The defeat of English is the defeat of Amateur Indians

I do not believe English is a ‘foreign’ language anymore in India. Apart from all the obvious reasons, Bollywood operates  mostly in English; not only are most screenplays in English, the Hindi dialogues too are written in the Roman script. Very few stars can read Hindi or read it fast. Most people who read this column may not be able to read their mother tongue. I can’t either. This could and should bloom into shame.

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Despite its stature, English has failed in India. Its ubiquity is a residue of its past privilege, like the vast assets of a sinking aristocrat. The class whose world is framed in English, in my view, can be called amateur Indians. And their world is dying. 

In fact, the death of Indian English is closely tied to the defeat of the Amateur Indian, a person whose pantomime of Western sophistication makes him a cultural misfit in his own nation. 

In time, the use of English may become an overt sign of being amateur Indians—those people who speak of history and culture but can hardy converse in their own mother tongue, those who cannot navigate their own nation, or communicate with a government clerk, or with a cop or a thug; in many ways, they are ‘foreigners’ in their own nation and foreigners elsewhere too, even if they give romantic names to this orphanhood and take discreet pride in it.

In response to Shah’s observation, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi pointed out that English is a language of aspiration.I am not certain anymore that this is true, or at least as indisputable as it was a generation ago. A consequence of progress is that symbols of prestige are exposed as elitist clubs that are useless once the common man gains access to them. Prestige is not prestigious if ordinary people gain access to it.

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Once, English was the language of the people who ran India. It was a time when class and money meant the same thing. India has changed. Even though English still has some prestige, its influence is waning because the influence of prestige itself is waning. 

English now belongs to a confused minority: Upper-middle class. India might be the only society in the world whose educated upper-middle class does not speak any language with complete mastery. Many of us are stranded in English and we speak our mother tongues—or the languages that raised us—very poorly. For instance, many of us cannot read high prose or even give a formal speech in an Indian language.

Across India, the mother tongue has risen in prominence, aided by technology. The primary language of the new sahib is not English, but his mother tongue. His poor hold over English doesn’t embarrass him. Mastery of English is not a sign of wealth anymore. 

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And class is not as alluring as money anymore. The world of India’s new economic and cultural elite is framed in Indian languages. In most of North India, the power of Hindi is almost total. In all southern states, the cultural influence of their independent languages is nearly total. As a result, there is an emotional connection between the poor and the new icons—a bond that the average Indian used to share only with politicians, sportspeople and actors. 

This has a significant social outcome. Today’s rich are able to influence, persuade and co-opt the poor in more efficient ways. The most influential news channels now broadcast in Indian languages. 

Over-the-top streaming platforms for entertainment are increasingly going lowbrow in Indian languages. They have created a new genre of heartland dramas. That is where ‘Bollywood’ too is headed in its fight for survival. The reason they fail is that the people who decide what ‘the masses’ want are still people who think in English, who have only recently begun shedding their cultural amateurishness. Just as wokes are people who have to make bad guesses at what it means to be decent, the new Indian ‘heartland drama’ is conceived by people who have to make guesses about what the heartland is. 

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What is going on in new India is that a true pop culture is emerging that is unifying all classes, except those who are Westernised, who in any case have either migrated or vanished in other ways. This unification does not require a single Indian language; it only requires the absence of an anglicized worldview.

A bit of the prophecy of shame is already true and has been for some time. When I was growing up in Madras, a guy who spoke excessively in English was called Peter. And “delivering Peter”—a weird translation from Tamil—was a way to insult a posh guy who spoke in English. 

And it was ridiculous even then to see ‘national’ leaders, meaning people from Delhi, touring Tamil Nadu and speaking to some of the world’s poorest people in English. Speaking Hindi carried a political stigma in the state. But then, Hindi films ran to full houses and Hindi was tied to such an advanced economy compared to Tamil Nadu’s that one of its most famous men, Rajinikanth, played a sidekick to a Bollywood hero in more than one Hindi film. 

Even today, political leaders from Delhi who visit Tamil Nadu speak to the masses there in English. They need not anymore.

The author is a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. His book, ‘Why the poor don’t kill us’, will release in August.