The Supreme Court’s sharp reprimand to the Karnataka government while upholding a high court judgement striking down the state’s 1994 language policy mandating Kannada (or the mother tongue) as the medium of instruction in all primary schools in the state, has come as a welcome relief to right thinking citizens countrywide. While delivering the apex court’s interim judgement, chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan forbade the BJP-led Karnataka state government from closing down any private school teaching in the English medium, and rebuked it for imposing the vernacular as the medium of instruction in the state’s primary schools for over 15 years. Strongly disapproving of government intervention in the right of parents to choose English as the medium of instruction for their children in private unaided primaries, the judgement noted that knowledge of English is necessary for securing even clerical jobs, and vernacular medium students “stood at a lesser footing as all competitive exams are in English”.
The apex court’s rebuke to the incumbent and predecessor governments of this southern state, which once enjoyed a nationwide reputation for academic excellence, was long overdue. On July 2 last year, a three-judge bench of the Karnataka high court, in a lengthy and reasoned judgement, upheld the right of promoters/owners of private unaided primary schools to “establish and administer educational institutions of their choice”, and simultaneously of parents/students to choose the medium of instruction they deemed fit for their children. Despite this unanimous verdict, the state government refused to grant permission for promotion of new English medium primaries and/or ‘recognise’ existing ones.
That the incumbent BJP government’s medium of instruction policy for primary education is on all fours with that of the previous Janata Dal (S) and Congress governments, is indicative of a deep conspiracy cutting across all party lines to impose Kannada and/or vernacular languages upon all 56,000 primary schools with an aggregate enrolment of 5 million students statewide. And given that the overwhelming majority of the state’s politicians, educrats and language chauvinists enrol their own progeny in English medium schools, it’s painfully apparent that beyond their professed love of Kannada language and culture, the prime motivation is perpetuation of the captive market for Kannada language textbooks of dubious quality and scholarship.
The state government’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge that even the poorest of the poor aspire to English fluency for their children, as the passport to the best universities and jobs, is indicative of cynicism of the worst kind. Surely they are aware that even the poorest parents are deserting free Kannada medium government schools in favour of fee-charging private English medium schools?
Now that the Supreme Court has sharply reprimanded the state government for cynically jeopardising the future of millions of children by denying them English language learning, one hopes it will apply closure to this contentious issue. It’s high time the Karnataka government falls in line with the other states of the country, leaving selection of the medium of instruction to parents not only in private, but also in government schools.
Resist bollywoodisation of performing arts
The speed with which the Uttar Pradesh government issued orders to ban early childhood education textbooks teaching the Hindi alphabet through the use of names of popular Bollywood film stars (‘A’ for Aishwarya and ‘H’ for Hrithik) is commendable, especially in a state where maintenance of public education standards tends to be a low government priority. According to news reports from Lucknow, an approved textbook publishing company in India’s most populous (pop.166 million) and educationally backward state, had printed and distributed several thousand textbooks deifying Bollywood stars, which were enthusiastically welcomed by teachers across the state.
That the teachers’ community saw nothing objectionable in impacting hollow stars of tinsel town whose contribution to the national development effort has been mindless entertainment rained on impressionable minds, is symptomatic of a new and rising phenomenon in schools countrywide, best described as the ‘bollywoodisation’ of Indian education. In an overwhelming majority of schools (and colleges) across India, co-curricular performing arts education has become synonymous with the loud, over-the-top song and dance routines which are a staple of the world’s largest — and arguably most down-market — movie industry.
It is disturbing that instead of promoting the rich classical vocal and dance traditions of the subcontinent, institutional managements countrywide routinely parade children as young as six-seven on official occasions to mimic the coarse, suggestive song and dance drills of Bollywood. Against this backdrop, the order of the UP state government proscribing the use of early education texts gratuitously associating stars of tinsel town with letters of the alphabet, hopefully reflects a new and overdue appraisal of Bollywood and its contribution to the public interest.
Certainly a cold, hard look at Bollywood — whose crude simplifications and excesses were meant to be corrected through the introduction of popular television in the 1980s, but which has since overwhelmed television and the national entertainment scene — is required. The plain truth which brain-dead movie moguls and their apologists refuse to acknowledge or debate intelligently, is that Bollywood and its regional clones have regressed into fantasy and make-believe. This is evidenced by the incredible plotlines, plagiarism, conspicuous consumption and regressive values — patriarchy, class consciousness, colour prejudice and male chauvinism — which are the hardy perennials of Bollywood cinema. That imitation of the fantasy song and dance sequences of this regressive industry is officially encouraged in schools and education institutions countrywide under the mistaken notion that they are synonymous with the performing arts, is a great tragedy. Principals and teachers who value co-curricular education — as they should — need to take a firm stand against dumbing-down of the performing arts. The creeping bollywoodisation of India needs to be seen for what it is: a grave threat to our cultural heritage.