English is NOT our mother tongue.

The widespread prevalence of queen’s language as a medium of education in India is undoubtedly one of the biggest factors which helped in putting us on the global map. It not only made it easier to absorb the vast amount of scientific findings originating mostly in the west, predominantly published in English language, but also to communicate & to deliver our own ideas across the globe. Besides, we were, as if, tailor made for the kind of jobs that required skills & intellect of a variable range but knowledge of English as the quintessential feature.

But in this period of over 60 years when we made our presence felt throughout the world as not just a land of snake charmers & elephants, I believe we started taking pride in something which is essentially foreign. There is a difference & a very wide one in adopting something foreign & adopting it over something native & holding the former at a higher pedestal. As I mentioned earlier, learning English was inevitable for most of us who aspired to go forward in life. But at the same time, it has to be realized & constantly remembered that there was nothing wrong with our mother tongue in the first place. It’s just that a wooden log always aligns itself to the water current to surge ahead with least resistance.

The reason I am writing in English is pretty straightforward. I am not adept enough to write in my mother tongue which is Hindi. And for most of you reading this, whatever your native language be, you’d agree to the fact that the expression of our thoughts is generally English because we simply fail to phrase ourselves this flawlessly in our mother tongue. Not being an extremist, I do not abhor the so called invasion of our culture by a foreign language or advocate a linguistic movement to venerate & glorify our birth language. But I certainly condemn a disregard for any of our own languages or for the people who prefer to use them.    

There does exist a sense of superiority in a large part of our English medium educated society since familiarity with English has come to mean a higher standing in our culture, both intellectually & economically. But this display of arrogance is the worst example we could possibly put up to show how hollow our education & moral development has actually been. Taking nothing away from the queen’s language, Hindi, Tamil, Sanskrit, Bengali & many more such Indian languages are far richer in terms of vocabulary & contain such beautiful expressions that are unparalleled in any western medium of communication. It is nothing but our misfortune that we not just fail to learn what is ours but also choose to scoff at it.

I really wish that each one of us would recognize the fact that language is nothing but

a medium of expression. Weighing them against each other is our disdain towards the very channel that lets us display who we really are. An unbiased perspective towards them would not only enrich our lives but also preserve what is slowly fading away, our faith in ourselves. 

Cheers to life :-)