Eighteen-year-old Hima Das, daughter of a farmer from Kandhulimari village of Assam, made India proud by winning the gold in the 400 m final at the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships. It was a well-deserved victory for a girl from an underprivileged background, with minimal government support. The Athletics Federation of India landed in a soup by sending out a bizarre tweet when the golden girl had reached the finals. The tweet read, “#HimaDas speking to media after her SF win at #iaaftampere2018 @iaaforg Not so fluent in English but she gave her best there too. So proud of u #HimaDas Keep rocking & yeah, try ur best in final.”
Please note the spelling of ‘speaking’ in the tweet. Talk about the rich irony. The Federation should have been discussing how a girl from a remote village in the neglected Northeast became a world champion. For the past seven decades, their efforts were mostly concentrated in metropolitan cities where people ‘spek’ good English, yet it needed a rural girl to achieve what they had strived for. They should have been discussing how to produce more champions for India rather than being worried about her English.
Though the Federation apologised, the damage was done. Nothing much is being done for the athletes by various federations and councils for sports and athletics. They might start an English class for the political heavyweights who get parked in such authorities and federations as a part of ‘Rajnaitik Rozgar Yojana’. At least, these officials may, with some luck, avoid such gaffes in their absurd tweets.
We are a country where knowing English is considered the sign of intelligence. Speaking in a fake Yankee accent is a sign of genius. I had faced this in my struggling years. Like many educated Indians, I could read and write English reasonably well. Speaking was a nightmare. I was scared people would laugh at my small-town Malayali accent. As I was not born in New York or London, but in Thrippunithura in Kerala, I still have my accent. People still laugh, but I have reached a stage where I do not care. Having reached my mid-40s and having stayed in many metropolitan cities like Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and now Mumbai, I know that every Indian speaks with an accent. But as a youngster with a hard-won graduate degree, the lack of fluent English-speaking skills almost ruined me in my 20s.
No one spoke English in my family or neighbourhood unless they forced them to do so in office. I went to Delhi, seeking a livelihood. I neither knew English nor Hindi. Not knowing English was more detrimental. I stuttered and stammered through the various interviews. It was my determined effort and the thick skin that a small-town boy develops in such circumstances that helped me learn English.
There is nothing unique about my struggle. Millions of otherwise smart Indian young men and women from small towns of India struggle with severe inferiority complex for no fault of theirs except their lack of fluency in a foreign language. Learning English has helped me build a successful career in writing novels and columns. It has also helped me become a sought-after screenplay writer for Hindi television. I still think in Malayalam and write in English. I believe I can write better in Malayalam, but my books translated from English to Malayalam sell more than original writings in Malayalam.
There is something wrong about a country where even Hindi is written in English. The scripts are mostly written in Roman letters as many of the actors cannot read Hindi. Someone who can write beautiful Hindi or Urdu, but who does not have English skills will be replaced by someone like me, who can write a script in English for a film or television serial. I live a comfortable life, thanks to my English. Had I been writing in my mother tongue, I would have perhaps struggled to lead the lifestyle I am leading now.
All this should make me a strong advocate of English, which is a beautiful language.
However, when I think what we as a civilisation are losing thanks to our obsession with this language, my success gives me no great pleasure. There are thousands of elites like me in various professions who are where they are owing to their proficiency in English. I was fortunate for I had the opportunity to learn English. My greed for success, money and fame will never allow me to forsake English for my mother tongue. I am as much a hypocrite as you are, but I have the right to lament.
I watch my children grow up not knowing their mother tongue properly. The sad part is that where I learned my English by reading Dickens and Shakespeare, they are learning English from rock music and rap songs. They belong to a generation that knows nothing much about the rich literature, music, poetry, folk tales and arts of our languages, nor that of English. Only when we stop equating intelligence with the knowledge of English spoken with a Hollywood accent, can we unleash our potential as a civilisation. There are many Hima Dases hidden among our one and a quarter billion people. Their English might be poor, but I am sure there are many champions among them. mail@asura.co.in
Anand Neelakantan
Author, columnist, speaker