English Bole To...

Mindsets have changed. Today, speaking the language, especially with an accent, is hip; the nationalistic chains restricting communication to one's mother tongue have vanished and the global language is not seen as something that takes you away from your cultural roots. Usually, it's assumed that the call centre and the BPO boom has put the spotlight on learning English. But that's not true. Suren Singh Rasaily, who heads Planetworkz, the brand under which NIIT offers its English coaching programmes, explains how his firm's initial aim was to create a pool of workers for BPO just as its parent, NIIT, did for IT. But soon it realised the market went much beyond BPO. Today, 50 per cent of its business comes from walk-in clients who don't want to join call centres, but may be housewives, businessmen or medical representatives. In Chandigarh, British Academy runs a special "kitty batch" that comprises housewives who want to make a good impression at kitty parties.

Venayak Bhatnagar, managing director of DMP Multimedia, which has the rights to market Muzzy, a bbc-produced self-learning kit that helps you learn English, in India and West Asia, sees a bigger market for his product outside the metros. "In Punjab and Gujarat, even travel agents are giving crash courses in English to clients who are going abroad," says Bhatnagar, who hopes to sell 1,000 kits in India in the first year. Although each kit is priced at Rs 9,000, DMP is targeting Kendriya Vidyalaya schools as well as the police force. They are encouraged by the fact that the KVs hired consultants to teach their students spoken English and the Delhi Police is planning to do the same with its tourist police force.

Amandeep Brar, 20, has come to Delhi from Bikaner, stays as a paying guest and is determined to do all the speaking courses offered by Inlingua which could cost her Rs 40,000. She wants to become a teacher but is bent upon learning English even if she were to simply be a housewife. Explains Alison Sriparam, first secretary, English Language Services, British Council, which has been teaching English since 1996, "English is today a link language even within India. Plus the colonial hangover has gone. People don't see it as threatening their culture anymore." Adds Supreet Singh Bedi, MD, British School of Language, "No matter who, everyone's coming to learn English. We have been growing at 15 per cent but the growth will be 20 per cent next year". The institute has pioneered the concept of teaching "practical" English and the market is now flooded with clones who have added adjectives like Advanced, Modern and Progressive to a borrowed name—British School of Language.But if you think you will pick up Bedi's British accent, don't bother. As she says, "We teach the English of the English, we don't say we'll give you an accent."

Visvanathan agrees. "You have to have a very pragmatic and functional approach towards English.The purpose is not to be able to read Shakespeare, but to be able to read billboards and flight details at airports." On a recent visit to China, he says, people kept telling him that English was the best thing that happened to India. Be that as it may, what is undeniable is that if India currently has any competitive edge over China, it is our familiarity with and fluency in English. Proof of the pudding is the massive investment the Chinese government is making to equip its people with English skills on a war footing.

Politicians in India have traditionally been anti-English in their policies, posturing for narrow political interests. But that too is changing. In Bihar and West Bengal, governments are trying to undo the past and bring English courses back into government schools. The West Bengal education minister met with the British minister for schools recently to seek help in training the state's teachers to speak better English. This is in sharp contrast to the times when the state promoted primary education in the mother tongue with English being introduced only in class VI. But in 1999, after 22 years in power, the Left finally thought of reintroducing compulsory English from Class I in government schools.

In Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav prides himself on speaking the language better than some of his rjd colleagues, but his attempts to make English a compulsory subject has met with opposition from his own partymen. In his state, one can pass matriculation exams even if one fails in English, which is introduced only from class VI. This system was introduced in the 1970s by the socialist chief minister Karpoori Thakur. As a result, private English coaching schools—200 in Patna alone—are thriving in the state. Posters claiming to teach farrate dar (fluent) English outnumber those touting political messages. Says 35-year-old B. Maurya, a Madhubani-based chemist who's learning English in Patna, "It became almost humiliating to work because of my English handicap."

Policymakers in Kerala, a state traditionally proud and protective of its mother tongue, are also beginning to subscribe to the view that "English is a passport to a better life." And they are beginning to understand that literacy today seems to be defined only as literacy in English. Nothing proves this more than the setting up of an English medium school run by the Ezhuthachan Trust named after Thunchathu Ezhuthachan, a person venerated as the father of Malayalam. The purpose behind setting up this trust was the propagation of Malayalam. For Kerala that has nearly 2.5 million of its people working abroad, staying away from English was proving to be rather unproductive.

Now the dark side. As businessmen on the prowl for the quick buck set up English coaching centres by the dozen, one wonders how many of their English-insecure students will actually end up learning the language enough to make a difference, be it in terms of self-esteem or career goals. Outlook correspondents sat through some of the classes across the country. Here is one of the better examples of what we heard. This from a student speaking English after a three-month course: "Rani Mukherjees is the more pretty in thees film industry". Well, the intended meaning rings out quite clear. Altogether, not bad, if you compare it to what some people write after a 30-year headstart.