ON INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER RE ENGLISH AS AN "INDIAN" LANGUAGE

THE GOOD IN THE BAD

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh received an honorary degree from his alma mater Oxford University in the UK on July 11th, 2005.  The full text of his speech can be found here, and I'd encourage everyone interested in history and world affairs to read it in its entirety. 

He talks about the complicated historical relationship between Britain and India, with its legacies of colonialism, and the seeds of what India has become in the  58 years since achieving independence.  He touches on several important themes that I'll highlight in this post.

Although a minor theme in his speech, the words that struck me the most were the following (the web links in the quoted passage are mine, pointing to additional resources that may be of interest):

"But, if there is one phenomenon on which the sun cannot set, it is the world of the English speaking people, in which the people of Indian origin are the single largest component.

Of all the legacies of the Raj, none is more important than the English language and the modern school system. That is, if you leave out cricket!

Of course, people here may not recognize the language we speak, but let me assure you that it is English! In indigenising English, as so many people have done in so many nations across the world, we have made the language our own. Our choice of prepositions may not always be the Queen's English; we might occasionally split the infinitive; and we may drop an article here and add an extra one there.

I am sure everyone will agree, however, that English has been enriched by Indian creativity as well and we have given you R K Narayan and Salman Rushdie. Today, English in India is seen as just another Indian language.

No Indian has paid a more poetic and generous tribute to Britain for this inheritance than Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. In the opening lines of his Gitanjali, Gurudev says:

"The West has today opened its door.

There are treasures for us to take.

We will take and we will also give,

From the open shores of India's immense humanity."

In a post titled "On the importance of language" back in June, I'd mentioned that one of the greatest gifts my parents have given me was the opportunity to have my schooling in the English medium, despite the financial and emotional costs of that commitment.

In hindsight, the British did bestow the same gift upon India, which is now enabling it to rapidly convert that advantage into a sustainable path to becoming a truly connected part of the flattening, global economy.

The speech also highlights one of the reasons for my recent post on the US-India nuclear technology transfer agreement, announced a few days ago.  As India's PM put it:

The idea of India as an inclusive and plural society, draws on both these traditions. The success of our experiment of building a democracy within the framework of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious society will encourage all societies to walk the path we have trodden. In this journey, both Britain and India have learnt from each other and have much to teach the world. This is perhaps the most enduring aspect of the Indo-British encounter.

Another theme I'll point to from this speech by a former economist, and Finance Minister of India

As the painstaking statistical work of the Cambridge historian Angus Maddison has shown, India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6 per cent in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3 per cent at that time, to as low as 3.8 per cent in 1952.

Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th Century, "the brightest jewel in the British Crown" was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income.

Today, with India's GDP at a little over $3.3 trillion, India accounts for 6% of the global $55 trillion GDP (compared to 13% for China, 21% for the US and 3.2% for the UK--source: The World Factbook).

The final theme I'll touch on from the PM's speech, for which he apparently got opportunistically criticized in the local press by his political opponents in India for "praising British rule":

Today, with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight, it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister to assert that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too. Our notions of the rule of law, of a Constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, of modern universities and research laboratories have all been fashioned in the crucible where an age old civilization met the dominant Empire of the day.

These are all elements which we still value and cherish. Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration and they have served the country well.

The idea of India as enshrined in our Constitution, with its emphasis on the principles of secularism, democracy, the rule of law and, above all, the equality of all human beings irrespective of caste, community, language or ethnicity, has deep roots in India's ancient civilization.

However, it is undeniable that the founding fathers of our republic were also greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of enlightenment in Europe.

Our Constitution remains a testimony to the enduring interplay between what is essentially Indian and what is very British in our intellectual heritage.

My father often used to remind me to learn ALL the "good" lessons from the "bad" things that happened to me.  It's nice to see the land of his birth also beginning to take this lesson to heart.

P.S. For an enlightening look into India's Nobel laureate Rabinderanath Tagore, check out this excellent piece by Amardeep Singh via SepiaMutiny.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Anil]

Thanks for posting the transcript of M. Singh! Its a great speech, I wonder who his speech writers are?

[md]

I believe manmohan singh was also on his all fours when he said this to show gratitude to a british governor in punjab who made punjabis crawl on all fours.