“Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India” by E. Annamalai

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - III

Paper no.E-C-304

Year – 2011

Topic: “Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India” by E. Annamalai

Submitted to Mr. Devarshi Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Abstract

English language has affected to people in a very deep way, especially in India. Being a global and link language, English language has become an important tool for education, business, journalism etc. But it plays double roles in country like “India”. By playing the double roles, it has created clash among people and this clash creates the chaotic situation for English language.


     The researcher will show the policy and practice of English language and its contradictory two roles which people are facing in India.

After Independence, English is declined as our official language. Now, in our India, we have two official languages: Hindi and English and one language that the regional language as our official language. There were many controversies for English language in its initial stage; English plays a conflicting double role in India.

It has become a question that English language is Satan or Saraswati for us because its usage makes it a link language as a tool of communication with world. In our India, when it was declared English language as our official language, at that time, we had made some policies for this English language. But we got the different result for this. The policies those were made for English language’s usage are not put into practice while using the English language. The policies have become just like an Old Photo-Frame in the house. English language has created a major conflict for its usage in India.

When we accepted the English language as an official language, the bilingualism pattern has emerged in the field of executive, legislative, legal, and educational. The information is written in three languages: Hindi, English and the regional language of the state for any official document.

English language is just a medium, not our goal, but gradually, it has become our need. Because, nowadays, the higher-education is only in one language available that is English language. So, somewhere it compels us to learn to satiate our need. And while dealing with the English language in education, the first and the fundamental problem, that we face, is the cultural conflict. Our belief system is completely different from the English Culture. Every language represents its culture and belief system. We can not translate our myths or belief system or our cultural ideology into English Language.

This Socio-Cultural dimension creates the Satanic Image of English Language towards us while learning it. For example, we can not write in English, “Hanuman is a servant of Lord Rama.” Here, we can find the conflict while translating our ideas into English. It completely changes the meaning of the information that we want to convey. There is a lot of difference between the words like, “Bhakta” and “Servant”. When we write “Servant” for translating the word “Bhakta”, at that time, it kills the real meaning of the word “Bhakta”. By this example, we can understand that it is impossible to translate our cultural belief into English language. While dealing with the English language, we undergo from this kind of example in writing our ideas into English language.

Being a link and also a global language, English has attained the status of the dominant language in the world. English is only language through which we can communicate with other countries of the world. Moreover, English is prestigious and it is also in great demand, because its importance as the link language. But while dealing with English language, we face somewhere problem as we have earlier discussed.

English is taught as a language for its instrumental value in school and colleges compulsorily in almost all parts of the country with the exception of a very few states, where it is an optional or non-examinable subject. At the secondary school stage a student should learn at least three languages and one of them is English uniformly throughout the country.

So English has been spread all over the country, except some states of India, which don’t follow the English language as a compulsory subject. It can be possible that the satanic image of the English is responsible behind this reason. The double role of the English language creates the chaotic situation in a way that it can be impossible to solve this problem. This conflict is going on still.

After independence, the number of students learning English has greatly increased, but their level of competence in English has decreased. This thing completely shows the policy and practice of the English language. English is taught in the school, but the policy that is made which is not followed by the teachers or we can say that it is not put into practice. That’s why at the very initial stage (school level) students are facing difficulties to learn the English language.

This is the biggest problem in the country like India that the policy which are made for teaching English, are not put into practice by the teacher so the very beginning stage of learning English, difficulties are created by this confusion or folly. Perhaps, this creates the satanic image of English in the minds of the students. As Omkar N. Koul said that the subject levels for teaching of English need to be specified in clear-cut terms. The important task is to specify the general aims and objectives of English language teaching, keeping in view requirements of the people. We have to remember the policy which teaching English language and the aims and objectives should be achieved by the teacher. This is how the teacher can remove the satanic image of English language by teaching students the language in a appropriate way and also by keeping view the aim and objectives (policy) of the English language.

English has become more and more Indianised grammatical and functionally due to its use by a large number of Indians think to increased education, commerce and journalism and the Indian English was no more foreign. It’s because of widely use of English language became it our own Indianised English. India is the third largest publisher of books in English after USA and UK and 42% of the books published in India are in English, the second language speakers of English is only 2.5%. We are ahead in this publishing kind of things, but in schools to teach English, teacher somewhere has failed to follow or put the policy into practice, that is why the numbers of second language speakers are less, only 2.5% in the country.

To conclude my point, here I would like to say that the compulsion for teaching English or the negligence of the policy in teaching English is the responsible factor for its satanic image that is why the preference for English, however, is a private choice and not public platform. Being a foreign language, it always creates the cultural problem in learning it.

Work cited

Annamalai,E..“Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India”. English in India. Ed.Omkar N. Koul.Creative Pub.:New Delhi.Cha.II.1^sted.1992.Print.

Aslam,Rekha. “Socio-cultural dimensions of Second Language in India”. English in India. Ed. Omkar N. Koul.Creative Pub.:New Delhi.Cha.II.1^sted.1992.Print.