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Caste and Language: The Debate on English in India

V. B. Tharakeshwar

Ever since its encounter with what we today call as India or the Indian subcontinent,

English has been the site of many debates, and it has also acted as a trigger altering the way we

think and organize our lives. In the past two decades or so, there has been a number of

studies/research projects on the political function of English in colonial and postcolonial contexts

ranging from calling it a “mask of conquest” to the “Dalit Goddess”.i While it is interesting to

look at the political implications of these arguments or the context in which such

arguments/assertions appear, the theoretical underpinnings of some of these debates, especially

the link between language and caste, need to be taken into consideration, so as to reflect on two

issues: 1. The debate on caste as a system and 2. Philosophy/theory of language/s. The present

paper tries to throw up some of the issues on caste and language for discussion, hoping that it

would lead to a substantial, sustained and organized work in this area.

Historicizing and Contextualizing the Problem

Let me begin with some disjointed autobiographical notes. When I started writing a joint

paper in 1996 on “Dalits and Modernity: Few Notes on Dalit Literature, Dalits and English in the

Post-colonial Space”–with Vishnudev P. to be presented at the annual IACLALS conference

held at Hyderabad in January, 1997, I did not face much difficulty, though it was my first attempt

at writing a research paper. The task was simple. It was an attempt to interrogate the ideological

dichotomy that existed in people like me, who claimed that they were pro-Dalits, and therefore

against English, as it was the language of power; and the position of Dalits, that they wanted to

learn English. What Dalits expected from people like me, who were in English Departments, was

help in acquiring this language of power, rather than taking up an ideological position handed

over to them by non-Dalits like me.

There were not many articulations in English then by the Dalits on the issue. It was also

true that there were no pan-Indian Dalit intellectuals writing in English then, though by then the

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Dalit movement was in full-swing in Maharashtra, Karnataka and had begun in Andhra Pradesh,

Tamil Nadu etc. Though Ambedkar was known all over India, his writings were not all available

easily in English translation, nor were all of his works available in Indian language translations

from Marathi. As long as the expansion and recruitment of state machinery happened at the State

language level, English language as such was not a major issue for the Dalit movement. Dalit

movement was more concerned with demanding a ban on certain cultural practices as they were

“inhuman”, “barbaric”; the movement was also concerned with the proper implementation of

laws and constitutional provisions meant for their benefits. There were also demands for land-

distribution. When atrocities were committed against “conscious” Dalits, protesting against them

was the major struggle. Only when the state jobs started shrinking, and with the rise in the

number of educated Dalits -came a situation that pushed Dalits to seek jobs in private

sector/service sector, which was expanding rapidly -did the question of English become

important to the Dalit movement.

So, we had to rely on a brief survey that my co-author Vishnudev P. conducted, in which

the SC/ST student respondents opined that they wanted English. In that paper we took this

demand for English as the demand for modernity, and viewed it as a demand for Dalits’ rightful

share in modernity/ modern institutions, which was earlier the domain by and large of upper

caste-middle class. We also tried to compare that with the move towards going beyond

modernity or for post-modernity or for alternatives to modernity by the elite section, which

generally in terms of its caste and class belonged to middle-class upper-caste category.

Soon we also saw intellectuals like Kancha Ilaiah and Chandrabhan Prasad writing in

English (no need to say that it had all-India circulation) and also voicing their support for the

English language (See Prasad and Ilaiah). Around the same time some of us who were,

according to nomenclature, teachers of English or to be teachers of English, claiming to be

trained in postcolonial and poststructural theories and also oriented towards subaltern

movements, started to seriously view the dichotomy between seeing English as the signifier of

modernity by the oppressed classes and seeing English as the signifier of colonialism and mainly

associating it with its ill effects. The result was a national level multidisciplinary self-financed

project called “Rethinking the ‘Crisis’ in English Studies”, where we wanted to interrogate our

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caste/class/gender positions vis-à-vis the ‘crisis’ that is being seen in English Studies and

locating ourselves at the undergraduate level. I will not go deep into the details of the project

here, as that would constitute a book-length description, and even the names of those who have

contributed to the project would be too many to cite at this point of time.

