Vol. 4 Issue 18 – Research Paper: ‘In Search of Swaraj in ELT Class-rooms: Translation, Indian Literatures and English’ by Tushar Vyas

This paper is submitted by Dr. Tushar Vyas, Asso.Professor, Dept. of English, S.D.Arts and B.R.Com. College, Mansa, Gujarat – India. 

Away from ELT theories propounded by the western theorists, the paper aims at studying the scenario of English language teaching in Gujarat and India. While the paper emphasizes the need for English language, it addresses issues related to learner, learning, content and culture and searches for alternatives of culturally loaded English literature taught in Indian class-rooms by the name of English language learning.

In a multi-lingual country like India English can function as a link language among Indian regional languages and in this context English translations from Indian languages may become fruitful both academically and culturally. Teaching and learning of Indian literatures translated into English can provide new insights not only into English language, but also into Indian culture and Indian poetics.

But unfortunately, a decolonized model of English education hardly seems to exist in Indian Universities. The ghost of Macaulay’s educational framework, it seems, still haunts Indian universities. Today we find “a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”.1  Isn’t it shocking that Oxford University allowed English literature as a subject in 1894, but the British rulers started English education in India long back in 1857? The objective of introducing English literature as a subject to cut Indians off their tradition and to create a new class of babus seems to be forgotten now. Even today, many irrelevant English texts find their place in English syllabi of Indian Universities. Still at Under-graduate and Post-graduate levels, Spenser, Marlowe, Defoe and Pope enjoy their place in Indian Universities as if these were indispensable men of letters in English. While Aristotle and Longinus are still worshipped as the angels who brought the light of criticism on the earth, many Indian poets and writers go unheard and unsung. Indian scholars who eloquently speak on Derrida and Faucault feel shy for not knowing Bharata and Mammata. Isn’t it an irony that Eliot’s ‘The Waste-Land’ has often been taught on the fertile land of India without properly understanding the cultural implications and the Christian overtones in the text? One interpretation of English literature is that it is the literature of the colonizer imposed upon us at the cost of Indian literatures.

In Indian Universities, generally there is no separate, systematic provision for English language learning. The learner opts for English at Undergraduate level with a dream of acquiring proficiency in English, but he is confronted in classrooms more with English literature than with English language. The irony of learning English in Indian Universities is that English literature seems to be the only source for the learner to learn English. Practically English literature and English language cannot be separated, but psychologically, the teacher eloquently lecturing on Shakespeare, Tennyson and Eliot, emphasizes his role as a teacher of English literature than as a teacher of English language. This separatist mentality of the teacher becomes harmful to the learner. Even the idea of universality of literature often appears to be deceptive in class-rooms. The medieval texts like ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ may discourage the learner since the medieval English creates a gap between the learner and the material. In compulsory classes where the learner may hope to learn English grammar, a considerable part of the academic year passes battling with the lessons of Compulsory English text-book. On his part, the teacher is expected to complete a long train of lessons in Compulsory English text-book. At the end of the year, the teacher feels satisfied that he has completed the syllabus and the learner finds solace in several most important questions that the teacher has sorted out.

The tragedy in Indian classroom is that the material/ text is foreign, while learners are Indians. Consequently, literary communication fails in Indian class-rooms. English teachers then sadly conclude in Refresher Courses and seminars that English literature is rootless in our country. Prof. R.P.Bhatnagar voices this sense of failure:

Let me state straight that I believe that English literature should not be taught in the name of English and that by and large English literature cannot be taught here. Because the pre-conditions for learning English literature do not exist—knowledge of the Bible, a high proficiency in English language, knowledge of Greek mythology and of course knowledge of European history.2

Today, those who are in Board of Studies in Indian Universities must address these issues:

(a)     Where is the Indianness of content in ELT class-rooms? Generally, Keats’s odes and Eliot’s poems, prescribed at Undergraduate Level, pose a set of problems. ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ cannot be studied without  proper understanding of English Romanticism and Greek Hellenism and similarly Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ cannot be studied without proper understanding of modern age and cubism.

(b)     What is the place of Kalidas, Meghani, Ghalib and Bankimbabu in Departments of English in India? Isn’t it an irony that the minor poets like Gray and even the racist writers like Defoe are studied in English departments leaving our own Indian poets and writers unheard and unsung? In fact, Indian literatures translated into English would be more fruitful to learners than English literature.

(c)     Aren’t we over-enthusiastic in accepting and appreciating western poets and western critical theories? It seems that they are the ‘inventors’ who ‘give’ theories and we are the slavish recipients. Often we eulogize Keats’s poetics, Eliot’s poetics, Structuralism and Deconstruction forgetting our own Panini and Bharatmuni, Amrita Pritam and Mahasweta Devi.

(d)     Are the learners interested in English language or in English literature? Generally, the learners opt for English as a special subject with an idea of improving English. But then culturally loaded English texts are imposed upon them and too often the jungle of critical theories belonging to western philosophy and western linguistics lead them astray and confuse them.

The role of English translation of Indian literatures becomes significant in reinforcing Indianness in educational programmes of Indian Universities. Indian literatures, translated into English, would be more fruitful in the following ways.

1. Translation is connected with human communication. The paradigm of conflict between material and learner or between the eastern and the western culture would vanish, if Indian literatures are introduced for Graduate and Post-Graduate levels in English.
2. In a pluralistic society like India, English translations from Indian literatures would lessen conflicts of caste, class and religion and would establish harmony. English, then, can be a powerful medium of intra-cultural exchange.
3. Indian students would get an exposure to Indian poets, Indian poetics and Indian literatures through English translations. They would get a chance to closely study literary and cultural tradition of India. Moreover, culture-centred essays on Shivaji, Vivekananda, Shahid Bhagatsinh, Gandhiji and Sardar Patel would acquaint Indian learners with the glorious past of India.
4. The four skills of language-learning would effortlessly develop, if Indian students learn Indian literatures through English translations. The Indian learners would learn both the lessons in English language and the lessons in Indian culture. The familiarity with the content would improve their linguistic competence and strengthen in them a sense of self-respect by learning about the glorious tradition they belong to.
5. Patriotism which has either become a mere philosophy or a slogan in political circles would be realized in its truest sense through study of Indian literatures in English translations.
6. The field of comparative study would develop through English translations of Indian literatures. Between Gujarati and Punjabi classics, a comparative study would create more interest among learners, if instead of ‘English literature’ ‘Indian literatures translated into English’ are taught.

Indian texts translated into English would indeed bring Swaraj in ELT class-rooms in India. Then the conflicts between the Indian learner and the foreign literature would be automatically resolved and some of the problems pertaining to syllabi and class-room communication would be easily solved.

References

1  http:/www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/education/macaulay.

2  R.P. Bhatnagar, “English Education: What Has Gone Wrong?” An Address”, Decolonization: A Search for Alternatives, ed., Adesh Pal, Anupam Nagar, Tapas Chakraborty, New Delhi: Creative Books, 2001, p.81.