Two weeks short of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary is the right time to say that English is a vehicle that Dalits have used to great effect

Every culture has its sacred language or language of worship which comes trailing clouds of politics and intellectual privilege. Traditionally, some sections of the population were encouraged and allowed to learn it and while others were walled out. But what about deifying a language? And a visitor language at that with no roots in the country of its consecration?

In April 2010, a temple was consecrated to the English language in the village of Banka in Uttar Pradesh. Deified as a goddess, Angrezi Devi stands roughly two feet tall in bronze, modelled after the Statue of Liberty. It was the Dalit writer, Chandra Bhan Prasad, who, in 2005, proposed the idea of celebrating English as a goddess and set about building the temple.

Literate and forward

“She holds a pen in her right hand which shows she is literate. She is well dressed and sports a huge hat—a symbol of defiance that she is rejecting the old traditional dress code.” In her left hand is a book—the Constitution of India which gave Dalits equal rights. She stands atop a computer which, by extending the domain of the human mind, signifies equality and the anonymous power bestowed by a machine which no man can match.

The temple built to honour goddess Tamilttay or Mother Tamil, in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu. | Photo Credit: PL. Subramaniam

The date Chandra Bhan Prasad chose to make this announcement was October 25, the birth anniversary of Lord Macaulay, who, by introducing the study of English in India, inadvertently fired the outward journey of Indic languages in translation. The mantra chanted was A-B-C-D and a little song “London sey chalkar aayi, yeh Angrezi Devi Maiyya/ Computer-wali Maiyya, hai Angrezi Devi Maiyya/ Hum sabki devi maiyya, jan-jan ki Devi Maiyya (She hails from London, this Goddess English/ She reigns over computers, she’s everybody’s goddess).”

Though it is true that colonisation impoverished the subcontinent, the influence of Europe and the English language brought us out of our pre-modern state. Imperial Britain turned the oceans into an English lake and behind the new worlds English brought, lay immense military and administrative confidence. English studies were established in India, and in 60 years, we absorbed 600 years of English Literature.

Two weeks short of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s date of birth is the right time to say that English is a vehicle which Dalits have used effectively. The steep ascent of Dalit writing as a genre by itself and the linkages it has established with other marginalised communities the world over has been made possible by translations into English. Ambedkar viewed caste-neutral English as a route out of social, intellectual and economic depression. Uncluttered by the concept of caste and its eye-watering prejudices, English helped Dalits to tunnel their way out and to connect with each other. Propelled by the internet, a new Dalit intelligentsia seized the opportunity to take their cause to the world arena.

The idol of Tamilttay or Mother Tamil in a temple in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu. | Photo Credit: PL. Subramaniam

In Karaikudi in the deep South stands another temple built to honour another goddess—Tamilttay or Mother Tamil. In the last years of the 19th century, driven by a need for regional identity amidst the rise and rise of English, not to mention the enduring prestige of Sanskrit, there arrived the phenomenon of Tamil devotion or Tamilpparru. The modern Tamil subject: the Tamilian, the bearer and protector of Tamil devotion. Celebrated, adored and consecrated in the minds and poems of her followers stood Tamilttay. Her devotees insist that if Tamil prospers, so too will Tamilians and their land. There followed a nostalgia for a lost golden age of Tamilttay, sorrow in her contaminated present and a burning need to restore her honour and pride.

In his autobiography, Suddhananda Bharati describes resisting his family’s pressure to study English.“Why should I ? I am a Tamilian. I will study only Tamil.” He poured scorn on young men who did the opposite, murmuring,“I do not know the Gita, but I do know Gibbon…O mother! Your land shrinks! Your sons diminish!”

Vedanayakam Pillai says, “Tamil gave birth to us, Tamil raised us, Tamil sang lullabies to us…Tamil taught us our first words…”

Kalyanasundaranar cries, “Tamilttay is ignored by her children! She has been cast into a prison!”

Ilakuvan, who Tamilised his given Sanskritic name said that “The battle for Tamil is the battle of my life….They may ask what’s in a name. One’s name is everything. Tamilians should only bear Tamil names.”

Today, many Tamil speakers, and not just those overtly devoted to the language, bear personal names containing the word ‘Tamil’, such as Tamilselvi, ‘daughter of Tamil’, Tamilanban, ‘lover of Tamil’, Tamilarasi, ‘Queen Tamil’, even Tamilpitthan, ‘Tamil-crazed’.

In our times when tweets and sms messages are transforming human behaviour and disrupting patterns of bonding and lifelong relationships, languages and the encyclopedia of experience they hold should be seen as what they are: manifestations of Vaak Devi.

Mini Krishnan edits translations for Oxford University Press, India