Therefore the name Chicken Gunya. Over a period of time not only did this explanation gain currency but also was often confused with Avian Flu that was around that time. Chicken is a bird so chicken gunya is avian or bird flu!! The net result of this was that people who had simple fevers were afraid that they had the possibly fatal avian flu and when they were cured of their fever told everyone that they had survived bird flu.
I have given this anecdote here for two reasons. The first is because to show the horrible effects of bad translations. The second is to show that in the present world it is impossible to stop the process of new disease imports. You wonder as to what that has to do with anything that I have to say. The answer is simple. If diseases are global then there has to a global knowledge base to cure those diseases. In order to have a proper ability to share this knowledge, a global language called English is necessary. It is by avoiding English that we can end up being globally irrelevant. This is not to argue that English is superior or that Indian languages are inferior. It is simply to establish that is a Globalised world it is not possible to survive effectively without English. That is the reason why the Chinese are also beginning to teach English to their students from the Kindergarten itself. India on the other hand is going backwards. English was almost an English language, especially in the southern parts of the country. Today however, jingoism and a false sense of pride over one's own tongue have meant that we are a on a downward spiral.
Regional media for education were introduced in India in tearing hurry and that has led to the destruction of the education system. There can be no argument over the fact that socially, politically and medically relevant knowledge has to treat the world as its constituency. When the world is the constituency for knowledge, the language used for understanding this should have the flexibility and openness to describe and analyze situations and diseases etc. Now local languages are precisely that. Since every language evolves from within a culture its structures and vocabulary pertain that culture. English too was a local language once. But with colonialism and with the spread of English to most parts of the world and because it was the language of the powerful, English became the language which was better equipped than most to deal with new and emerging forms of knowledge. These developments meant that for a local Indian language to be enriched it needed translations from English. However, the problem with that is that it requires persons who have a good grasp and control over both the languages, English and the other language into which things are being translated. It also means that the translator will have to be knowledgeable of technical terms and the technicalities of the languages concerned. A tall order. For a nation in a hurry to establish itself as the equal of all others such an exercise proved to be time consuming. Instead, of then saying that English would be the language of instruction till such time that bodies of knowledge were adequately translated into Indian languages, to satisfy the jingoistic concerns of some, regional media of instruction were introduced taking education to where it is today. And all those who have been educated in the regional media and are hopeless about their future are a big constituency of lumpen elements whose services can be hired by politicians for whatever purposes they have in their minds. Otherwise how does one explain educational institutions becoming breeding grounds for all activities political, revolutionary or otherwise.
In a democracy where vote banks are of the utmost importance, it is quite necessary to satisfy the will of the people. The huge pool of the lumpen students is readily available for demonstrating the strength of the issue. So we have a situation where education institutions instead of enlightening people are serving the cause of the dark side of politics. The need therefore is to have English as the medium of instruction and starting teaching meaningful things to students. Otherwise, China will take over from us as the second biggest English speaking country in the world and usurp our position in the service industry which is the biggest employer of Indians.
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