Like most of the British inheritance, English has entered the great Indian writing Joint Family

Prem Kumari Srivastava in a response to Christopher Mulvey

Recently, at the Institute of Life Long Learning (ILLL), University of Delhi, listening to Prof. Stephanos Stephanides (University of Cyprus) talk about “Cultures of Memory / Memories of Culture”, I could really put the recently read Christopher Mulvey’s article “The English Project and the English Language in India” (Confluence October 2008) in perspective. Mulvey sure did make me traverse the trodden but not so forgotten by lanes of memory, when only last semester I used to lecture my motley lot of BA Honours (English) under graduate students on “story telling”. Mulvey almost comes close to the tradition of Poe, Maupassant, Basheer, Bankim Chandra, Prem Chand, the great storytellers, who recognized it as a distinct form; he nudges its components well enough to formulate a good English story. What are the components of a good story? Let me recount some of them.

According to Poe in his review of Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales (1842), there are three neat and precise principles governing a story. The story should aim at one pre-determined effect, must vigorously exclude everything that does not contribute to that effect, and possess complete unity. Similarly, Maupassant, the French storyteller, talks of three dimensions of a story: uninterrupted narration, preservation of curiosity, and the resulting clear picture of life. How much is Mulvey able to achieve this? How good a storyteller is Mulvey? It may be a good academic exercise to cross-examine this.

Mulvey says that there are 2 dimensions of the stories of the English Language: the diachronic, the fact that stories exist in time and synchronic, extension of language through space. Stories about languages are like surveys of the different forms the language takes at different points of time at varied locations. Reference to David Crystal right at the outset, is a smart move and further unveils the art of one storyteller about the other storyteller. Then, he further pans the stories of English English and Indian English as two single entities. Mulvey raises some pivotal issues related to Indian English. English in India is a truly broad field, encompassing in time more than two eventful centuries and in geographical space countries as far apart from each other as eastern and western sides of the globe. He raises the important issue of an Indian English dictionary (Braj Kachru). Mulvey takes pains to draw linkages and similarities between the English story and the Indian story. A remarkable abundance and variety of dialects and accents in British English in such a small geographical space is one little emphasis he makes. These accents vary socially as well as geographically, and class dialects are pronounced in England. The same is true of India. He then goes on to say that despite its size, the United States of America has less regional variations. He adds the caveat that the majority of American people speak the dialect known as General American - the dominant norm of English language. It is interesting how Mulvey maps the language landscape of global spread of English language that at different times and locations becomes atypical and different languages. He works hard to establish that the various dialects and languages of Africa and other parts of the globe – originate from English. Thus, we see that Mulvey includes everything that contributes to the one pre-determined effect of the English story. Mulvey imbues a sense of urgency in his story. He considers a synchronic survey of the English language as highly beneficial, even crucial and most important, particularly when new languages have been/are evolving out of the old. He also cites several examples of the African languages. Tirelessly, Mulvey goes on to sketch the third story of the two forms of English – that of the oral and the written. While panning the literary history of the written word in English, his claim that the epic Beowulf happens to be the common ancestor of Indian English Literature and English English Literature requires an atomic inspection.

The title is eye-catching, though a little misleading. In fact, the numerous stories that unfurl can be arranged or read this way, “The Indian English story in a not so English Manner” and “The English Story of the Unenglish”. It is towards the end that he unfurls the real story, “The Story of the English Project”. With missionary zeal he declares, that the task of the English project is to “deepen people’s understanding and knowledge of English.” However, suffice to say here that, prima facie, if one looks dispassionately, all the stories fit in his larger schema of things! Mulvey’s story, surely, is about the English language and his English project. Everything that is included does contribute to that pre-determined effect. There is complete cohesion as far as this project is concerned. I have used this visual as an important symbolic representation of Mulvey’s art of story telling.

Story Within a Story!

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/readings_course/mandu1.jpg

Like the several doorways in this picture, his story leads you to more and more stories of the English. Further, the uninterrupted narration is brought out through the apt analogy of the Ganges. Just as the Ganges traverses the length and breadth of India, so does one find a sprinkling of English all over India. In his apologetic bid to mate the two streams: English and Indian English, Mulvey has been somewhat successful. I enjoyed reading the common genetics of the Celtic word, ‘Thames’ and the Sanskrit word ‘Tamasa’. What strikes you right at the outset is a sense of timelessness, immense expanse, and tremendous fluidity - in this particular English story told by Mulvey. However, his claim that the English spoken in London has reverberations everywhere in Delhi, will have few takers in the Indian academic circles. The potpourri served on the Dilli English platter has a fair sprinkling of Bengali, Marathi, Hyderabadi, Haryanavi…and now Kashmiri (the Kashmiri migrants to Delhi have increased manifold in the last few years) along with the Punj (Punjabi) variety of Dilli English.

Towards the end, I cannot resist sharing my little story about English of India. Sitting in my office at ILLL, University of Delhi, South Campus, as the Course Coordinator of an initiative (a project, in one sense) “English Language Learning in India”, I share some of the sentiments of Mulvey. A realization that is not antiquated is that for several in the Indian sub-continent, English is the only medium for access and glimpse into another and other language/s; and culturally diverse regions of India. It would be very interesting to take you to the exhibition in Europe that I chanced upon, entitled ‘English of India’, a typographic collaboration put up by two artists, Meena Kadri and a local Ahmedabadi sign writer, Yasin Chhipa. (Media: oil paint on 2 sided stainless steel plates).