But soon, as I said earlier, the question of English acquired gigantic proportions with the

developments in easy movement of capital across national boundaries coupled with revolution

brought about by rapid changes in information technology. This forced the Dalit movement to

rethink its earlier stand on the question of the Nation and the Dalits’ faith in Indian languages.

Here, to substantiate my argument, I go back to my experience with the Dalit movement in

Karnataka. Dalit movement started in the 1970s and 80s and had a tinge of Kannada identity

discourse even as it claimed that its ideological position was shaped by Ambedkar, Buddha,

Basavanna, Phule, Periyar, Marx and Gandhi. Though Lohia was not mentioned in the same

breath, the influence of Lohiaite thinking which shaped the 70s and 80s intelligentsia in Kannada

public sphere cannot be ignored on the Dalit intellectuals of that period. Similarly, the Gokak

movementii of the early 80s also had its share in shaping the Dalit consciousness in Karnataka.

DSS, Dalit Sangarsha Samiti, which was the apex body spearheading the movement then, was

till then a non-political party outfit though it tried to support a few parties in the election in the

early and mid 80s. There was also the discussion of forming a political outfit and joining other

forces to counter both the Congress, which was dominant, and the Janata Party, which it

supported in 1985. But these projects did not materialize till the entry of BSP (Bahujan Samaj

party) in the mid 90s. But the entire process of DSS’s tryst with electoral politics contributed to

the process of multiple organizations, break-away groups from DSS, and that is a different story

altogether.

But the DSS had some kind of alliance with the old Samajavaadis (not the Mulayam, Lalu

or Sharad Yadav group) who wanted to build an alternative party at the national level during the

late 80s. They wanted DSS to be part of that national level party. But in the meeting, DSS

leaders and cadre were vociferous in saying that they did not visualize any role for themselves at

the national level. They were preoccupied with Karnataka and intervention only at that level.

India was not the horizon that organized their politics. It changed as I said with the entry of BSP

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and also due to the structural, social changes that were happening in the 90s to which I have

alluded earlier. So, though the category of Dalit was a pan-Indian phenomenon, the movements

were organized around language-polities. The question of English was invariably tied up with the

question of India as a nation. If Dalit politics had to address certain issues in the 90s and 2000s,

which were pan-Indian in nature, it had to be pan-Indian and could not remain as it was i.e.,

limited and oriented to the linguistic-state. English as a signifier of (Indian) Nation (or the Union

if you want to think so) had come to the fore. English also gave visibility to the Dalit issues at

the international level as it was witnessed during the Durban conference; and now it is a major

issue in American Academics, which has propelled translations and publications from foreign

Universities. Earlier though, V.T. Rajashekar, who was running a magazine called Dalit Voice,

was not from that community and from the proper grass-root Dalit movement; he was the lone

“Dalit Voice” not only in India but also outside India.

Earlier DSS and other organizations were also carrying the agenda of opposing

globalization, what was generally seen as structural readjustment of Dunkel Drafts and GATT in

the pre Information Technology revolution era. In principle they were against privatization and

globalization thinking that at least because of constitutional obligation, it was easy to fight the

state/government, to claim their rightful share in modern institutions. If the state abdicates its

responsibilities and national or multi-national/trans-national forces occupy those spaces it would

be difficult to fight against them, as they more or less depended on reservations in Government

and Public sector to get jobs for the educated Dalits. Till the end of the 90s we hardly heard

about reservation in private sector. However, when Dalits began to realize that the changes

overtaking the world were beyond their control, and that they needed to adjust to this new world,

they were apprehensive of being on the losing side; therefore, they felt it necessary to seek

reservations in the private sector. However, seeking reservation in privatization itself was not a

loud voice.

This story was necessary to contextualize/historicize the move towards English and the

demand for reservations in private sector/privatization. Here, I am not examining the claims of

such moves and the possibilities that they see in such moves, or the problems in such moves and

the understanding behind it. My contention is that to take up such a task we need to go deep into

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the question of the relationship between caste and language, and the theories of language that

inform such debate. But before jumping into these questions, I would like to theoretically survey

the existing academic understanding of such a development. Please bear with me for not being

academic in quoting those studies and examining them in detail as that task requires more time

and space. It could become another research project. I will not quote here from those books and

give the necessary references essential for any research paper are writing.

