The New Untoucables: People who do not speak English.
How many of you’ll have been to Urdu, Sindhi medium schools. In today’s competitive economy is it worth going to Urdu medium. Rich families kids go to English medium schools.
In India previously there was caste discrimination based on Jaat, Now the new Untoucables are the folks who dont speak English. English speaking Indians look down Indians who do not speak English. If a salesman speaks English he is invited to house and offered water, but if not he’s asked to come some other time
A medical student committed suicide because he couldnt speak good English and attended Marathi medium school. Could this happen in Pakistan?
‘Mother tongue won’t get you anywhere’
Sweta Ramanujan
Mumbai, October 25: NOBODY knows why 21-year-old medical student Pranali Dhanvijay killed herself.
Dhanvijay was found hanging from a ‘‘tubelight rod’’ in her hostel room in the Nair Hospital premises on October 18. Some of her friends say she was stressed out because she couldn’t handle English as a medium of instruction after having grown up learning in Marathi.
But students who have been through this transition say that if this is true then Dhanvijay probably gave up too soon.
‘‘It is difficult,’’ admits Sandesh Patil, who went to the New Mahim Secondary High School—a Marathi-medium municipal school in Mahim (West). ‘‘But one learns to cope. Today, just knowing your mother tongue is not going to get you anywhere.’’
This 17-year-old apprentice with the Brihanmumbai Electric and Transport Supply undertaking had his first taste of the English-centric world when he joined the R M Bhatt night junior college in Parel.
‘‘During my first year, I couldn’t understand what was being taught,’’ Patil recollects.
‘‘I felt inferior when my classmates conversed in English. Sochta tha main unki tarah kyon nahin hoon (I would wonder why I wasn’t like them).’’
But Patil dealt with the inferiority complex. ‘‘I paid more attention in class. My teachers and friends helped me manage,’’ he says.
And he ‘‘managed’’ very well. In the March 2003 Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams, Patil topped among the night school candidates. Today, he is in his first year at Gokhale Education Society’s night degree college, Parel.
Patil’s female counterpart on the merit list, Sarita Kanekar, has a similar story. This daughter of a mill worker went to Jeevan Vikas Marathi-medium school, Vikhroli. She did a diploma in computer engineering and a course in software programming before going to Vikas night college for her HSC.
And throughout, the medium of instruction was English. ‘‘Sab bouncer jaata tha (I couldn’t understand anything). I would learn by rote, referring to the English dictionary repeatedly. But one twist in the question and I wouldn’t understand what it meant,’’ she giggles.
To learn the language, she made it a point to converse with her friends in English. ‘‘It was a slow process but I never got frustrated,’’ she states.
‘‘These students do find it difficult to cope initially,’’ says Manju Nichani, principal of K C College, Churchgate. ‘‘But in the long run, they perform better than English-medium students.’’
To help students deal with such problems, K C College has started a full-time counselling centre. Bhavan’s College, Andheri (West)—where around 30 per cent of the students are from vernacular medium schools—conducts ‘‘remedial’’ lectures.