Language Policy and Education in India: Documents, Contexts and Debates

270 Pages·2017·1.162 MB·

by  M. Sridhar and Sunita Mishra

LANGUAGE POLICY AND
EDUCATION IN INDIA
This book presents a history of English and development of language
education in modern India. It explores the role of language in colonial
attempts to establish hegemony, the play of power and the anxieties in the
nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century India. The chapters in the volume
discuss language policy, debates and pedagogy as well as larger overarching
questions such as identity, nationhood and sub-nationhood. The work also
looks at the socio-cultural and economic factors that shaped the writing
and publishing of textbooks and dictionaries and determined the direction
of language teaching, specifically, of English language teaching.
Drawing on a variety of archival sources – policy documents, books,
periodicals – this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers
of linguistics, language teaching, cultural studies and modern Indian
history.
M. Sridhar is former Professor, Department of English at the University
of Hyderabad, India, and is currently Secretary of the Alladi Memorial
Trust that renders educational, medical and legal help to the underprivi-
leged. With experience of teaching English at higher secondary and
research levels for more than two decades, he is now engaged in teaching
school children. He has keen interest in multilingualism and linguistic
creativity and has published in the areas of language, English literature,
comparative literature and literary theory.
Sunita Mishra is Professor, Centre for English Language Studies at the
University of Hyderabad, India. She has published on communication skills,
discourse analysis, English in India and English language education. Pres-
ently, she is working on the history of English language education in India
and critical pedagogy.
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LANGUAGE POLICY
AND EDUCATION
IN INDIA
Documents, contexts and debates
Edited by
M. Sridhar and Sunita Mishra
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, M. Sridhar and Sunita Mishra;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of M. Sridhar and Sunita Mishra to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book.
ISBN: 978-1-138-68705-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54245-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
About the contributors ix
Introduction 1
PART I
Language debates: the English encounter 7
1 Early English textbooks and language policies in India 9
ALOK MUKHERJEE
2 The emergence and growth of colonial language
policy and its clash with the linguistic agenda of
the national movement 26
VAROON BAKSHI
3 The language policy of the East India Company and
its impact on education during British India rule 41
RAJ N. BAKSHI
PART II
Language debates: the ‘vernaculars’ and English 55
4 Language, power and ideology: the changing
contexts of b hasha in India 57
E. V. RAMAKRISHNAN
v
CONTENTS
5 Subject language: preliminary notes on
education around late-nineteenth-century
Hyderabad state 70
ASMA RASHEED
6 Interminable anxieties: Odia language movement
in colonial Odisha 79
SUBHENDU MUND
7 Revisiting the ‘modern Telugu’ debate a century
later: the pre- and post-history of Gurajada Appa
Rao’s Minute of Dissent 90
N. VENUGOPAL RAO
8 Modernisation of languages: the case of
Premchand vis-à-vis Hindi 100
ANAND PRAKASH
9 Analysis and modernity: the language debate
in the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad 112
PROBAL DASGUPTA
10 ‘English education’ in late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century Indian fiction 126
T. SRIRAMAN
PART III
Language debates: textbooks and teaching 145
11 First textbooks in English in India 147
SHREESH CHAUDHARY
12 Anglicized–Sankritized–vernacularized:
translational politics of primer writing
in colonial Bengal 166
NANDINI BHATTACHARYA
vi
CONTENTS
13 ‘The poet’s pedagogy’: Rabindranath Tagore’s
English primers 184
AMRIT SEN
14 Language and education in nineteenth-century
Odisha: some issues and perspectives 198
RAMESH CHANDRA MALIK AND SUNITA MISHRA
15 The quest for S ahitya: rise of literature in
colonial Orissa 211
SIDDHARTH SATPATHY
16 Multilingual education in India and the
English-only myth 236
A. GIRIDHAR RAO
17 English studies in contemporary India: caste,
class and power 246
ARUN P. MUKHERJEE

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For this work to have come out, we would like to sincerely thank the
following.
The UGC DRS SAP programme of the English Department and the
UPE programme of the Centre for English Language Studies, University
of Hyderabad, India, which funded the two seminars where some of these
papers were initially presented.
Our students who helped us conduct the seminars and especially
Paromita who, as the project fellow of the SAP, helped us put together a
lot of details.
The faculty and office staff of the two departments who helped us put
the events together.
The contributors who have willingly cooperated with us and waited
for a very long time to see the light of this publication.
Our families, especially Shivani, who put up with our preoccupation
with the book.
Alladi Uma for her support and suggestions throughout the making of
this book.
And the publishing team of Routledge who made it happen.
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CONTRIBUTORS
Raj N. Bakshi is Professor of Linguistics at Northern Border Univer-
sity, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was Professor and Director of the
English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow Campus, India,
for more than seventeen years before his superannuation in 2014. His
areas of interest are sociolinguistics, Indian English, second language
acquisition and English grammar.
Varoon Bakshi completed his Masters in English from the English and
Foreign Languages University, Lucknow Campus, India, where he is
currently pursuing his Ph.D. in English (Linguistics and Phonetics).
His interests lie in the fields of language policy and planning, sociolin-
guistics and English grammar.
Nandini Bhattacharya is Professor and Head, Department of English
and Comparative Literature, Central University of Jammu (CUJ), India.
She is presently Dean, School of Languages at CUJ. She has taught at
the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, and
acted as Professor and Head of the Department of English and Cul-
ture Studies, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. She specializes
in 19th-century studies (Bengal–Britain engagement in particular);
critical theory; genre studies, comparative literature, translation theory,
Tagore and Gandhi studies, conflict and bioethical studies.
Shreesh Chaudhary is Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Tech-
nology (IIT), Bhubaneswar and Distinguished Professor at GLA Uni-
versity, Mathura, India. He retired as Professor from IIT Madras in 2015.
He has helped the British Council as an Examiner and team leader for
IELTS. Most recently, he led a training programme in English for Civil
Aviation for air traffic controllers. Video-recordings of his courses in
spoken English and linguistics are available on YouTube. He has been
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