Language and Caste in Academics

Before I embark on this task of a theoretical survey of the literature available let me clarify

certain issues. I am mainly looking at the literature from Masks of Conquest onwards. Though I

claim that it is an academic understanding of the changes that are happening in the debate for the

past two decades, it is not always just an understanding of the debate but also an intervention in

the debate. We might claim that the academic understanding is value neutral, that it is only an

understanding, but it is possible to examine it historically and find the role academic writing

plays in real politics, whether it is interested in performing that task or not. Also, the converse is

true. An activist write up might shed light on the hitherto unknown facets of an object of enquiry

of the academic world. Though it is necessary to maintain the distinction between the two, it is

hard to ignore the overlap that exists in the present world, where most of the Dalit intellectuals

are also academicians, and have to carry the burden of both i.e., being an activist and also an

academic at this historical juncture. Similarly though the non-Dalits try to be objective in their

approach, the way academics and the issues are charged, they cannot escape the charge of the

burden of their social background influencing their understanding.

The only difference that can be traced is that explicit academic writings will not have a

vision of the future or are not supposed to have a vision of the future. Activist writings do have

the extra burden of saying what would be the possible benefits/non-benefits of a particular

historical unfolding, and not just explain it. That is, it is necessary for them to speculate and also

defend the speculation. But there are too many players in the field and how these different

players play the game would be difficult to say. Even if you predict the next move and if they

come to know that you have come to know their next move, they would immediately change the

move either for strategic reasons or to mislead you. So we cannot find fault with speculations if

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they don’t materialize in the future. So there is no need to engage with these writings at the

speculation level as it is fruitless in academics, but what we could do is to understand the

epistemological frameworks of these academic understandings and tease out what their

understanding of language and caste is.

When my tryst with this issue began, there were not many theoretical frameworks that

were available apart from the postcolonial position. But now we have a plethora of theoretical

frameworks, methodological models, and different entry points from disciplinary and

interdisciplinary perspectives. But the question is to make sense of these positions/

epistemological frameworks within a single frame, which involves translating across

epistemological frameworks, which is possible only to a certain extent, i.e., to the extent they

allow themselves to be translated or if there exists any universals across the epistemologies.

Otherwise, each of these epistemological frameworks will allow us to constitute our objects in a

particular way and then onwards they logically push our understanding in a particular way, and

within their own framework they appear to be truthful. What I am trying to do here is to try out

the impossible.

Let me attempt a brief mapping of the academic work that has come out on English in

India. We find that the subject “English in India” is examined extensively and there is a lot of

diversity on the issue. English is seen as a sign signifying 1. Colonialism, 2. Modernity, 3 India,

4. Globalization, 5. Market etc. Depending on how people read the sign, their position on it

comes to the fore. The usual caveat that these are clusters and are interconnected complicate the

issue further and gives rise to multiple positions on reading English and consequently their

argument on “English in India” unfolds. Any language is used in multiple spheres of life;

similarly, English is also used in multiple spheres. It could be in Administration,

Economics/Commerce, Civil Society, Political sphere, Literature etc. If you are looking at each

of these spheres and the use of English or the change in the use of it in any sphere, it would

signify certain things. For example, if you look at the use of English in the Administrative

sphere, and also the Political and Civil Society you would tend to read English as a signifier of

Colonialism and Modernity. And again depending on the way you define

Colonialism/Modernity/Globalization your position on English in India and your speculation on

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what change it brings in if this trend were to continue, or your understanding of what role it has

played in India, varies.

This brings us to the question of various aspects of the role of English in India such as its

ideological functions, its complicity with the power (whatever it could be, either positive or

negative from a particular political position), the politics of it (the way it organizes our

society/lives), the world view it contains (the way we are trained to see the world). These

aspects of the function of English in India are also extensively debated. The debate is not only

limited to India as evident in Tariq Rahaman’s Language, Ideology and Power: Language-

Learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India (2008). This piece is brilliant in its

treatment as it tries to see English along with other languages, and across the present national

boundaries. We need to undertake many such comparative studies across nations/languages.

