Saturday, October 06, 2012

Putting An End To The Macaulay Chapter

It is the equation of "English" and "Modernity" that must be broken. In this context, India would do well by taking a leaf out of the books of China and Japan who have developed all the trappings of modernity – heavy industry, a dynamic economy and improved standards of living – without embracing the English language as the pre-eminent mode of instruction in the modern subjects. It is no paradox that those non-Western peoples who have fared best out of the encounter with modernity are precisely those who have kept English at bay. As Altaf observes, “learning a language and learning in a language are two very different things.”
CRI: Standing Upon the Ruins of the Macaulite Project: India, The English Language and the Need for a Native Idiom of Intellectual Discourse

Something to ponder: For some, the great thing about retail FDI is that it replaces native retailers with English educated MBA and 'retail experts'

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