Thursday, April 16, 2009

Saviours of English

Macaulay, while introduced English medium education policy in India, he has a vision to make the Indian people blind about their own languages and culture along with history, so that India remains slave of the English for centuries to come. His vision and subsequent actions of the British of the introduction of the education policy has paid rich dividends. The educated elite of this country which calls itself an independent sovereign state have become the saviours of the language of our former Masters, who looted us of our wealth for centuries together.
The issue of English as a language of Indians has once again cropped up, thanks to its opposition in the election manifesto of a Secular ( Samajvadi Party), led by a leader of the most important political state of India- Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav.
As expected, it has been largely opposed by the mainline English loving media. The criticism of the language issue makes one feel as if India thrives on English language alone & without English, we stand nowhere. It is also emphasized time and again that English is a world language and it is the language of progress and prosperity. Some have even said that by opposing English, we shall go to Stone Age.
History tells us that the English robbed us of our language, history, culture, traditions and Physical wealth.
Making a moving reference to the use of computers, which is also attached in this controversy, due to the party’s reference to it, we are again been told that in computer age we can’t move without English. It is also being reminded to us that India has gained reputation because of the English knowing IT professionals. Yes, no doubt our IT engineers have relentlessly worked for the Microsoft and other multinational IT giants and developed various programmes and software for them. Yet let us look at the situation of the national language of India- Hindi or other Indian languages vis-à-vis Computer word. Let’s quickly look at the languages supported by the Microsoft, whose windows are in use in India along with rest of the world. Here is a list for the ready reference via http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292246
Windows XP / 2003 languages

1. Afrikaans,
2. Albanian
3. Azeri(Cyrillic)
4. Azeri(Latin)
5. Basque
6. Belarusian
7. Bulgarian
8. Catalan
9. Croatian
10. Czech
11. Danish
12. Dutch (Belgium)
13. Dutch(Netherlands)
14. English (Australia)
15. English (Belize)
16. English (Canada)
17. English (Caribbean)
18. English (Ireland)
19. English (Jamaica)
20. English (New Zealand)
21. English (Philippines)
22. English (South Africa)
23. English (Trinidad)
24. English (United Kingdom)
25. English (United States)
26. English (Zimbabwe)
27. Estonian
28. Faeroese
29. Finnish
30. French (Belgium)
31. French (Canada)
32. French (France)
33. France (Luxembourg)
34. French (Monaco)
35. French (Switzerland)
36. Galician
37. German (Austria)
38. German (Germany)
39. German (Liechtenstein)
40. German (Luxembourg)
41. German (Switzerland)
42. Greek
43. Hungarian
44. Icelandic
45. Indonesian
46. Italian (Italy)
47. Italian (Switzerland)
48. Japanese
49. Latvian
50. Lithuanian
51. Macedonian (FYROM)
52. Malay(Brunei Darussalam)
53. Malay (Malaysia)
54. Mongolian (Cyrillic)
55. Norwegian (Bokmal)
56. Norwegian (Nynorsk)
57. Polish
58. Portuguese (Brazil)
59. Portuguese (Portugal)
60. Romanian
61. Russian
62. Serbian (Cyrillic)
63. Serbian (Latin)
64. Slovak
65. Slovenian
66. Spanish (Bolivia)
67. Spanish (Chile)
68. Spanish (Colombia)
69. Spanish (Costa Rica)
70. Spanish (Dominican Republic)
71. Spanish (Ecuador)
72. Spanish (El Salvador)
73. Spanish (Guatemala)
74. Spanish (Honduras)
75. Spanish (International Sort)
76. Spanish (Mexico)
77. Spanish (Nicaragua)
78. Spanish (Panama)
79. Spanish (Paraguay)
80. Spanish (Peru)
81. Spanish (Puerto Rico)
82. Spanish (Traditional Sort)
83. Spanish (Uruguay)
84. Spanish (Venezuela)
85. Swahili
86. Swedish
87. Swedish (Finland)
88. Tatar
89. Turkish
90. Ukrainian
91. Uzbek(Cyrillic)
92. Uzbek (Latin

With 92 languages on board, we can imagine the failure of Indian governments and IT professionals for not pursuing the cause of Indian national language in Microsoft. But then, we can understand this dilemma with its roots in the understanding of Indian nation. The greatest congress leader had commented that we are in the process of making of nation. The same Pandit Javahar Lal prevented India to have its national language as Hindi. Since then every attempt has been made to promote the English language at the cost of our national language Hindi. The high profile English media has throughout supported this anti national cause of Nehru Gandhi dynasty.
While, this has been the state of affairs, the furious reaction of the media against the opposition of English by a political group can be well understood.
While I am not supportive of the posture placed in the SP election manifesto against the English language and computers, I am convinced that there is a serious flaw in our attitude towards our national language- Hindi vis-à-vis English and we need its immediate solution in favour of Hindi as the first language. With the decline of our interest in Hindi and Sanskrit, we should be ready to lose our national identity. There shall be no BHARAT and whatever India remains shall not identify itself with the proud culture roots that BHARAT possesses.


Dr. Jai Prakash Gupta. Ambala Cantt.
+91-9315510425

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