Opinion Two languages, three languages: Why is no one talking about the student?

National integration, harmony, colonialism, chauvinism, resistance to imposition — the debate around language policy in India has always been framed around high political concepts, whether viewed as a clash of noble aspirations or ideological sticks for politicians to beat each other with. Missing in all this is a robust interrogation of what’s good for the learner. Today’s tussle over the three-language policy is a reheated serving of the same, with arguments that have been trotted out for decades; even when it’s about education, it’s really about political contestation.

The National Education Policy, 2020, is ostensibly liberal and student-centric — so perhaps it’s an opportune time to recentre the language debate on the student. To move away from the question of what languages are to be taught in the name of which ideology to ask how well they are being learnt and what the learners are getting out of it. It’s important to focus the debate on learning outcomes, such as what the Annual Status of Education Report (2024) says about the ability of children to read texts targeted at particular year groups, and acquire more granular data on attainment in specific languages — second and third language as well as mother tongues.

After recasting the debate and getting the data, the way forward must be on how languages — any languages — can actually be taught successfully. Let’s take Sanskrit, for example. The way Hindi-speaking states use it to circumvent the three-language policy is often decried. However, what makes it a circumvention isn’t the fact that Sanskrit is taught at all; it’s how little Sanskrit is actually learnt. Study it, by all means; looking beyond utilitarian concerns, it opens up great vistas of literature, philosophy and history, a vast cultural hinterland that has relevance for Indians across most of the country — even if the goal is informed criticism of this heritage. But coming out of years of schooling knowing little more than “ashvah, ashvau, ashvaah” isn’t learning Sanskrit; it does nothing to open up Sheldon Pollock’s cosmopolis. This is still about politics, not education. The focus needs to shift to innovative methods of language pedagogy and taking on board the best insights from around the world.

The current debate has seen some apparently learner-centric arguments being made against studying more than two languages: That doing so imposes an additional burden on students’ learning capacity, and that it will in any case become unnecessary — even obsolete — in the age of AI. However, numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that far from being a burden, learning multiple languages enhances one’s cognitive abilities, forming new connections in the brain, strengthening memory and helping to stave off dementia in older learners, improving academic performance across subjects, and boosting communication skills, concentration, empathy and creativity.

The experience of many European countries — such as Switzerland, where students learn at least two foreign languages starting in primary school — shows how multilingualism can be successful, and helps make the case for a broader, humanistic education that’s still perfectly compatible with employment in the modern world, as opposed to a STEM-centric view that’s utilitarian in a narrow sense; AI can’t equip you with transferable skills or improve your creativity. And, on a philosophical level, eudaimonia or human flourishing in the Aristotelian sense — which involves all-round excellence and acquiring the skills needed to achieve this — can be held up as a worthy goal, an antidote to the hustle culture.

rohan.manoj@expressindia.com