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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.
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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 Spacewith 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--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
movement
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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 DSSs 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 dont 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 Rahamans 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 Rushdies comments.
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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 (8
th
standard) or after
schooling when you enter college, or in college if it is science thats 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. Tirumaleshs 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 Englishs 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 womens language is
different from mens 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 translators 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 20
th
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.