ENGLISH OF INDIA EXHIBITION http://www.flickr.com/photos/meanestindian/117305178/sizes/o/in/set-72057594089639375/

In the Exhibition, this particular picture depicts some commonly painted captions on the back of trucks to encourage drivers to toot when overtaking. The artists have used the colourful sign-writing tradition of India to capture the flavour of this localisation of the global spread of English. I wish to draw your attention, particularly to the calligraphy in the painted caption - the sign writing tradition - all with the bindu and the devanagiri type script! Traversing Indian terrains - cultural or otherwise, one is flummoxed by the variety of English one encounters!

Teaching English in a university of India, the occasions of sharing one’s position with Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, who had this to say more than two decades back, are few and far between, “To be a university lecturer in English in India, as I am, is to be intermittently aware of anomalies in one’s position, and to be afflicted by doubts and uncertainties about one’s relationship with the object of one’s investigation, viz. the English literary text.” (Rajeswari Sunder Rajan “After ‘Orientalism’: Colonialism and English Literary Studies in India”). The present English teacher is aware that the phenomenon of use of English necessitates a deep understanding of western works, trends, and mastery over the language, to the level that one experiments and struggles within it to describe and put across one’s intent, and that all this also requires a fair degree of acquaintance with the cultural ethos of that language. Today, in the globalised version of English, spoken and often taught in India, a new ethos is at work, woven around acquainted paradigms. English has a cultural rooting with which a fair familiarity is felt. This is a reality that for several decades English had remained the preserve of only the public school educated, elite English literature variety of speakers, just as Sanskrit had remained within the domain of the privileged, priestly class. ‘Prakrit’ was the language of the common men and women in several classical dramas of India (Sujit Mukherjee). Contemporary English, that often a traveller on the streets of India is privy to, is the ‘Prakrit’ variety. It is the Khari Boli that Prem Chand was so proud of. Thus, interaction between language, history, and culture is an extremely fascinating area to study. Ordinarily, we study a trend, an author, or a literary work in isolation from the times during which they emerge and are shaped. When you view a language in the process of evolution, from the point it was introduced into the life of a nation to the point when it became a self-propelling full-fledged entity, it becomes a daunting, nevertheless, a challenging task. Then, one is face to face with a number of important things that contributed to a linguistic phenomenon moving inexorably towards a socio-ideological and cultural event, never to be taken apart from the ‘soil’ in which it was implanted.

It is true globally that people are looking for stock, standardised English. This has to emerge from the varieties of English in use today. There is a fair amount of wisdom in this view that language is no longer the preserve of the English, who are just one of many ‘shareholders’ in a ‘global asset’. I wish to also draw your attention to this interesting piece on ‘Hinglish’ published in The Telegraph, “Welcome to Britain. Now, about your Hinglish” (Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor). It says that immigrants to Britain should not be taught English, but cultural mixes, such as, Hinglish, Spanglish and Chinglish, considers ‘Imperial’ English outdated, and believes that it needs to adapt to the global reach of the language.

Since the iconic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech of Nehru to the Constituent Assembly of independent India, to mark the transfer of power in English, India has found English indispensable for the running of its political system. However, this legacy of British rule, unlike ‘parliament’, was expected to be a short-term feature and to fade away as India set about consolidating its political and economic affairs. However, the plan has gone astray. Like most of the British inheritance, English has entered the great Indian writing Joint Family (MK Naik). Just as Sanskrit and Persian, themselves languages divorced from the people, gave way easily to Prakrit, similarly, the Queen’s English, divorced from the common man, has given way to colloquial English. Today, the argument for English is presented in another form, but with the same content:

The English language was never imposed or forced upon the people of India. It was the Indians themselves who realised the value of English.

The legacy of English in free India retains, in essence, most of the distinguishing features of the colonial rule, is debatable today more than ever before. That English is an obstacle to the intellectual decolonization, which should accompany physical decolonization, is no longer under scrutiny. The dialectic has worked itself out to its logical conclusion. In politics, as Marx predicated, the oppressors themselves provided the instruments by which the oppressed could liberate themselves. English, as such an instrument, has now been partially engulfed by the resulting freedom…of newness…of idioms and usage. Thus, English will remain, for there is enough evidence of the blurring of vital distinction between using a foreign language, as a second language, and its use as the principal or exclusive medium of education or for the conduct of the day to day business of writing of the country.

The need to listen to stories and to tell stories is essential to the species - Homo sapiens. Mulvey surely nudged that enough to generate a volume of interest in his readers and elicit a response. Actually, the English story is more in the tradition of Dastangoi, the art of storytelling in Urdu that dates back to medieval Iran recited by Dastangos or narrators, inspired by the Shahnama, the story of kings composed in verse by the noted poet Firdausi. The most popular form of Dastangoi in 19th century Lucknow is accented by four qualities: Bazm - a sort of mehfil or congregation full of merriment, Razm - warfare or enactment of battle scenes, Tilism - the world of magic, and Aiyyari - trickery and disguise. Dastangoi is different from Kissagoi, which is also a narration by one person, but in Dastangoi, improvisation has unlimited dimension. A Dastan is almost an interminable tale. Can we say that the English story in the true Dastangoi tradition is that interminable tale, which is continuing, is being told and retold several times? The Dastangos (narrators-English, African, Indian or American) keep changing, but the inspiration remains the same. The Razm are like the battle scenes often enacted between the English English and the several other kinds of English, all across the globe. Will we be witness to more battle scenes – maybe yes! However, this English story has enough of magic and disguised trickery. Like all Dastangois, it has scope for immense improvisation.

This is my English story…

Prem Kumari Srivastava holds a Doctorate in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture Studies from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute Of Technology, Delhi (1992)