Role of English in India
English in India and the role of the elite in the national project the elite in the national project1
Annie MO NTAUT, INALCO (SeDyL), Paris
Published in
Problematizing Language Studies, Cultural, Theoretical and Applied Perspectives,
Essays in Honor of Rama Kant Agnihotri
Akar Books, Delhi, 2010, pp. 83-116 (eds. S. I. Hasnain & S. Chaudhary)
Abstract
Introduced by the British colonization and today the official language of the Indian
Nation in association with Hindi, English is spoken as a second language by a minority of the educated population of 8 to 11% according to current estimations. A chance for India to converse with the world cultures, in compensation for centuries of domination, or conversely an inherited alienating burden still preventing this conversation from being on equal terms? The paper will dwell on such issues, after a factual evaluation of the role of
English in the Indian pluralism, and a study of the consequences of its historical infiltration in the whole system of the State.
English in India and the role of the elite in the national project2
Annie Montaut, INALCO (SeDyL), PARIS
« In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East”. Thus ended Macaulay’s most famous minute, in 1835, a report aimed at instructing the Indian elite in the English language, in order to produce “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”. This most famous sentence, to be later quoted everywhere, summarized the explicit intention “« to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern”3 . Hundred and seventy years later, most of the reports devoted to the use of English establish similar conclusions regarding the sociology of English4: the small proportion of people using
Annie MO NTAUT, INALCO (SeDyL), Paris
Published in
Problematizing Language Studies, Cultural, Theoretical and Applied Perspectives,
Essays in Honor of Rama Kant Agnihotri
Akar Books, Delhi, 2010, pp. 83-116 (eds. S. I. Hasnain & S. Chaudhary)
Abstract
Introduced by the British colonization and today the official language of the Indian
Nation in association with Hindi, English is spoken as a second language by a minority of the educated population of 8 to 11% according to current estimations. A chance for India to converse with the world cultures, in compensation for centuries of domination, or conversely an inherited alienating burden still preventing this conversation from being on equal terms? The paper will dwell on such issues, after a factual evaluation of the role of
English in the Indian pluralism, and a study of the consequences of its historical infiltration in the whole system of the State.
English in India and the role of the elite in the national project2
Annie Montaut, INALCO (SeDyL), PARIS
« In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East”. Thus ended Macaulay’s most famous minute, in 1835, a report aimed at instructing the Indian elite in the English language, in order to produce “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”. This most famous sentence, to be later quoted everywhere, summarized the explicit intention “« to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern”3 . Hundred and seventy years later, most of the reports devoted to the use of English establish similar conclusions regarding the sociology of English4: the small proportion of people using