#vutran

The NY Times article linked (also available several times below) was published on the same day as the discussion, and motivated parts of it. Recommended. 

Yesterday, I attended a talk at UChicago’s Centre in New Delhi conducted by authors Vu Tran and Raj Kamal Jha about Why we tell stories: Finding your voice, the importance of plot, the choice of place in fiction. The discussion covered many facets of literature: writers’ dilemma of choosing between a complicated portrayal of life as it is, and its simplification; the meaning of writing about home; and the beauty of fiction - inspired from reality, yet coloured by a hint of hope, idealism, or despair: the colour of the author’s perception, a fragment of his or her mind.

Language and Voice

Towards the end, the discussion tended towards the role of language in literature. Afterall, voice uses the medium of language to be heard. While voice is the purpose, language is the instrument.

An issue raised was: why Indian Literature in English often lacks quality, or what Professor Vu Tran identified as interiority. While there is no doubt that India has produced some literary giants, it is equally true that mainstream Indian literature in English is often confused, distant, and exterior. As an audience member put it, it’s “Indian writing without India”.

Mr. Jha explained the first: English is still budding in India. Second-tier Indian cities are now picking pace with English teaching more than ever before. We now have innumerable families returning from overseas who use English at home, and there is greater inter-state, and international communication which requires command over the English language.

As English speakers in India increase, and economic and political confidence inspires more writers in India, we will have an even better quality and range of subjects in Indian literature in the English language. This could bridge the gap between interiority and distance in writing.

Losing literary heritage in Indian Languages?

While I am hopeful about the quality of Indian literature in English improving, I want to point out that many Indian stories of superior quality, interiority, and range exist in Indian languages. English writers in India are primarily based in urban hubs, and so as one member pointed out, rural India’s stories go unheard in this type of “Indian literature”. This is just an example of the range of literature we are missing out on simply because it does not currently exist in English, and is unexplored in local languages.  

Why the latter? This is because of our shameful culture of debasement of our regional languages. Logically, Indian languages can most accurately convey Indian stories, because after all Indian stories take birth from them. Yet, our stories are translated even before they are penned down, and it’s what is lost in this process that results in the lack of interiority in the writing. If we can create a culture that equally respects all languages, we can experience the richness of our local literary heritage along with the budding riches of Indian literature in English.

The duality we need to reconcile

To be able to create a holistic culture where all languages, and by extension voices, can thrive, we need to first understand the duality between local languages and English, and what this represents.

In India, learning, reading, or using Hindi is explicitly viewed as a sign of inferiority. English, on the hand, is associated with power, education, and higher social “class”. This plays right into the duality visible across our national landscape: rural, urban; poor, rich; regional language, English.

A new approach to view this as a duality between the internal and external should be employed. Our local languages provide us with culture, our voice, and help us understand ourselves better, while English helps us communicate with many others around the country and globe, and perform in the world materially. This approach gives importance to both the opposing elements, and thus, a reconciliation can be reached.

An example of this reconciliation

Reading Singapore’s Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s memoir, From Third World Country to First, I was particularly touched by LKY’s personal motivations behind Singapore’s language policy. Educated in the English education system (like I), LKY found that neither was he in touch with his Singaporean roots and his Chinese cultural heritage, nor was he completely integrable into English society. This, he called “deculturalisation”.

To complete himself internally and “culturise” himself, LKY, up until he was admitted to the ICU recently, took Mandarin classes. He journeyed to find his voice - in his language. The Mandarin language brought Chinese culture and philosophy to him: Confucian values of filial piety, Taoist emphasis on balance and harmony, and Chinese emphasis on social order and discipline. LKY ingrained these cultural values as he progressed through Mandarin.

So profound was the impact on LKY of this process that today, Singapore’s education system requires that young Singaporeans learn their native languages (Malays learn Malay, Tamils learn Tamil, and ethnic Chinese learn Mandarin) along with English. This way, Singaporeans can connect with their cultural heritages yet integrate themselves into the global economic, and political grid. This balanced approach makes a people doubly powerful.

Singapore’s successful policy is a powerful answer to all those who think that simply because English is important for economic advancement, societies are justified to debase, forget, and belittle the riches of their native languages.

As societies get increasingly inter-connected, interdependent, and globalised, we will come in increasing contact with this problem. Given these circumstances, we need to create complete individuals, because if we do not, we risk falling into a cultural limbo.

So do Indian Languages have a chance?

The questions on the table are: will regional literature and cultural heritage get lost, will we finally accept our regional roots and develop comment-rich cultures in our regional languages, will we be able to unearth the voices of rural, obscure, “local” parts of India and weave them together with the more urban, Indian-English culture?

In my opinion the answer is yes. As greater economic activity inspires confidence in our nation, as our young country struggles to find its voice, we will be able to integrate and find a balanced solution, as our civilisation has always done in the past. 

Building on this, after the talk, I met an erudite UChicago Professor, Dr. Gary Tubb, who teaches Sanskrit and is a connoisseur of Indian philosophy. While Mr. Jha pointed that as many people gain confidence to write, Indian literature in English will become richer, Professor Tubb etched this point even further: as we become a more confident society, not only will confidence to write in English increase, but also the confidence to write, and importantly, read in Hindi will increase - making the usage of Hindi for said purposes acceptable. As growing India comes to terms with its identity, the balance will eventually strike.

Having said that, economic and policy incentives will be crucial in this process. In the linked New York Times article, the eloquent (in Hindi) young woman who studied Sanskrit had dismally fewer prospects compared to the youth who barely spoke English but attended an “English” college. This needs to change.

We need to systematically encourage exploration of our foundational languages. This can be done by instituting more cultural centres, and promoting greater sensitisation in schools about regional and classical Indian languages. Instead of imposing Hindi on children around the country, why don’t we promote the Singaporean way: read your native and English? This way we can create a safe environment for all individuals to embrace their cultural heritage, and move forward economically.

Personal remarks

Since mid-2012, I’ve been on a journey where I’ve begun accepting and exploring Hindi to define myself better, to fill my internal cultural vacuum. I’ve taken small steps: like switching my Facebook to Hindi, watching cricket in Hindi, reading Hindi essays, reading Dainik Jagran, and learning to type in Hindi.