There are debates with regard to what function English has to perform in India and how it

has to function. Such studies try to define in which sphere English has to be in operation and

what role it needs to perform. What is the politics of exceeding its limit or brief in a given

context? This is also related with the question of language policy a nation has to adopt. It could

be enlisted in the following way:

1. Language of administration-- the questions are whether it has to perform this role or not, to

what extent, till when etc. The debate is carried out both at the Union level as well as the State

level.

2. Language of the Medium of Instruction/Education-- the contentious issue in many Indian

language public spheres and also at the policy level. The concept of Mother Tongue and the

related literature in the fields of Linguistics and Education for the past 150 years i.e., since the

days of linguistic nationalism in Europe, and the present day research in the context of

multilingual societies, have pitted multilingualism/ multiculturalism against each other here. That

is, we see the debate between old theoreticians who use the concept of mother tongue and those

who use the recent research which complicates the notion of mother tongue which is played out

in the context of debate over English in India, and to be precise English in the Dalit context.

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3. Language of/for Politics-- If we take language as a tool with which we construct reality i.e..,

comprehend the world around us; then shifting from one language to another or alternating

between one language and another or shifts within a language do indicate the way the world

being comprehended is changing. Questions such as, whether English as a language is capable of

comprehending caste reality, which is amply visible if you switch over to Indian languages; will

caste as a system of hierarchy disappear if we wish away Indian languages; what are the

implications of translating, if it is possible, Dalit literature into English, become important. These

are not just academic debates today; both civil society space and political society space have also

taken up these issues. In that sense, language becomes a political issue, and is used for politics

and a certain language of politics gets fashioned.

4. Language of Literature/Emotion--the whole debate between Indian Writing in English and

Indian Writing in Indian languages excluding English. It is another most contentious issue which

has been extensively debated by many Indian language writers, and it need not necessarily be

with reference to Indian Writing in English or as a reaction against Rushdie’s comments. iii Also

the question of translation, not merely Indian writing in English translation but also who has to

translate, whether the SL speaker can translate into English or not, as also the question of

whether the non-Dalit can understand and translate Dalit writings into English are crucial here.

This also brings us to the question of what should be/could be the relationship between

English and other languages. The opposition to English mainly stems from this perspective.

There is no doubt that the Indian languages have been recast(e) during the colonial period and

now the Indian language literary intelligentsia looks at it as a secular language holding the

promise it could deliver. For me the opposition to some of the Dalits’ argument with regard to

English stems from this position. It is hard for those opposing to digest that the Indian languages

even now could contain some of the pre-colonial or the colonial/post-colonial casteist world-

view because many of those are also involved in progressive movements, including the anti-caste

movement (which includes the Dalit movement, needless to say), and these movements were

created/ communicated/ sustained through Indian languages. Dalit literature in many of the

Indian languages is a case in point. This contradicts the stated position of people like Chandra

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Bhan Prasad against Indian languages. I have used the word stated position, because, if I can

betray the trust that Chandra Bhan Prasad invested in me, I would like to quote his off the record

private conversation with me. In the private conversation he claims that he is not against Indian

languages per se, but just to counter the anti-English position that stems from the pro-Indian

languages (mother tongue) position, he has had to take this extreme position as a strategic

negotiation point.

Interestingly there is no opposition to teaching of English as a language by anyone, though

from what level (whether class 1 or class 3 or class 5) is the point of quarrel that we witness in

many linguistic States. Similarly English as medium of instruction also poses by and large such

questions as at what level, whether from first standard, High school (8th standard) or after

schooling when you enter college, or in college if it is science that’s all right for, but not for

social sciences, etc.; these are these some of the debates.

Looking at the different disciplinary locations from which the studies have emerged,

obviously ELT (English Language Teaching) as an area of research within English Studies in

India has spent a lot of ink on this issue, where the general assumption would be to accept the

need for English as essential and try to address that need; this, one may say, is being action-

oriented. But the problem is that of the assumption itself, because it does not sufficiently address

the issue of what the needs are for which English is required; it offers solutions for the needs that

are already given to it, i.e., generally labeled as LSRW (listening, speaking, reading and writing).

