Much ado about Tamil

Ever since the Justice Mohan Commission's recommendations on the medium of instruction in schools were reported, there has been much hue a...

Ever since the Justice Mohan Commission8217;s recommendations on the medium of instruction in schools were reported, there has been much hue and cry over the question in Tamil Nadu. With the recent announcement of the state government8217;s decision to implement the recommendations, it seemed for some time at least that hell had broken loose.

The decision was roundly denounced as chauvinistic and as one that endangered the students8217; future and encroached on the parental prerogative. The hard words were soon followed by action. Managements of about 1,500 schools went on a day8217;s strike earlier this month to protest what was pictured as an evil portent for education in the state and employment for its youth.

The allegations, coming as they did from articulate sections of opinion, have gone uncontested and indeed earned wide endorsement. Seldom was so much fuss made by so many about so little. A moment8217;s dispassionate look at the broad details of the recommendations and the decision should have sufficed to show howuncalled-for really the controversy as well as the agitation was.

The disinformation about the decision equates it with the Angrezi hatao Remove English order of Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister of Uttar Prad-esh. This, in turn, prompts anxious queries from well-wishers on whether the lesson of West Bengal, where the government has been forced by an agitation to re-introduce English in early schooling, has not been lost on the Southern state. Ill-informed critics of the decision are also claiming that the Maharashtra government8217;s introduction of English in primary schools under its control clinches their case.

The point is that En-glish has not been, and is not being banished from sch-ools in Tamil Nadu. It is just that Tamil is being made the medium of instruction up to Class V in government-run and government-aided schools. Tamil is not being imposed8217; inside Tamil Nadu. The schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education and those for students with the other Southern languages ofMa-layalam, Telugu, and Kannada have been explicitly excluded from the purview of the decision.

Is there any state where the local language, if developed enough for this minimal purpose, is not the medium of instruction up to the primary level in government-run and aided schools? If not, what makes such a practice so dreadfully chauvinistic only in the DMK-ruled state?

It is opposition to such legitimate steps that can provide grist to the mills of Dravidian8217; chauvinism. Which has found more objectionable evidence in earlier measures like the government8217;s order prescribing the prominent use of Tamil in the sign-boards of shops. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the main worry of the agitating school managements is not related to the merits of English as a medium of instruction at this level, but that middle class parents may not send their children to Tamil-medium primary schools.

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The proliferation of English-medium teaching shops8217; of such priorities has, actually, been accompanied by adecline in the standard of English in the state. What is needed is better teaching of English in schools.