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Colonization and English ideologies in India: a language policy perspective

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Abstract

A language policy document on English teaching asserted that in India, “the colonial origins [of English are] now forgotten or irrelevant” (NCERT 2006: 1). Using data obtained in the course of a longitudinal ethnographic investigation into the language and literacy practices of young multilingual boys living at an anathashram (orphanage) in suburban New Delhi, India, I contest NCERT’s (2006) ideological framing. This study, employing the theoretical perspective of language ideology, demonstrates how the colonial encounter, in fact, continues to frame, inform, and regulate notions about the English language in India. Furthermore, this study sheds light on how the reductive ideological arc of language educational policy documents—such as the one articulated in NCERT (2006)—can enforce and enact a homogenizing gaze that glosses over ideological pluralities. The larger ambition of this exploration is to inquire how and why such ideological normativization is enforced in language educational policy discourse, as well as to consider its implications for educational equity.

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Notes

  1. It is important to point out here that as a federal body, the NCERT has been vulnerable to pressures from different political regimes in power over the years (see Banerjee 2004; Dev 2005; Guichard 2012; Banerjee 2007). The NCERT document being discussed here was prepared under a different administration than the current one; it is unclear at this stage how the Framework is being taken up under the present leadership. Regardless, it is a useful window into policy-based ideologies at the national level.

  2. In order to contextualize the larger literacy backdrop against which this study takes place, it is important here to offer some sense of those figures. Per the Census of India (2011), the national literacy rate is 74.4 %, showing significant disparity along state, setting (rural/urban) and gender lines, among others.

  3. Previously referred to as “untouchable.”

  4. Hindu prayer rituals.

  5. The 2011 Census found there to be 82.14 % male literacy rate but only 65.46 % female literacy rate in India. (See also footnote #1.)

  6. Indian cigarettes.

  7. Milky, sugary black tea.

  8. Twenty sixth of January, the day India’s constitution came into effect.

  9. Fifteenth of August, marking India’s independence from British rule.

  10. Mahatma Gandhi.

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    Usree Bhattacharya

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Bhattacharya, U. Colonization and English ideologies in India: a language policy perspective. Lang Policy 16, 1–21 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-015-9399-2

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