So there is a mismatch between the two. ESP (English for Specific Purpose), within ELT tries to

be more specific in terms of the need but again fails to understand the Dalit context we are

talking of and the objectives of learning/teaching English in the Dalit context. Another tricky

issue is involved here. ELT or ESP could be a subfield within the field of Education but it has

not bothered to look at the research that is happening in the field of Education or the Sociology

of Education.

Another discipline that could throw light on the issue of English in India and the question

of Dalit context could be Linguistics, or to be precise the fields of Sociolinguistics, Educational

Linguistics, Dialectology, Multilingualism etc. But though there are sporadic works, by and

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large, with due apologies to linguists within India and also the linguists outside India, the work

done in this area is far from satisfactory. It is also due to the factor that the linguists assume that

a given language exists in a tangible form and start working on the object that has been already

constituted. They generally overlook the fact that looking at the theories of language or

philosophy of language could alter their findings. Having said this, I must confess that there are

exceptions which have helped me immensely in this area, for example Discourse Analysis.

Researchers who have studied the Indian informal context have come out with insights such as

(for example works of Gumperz J. J.iv) that in discourse analysis (just to remind you, though you

might be aware, this is not Foucauldian Discourse Analysis but Linguistic Discourse Analysis)

we need to look at the repertoire of the person irrespective of the language/s that a person

employs, as a singular unit; this insight undermines our assumption about the notion of language

with which we generally operate. Similarly K.V. Tirumalesh’s article in EPW, “Writing-English

versus Writing-in-English: New Notes on an Old Theme” in 1991 is another essay that deals

with the issue at the level of philosophy of language.

English and Caste

I have kept the main issue at the end-that is the question of language and caste or to be

precise English’s relationship with caste. Though it is a part of the earlier section, I am treating it

as a separate section. As it is an accepted fact in Sociolinguistics that there are varieties of a

given language in terms of region, community, profession etc., one would expect that they would

have made at least some initial remarks in this area. It is also because socio-linguistics in theory

says that there is a relationship between varieties of a language and the social hierarchy that is

obtained in that language society. But if you turn to Indian language linguistics, given my limited

knowledge of the field, it is hard to find anything that directly addresses the issue of caste. If at

all there is anything, there are only passing remarks not powerful enough to offer any insight into

the issue. It says a lot about the research possibilities that are untapped in Indian language

sociolinguistics field. Let us hope that this lacuna would be filled soon or attempts would be

made soon in this direction.

Interestingly it is Indian language literary criticism that engages with this issue, thanks to

Dalit writings. It is commonplace knowledge that the Dalits have started employing a different

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variety of language even for narration and also for poetry. It is generally said that it is their

community dialect. Similarly in feminism too there are statements that women’s language is

different from men’s language and it enshrines a different worldview altogether. When we say

this we are equating literature and reality, and assuming that literature imitates life, which is an

old debate. But literature is not mirror held to life or a verbal recording of life. It is the

representation of life. We need to look at the strategies of representation and we should not

forget that the language of a literary text, however similar it is, is a construct, a deliberate one by

the person/s who is/are performing author-function. There are many issues which are involved

here which need further inquiry:

1. If there are different characters in a narrative (characters belonging to different communities,

different genders, and different classes within a community) then the writer would in order to

show the background of the characters, if she/he wants to show it, employ different varieties of

the language.

2. The same character might employ different language varieties to address or to carry out

discourse with characters from different backgrounds, and if the function of the language is to

show how a character assesses another character or in what social status he or she is held by the

character, then the language has to vary.

3. There are only passing remarks again about the language employed in Dalit literature for

narration. What is the function of the language of the narrator within the narrative? What is the

picture that it delineates about the narrative persona to the reader? Why are these questions

needed to be taken up for study? At present, the comments by critics, on the language/s of dalit

literary texts, only reveal that it shocks and provokes the “normative critic” (generally a non-

Dalit?) and provides newness to him/her. Acknowledging this fact itself is something radical for

these critics. Consequently, they initially looked down upon such a narrative language (here I can

recollect the way the Kannada critics reacted to the language of poetry of Siddalingaiah, a

Kannada poet) and now they have started to romanticize it.

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4. Another important issue is that of the strategies of representation of caste issue through

language by the person who is performing the author-function which has to appeal to the

relationship between the language variety and the caste background equation of the reader.

There is also another area where these issues are raised, that is with regard to translation of

Indian language texts into English, and again more so in the context of Dalit writings into

English. Again the questions are innumerable.

1. But the question that dominates generally is “can a person from non-Dalit background

translate a Dalit text?” As said earlier, the assumptions behind this question are: a. there is only

one variety of language that is employed by the Dalit writer, b. it is not possible to translate this

language into English.

2. It has also been said in the context of translation of other writings from Indian languages into

English that it is not possible to translate “Indian culture” into English. Again the assumptions

are: a. it is not possible to translate because English is an alien language, b. it is not possible for a

person who belongs to the source culture as she/he would not know the nuances of all varieties

of English, as it is her/his second language.

But here are the questions that we need to ask:

1. When we say “Indian culture”, are we saying that caste is a part of it and English as a

language cannot express this? Those who see English as a non-casteist language seem to be

holding this position.

2. If there is something called an Indian English variety; is this variety casteist?

3. Are translators of Indian Writing in English who strive to achieve equivalence trying to invest

English with caste or other markers of Indianness?

4. What is the role played by the translator’s caste? How do we identify it? How do we measure

it?

5. Whatever be the caste of the translator, if the translator has a particular view of caste as a

system, or if he/she is secular in terms of caste, how does it affect the rendering of caste as a

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system that is present in the text that he/she is translating? What are its implications for the

readers?

6. If a text is able to denote the complex web of caste relations in an Indian language effectively

because both the author/s and the reader/s share a similar signifying system, in the absence of

such a signifying system between the author/translator and the readers of the translation, what

happens?

These are only some of the issues. There is a whole set of other issues related to

conceptualizing caste itself, which I have not tried to explicate here. Some of them could be: Are

we perceiving caste as an identity or as a community or as a system or as a signifying system,

that is, as culture? If both language and caste are dynamic entities which keep on changing, that

is in process, that too in a fiercely contested process, what are the implications for the questions

that we have raised earlier? There are no easy answers. A lot of research needs to be undertaken

asking these questions and the present attempt only raises the index finger towards the journey

that we as academics need to undertake. Even how we conceptualize the category Dalit has a lot

of bearing on some of the issues that I have raised here.

References

Ilaiah, Kancha. “Dalits and English”, Deccan Herald accessed at

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/137777/dalits-english.html

Prasad, Chandra Bhan. “English Temple Now…” accessed at

www.chandrabhanprasad.com/party/Goddess_English_Temple_Now.doc

Rahaman, Tariq. Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning among the Muslims of

Pakistan and North India New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2008.

Rushdie, Salman & Elizabeth West eds. The Vintage Book of Indian Writing, 1947-1997.

London: Vintage. 1997.

Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari ed., The Lie of the Land: English Literary Studies in India. Delhi:

Oxford University Press. 1992.

Svati Joshi, ed., Rethinking English: Essays in Literature, Language, History. New Delhi:

Trianka, 1991.

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Tirumalesh, K.V. “Writing-English versus Writing-in-English: New Notes on an Old Theme.”

Economic and Political Weekly. 26.47 (1991) WS2670-WS2672. JSTOR. Web

Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest. USA: Oxford University Press. 1989.

i See Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (1989) by Gauri Vishwanathan; Rethinking English (1991) ed. Svati Joshi and The Lie of the Land (1992) by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan for the debate. See “English Temple Now…” by Chandra Bhan Prasad and “Dalits and English” by Kancha Iliah for pro-English stance.ii V.K. Gokak, an academician, submitted a report on teaching Kannada as a compulsory language and medium of instruction in schools and there was a movement in support of the implementation of the report in 1981. iii Salman Rushdie while writing the introduction to the book The Vintage of Book of Indian Writing in 1998, which he coedited with Elizabeth West, privileged the body of writing in English in India of later part of 20th century over what was written in Indian languages. Many Indian language writers, critics, journalists criticized his view. iv Gumperz J.J. is a socio linguist who has worked extensively in India, looking at the question of language social identity, social variations of language, social stratification and dialectical differentiation, religion and social communication, relation of linguistic to social categories, communication and social identity etc. A full list of his publications can be accessed at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/emeritus/gumperz/gumppub.html.