Doon Online - Language Lessons: For India's Elite English Is the Past -- and the Future

By Jesse Wong, Staff Reporter
Special thanks to Gaurav Bhatia (Ex 286 HB'91) for bringing this to Doon Online's attention

DEHRA DUN, India -- While the British empire was in full glory, every Briton in India was a sahib, or master. An independent India, at 51 years old, still has sahibs. A select few of this elite can be found here near the foothills of the Himalayas, in the venerable Doon School for boys.
"We speak English more than Hindi, so people call us brown sahibs," explains Aneerban Mukherji, the 17-year-old son of an Indian physician. Around him, beaming young faces nod approvingly and sip their afternoon cups of tea.

Cricket players, Shakespeare connoisseurs and humming with self-confidence -- Doon School students are kindred spirits above all with the masters of a distant universe, Eton, the most exclusive of British boarding schools for boys. Their pride is a vivid reminder of colonialism's legacy: English and Hindi are India's two countrywide official languages, but in many Indian eyes, the few schools that matter teach in English.

Across Asia, the topic of Western imperialism often triggers complex responses, from nostalgia to outrage. But most parents and schoolchildren in the former British colonies are united in their preference for English over the indigenous languages as the medium of school instruction. From India, the first to emerge from British rule, to Hong Kong, the last, demand for quality English-medium schools exceeds supply. That demand is driven by pragmatism: English speakers have easier access to the products, pop culture and career opportunities offered by the U.S., the modern-day English-speaking global power.

K.S. Datta, a struggling hotel proprietor who lives in New Delhi, speaks for many Asian parents when he explains why he pinches pennies to put his son through Doon School: "To do well in life, he must learn to speak English well, and speak fearlessly whoever he may be up against."
The Doon School was founded in 1935 by Indians with the backing of British authorities, who helped recruit the first headmaster, a science teacher from Eton. The involvement was typical of Britain, which went further than other Western colonial powers to groom indigenous elites to help run its vast Asian domain.

Not all the former colonies have benefited equally. In Singapore and Hong Kong, large portions of the local population indeed have achieved a measure of English proficiency. India is a case of extreme contrasts: While some of the world's finest writers in the English language are Indian, [including Vikram Seth, the Doon School-bred author of the acclaimed novel, "A Suitable Boy,"] about 48% of Indians are illiterate in any language.

As India opens up further to the global economy (a process started in the 1980s by another ex-Doon Schooler, then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi), the estimated 60 million Indians -- about 6% of the total population -- who are English-proficient are on the fast track to upward mobility. But nonspeakers face a handicap no less formidable than the class and caste hierarchies of the old feudal society.
As noted Indian historian Romila Thapur says of her nation: "We're splitting into two polar opposites. One is the India of the Doon School boys, an India in which English is the language of professionals, of management and of investment. The other is a non-English-speaking India which is missing out on many of life's best opportunities."

There seem few ambiguities about linguistic preferences in the streets of Andrews Ganj, an ordinary New Delhi neighborhood thick with curbside vendors outside rows of timber and hardware stores. As in many urban areas, the nameplate above nearly every store is English-only, however humble the shopfront -- Fouji & Co. Steel Posts; Kapur Timber Corner; The Car Service Station; Hawk Batteries. But choice stops at the door of the Andrews Ganj Government Boys Higher Secondary School.

Most Indian government schools employ one of several indigenous languages as a teaching medium, and English is taught as a second language. The reasons for such a linguistic setup range from a desire to promote the mother tongue to fears that an unfamiliar medium may impair learning.
At Andrews Ganj, the chosen medium is Hindi, and students cram up to 50 a class into a crumbling building with loose cables hanging like wild ivy out of fuse boxes. No one is complaining, perhaps because tuition is free. "The well-off go to private schools. Here, we get all the downtrodden classes," says vice principal D.K. Kala, as an army of black ants runs a detour around his slippered feet.

The downtrodden can dream, too. Assembled in his office are a half dozen cheerful teenagers who include Akbil Kumar, a bank clerk's son aspiring to be an air force pilot, and Prabhakar Kala, a milk vendor's son who hopes to be a physician. All dream of studying in a place like the Doon School -- "because they speak English there," they chorus.

Though highly regarded, the Doon School faces growing competition from private day schools, which promise results while cutting out the trappings -- and the cost -- of boarding-school life. One such competitor is New Delhi's Sardar Patel School, which, like the Doon School, operates on a nonprofit basis. But a year's tuition at Sardar Patel costs only $275, while the Doon School charges $1,900 -- far more than what most urban dwellers earn in a year.

To stay competitive, the Doon School has modernized teaching methods and is making more scholarships available to needy students. "We know we can't depend forever on bygone celebrities to sell ourselves," headmaster John Mason says.

The school's 28-hectare site stands some 300 kilometers north of New Delhi, in a valley carpeted with wheat and forests. Further north is Mussorie, a so-called hill station where Britons in the time of the Raj, as British rule in India is known, cooled off during the searing Indian summers.

As in Britain, private boarding schools such as the Doon School are known in India as "public schools." Truer to the public-school spirit than even some modern-day counterparts in Britain, the Doon School is high on what Mr. Mason calls "character building" through team sports, strong discipline and a spartan lifestyle.

Other parallels with a bygone Britain abound. Study time is called "toye time," a term that originated with Britain's 616-year old Winchester College. A bell tolls to summon students to assembly and to meals -- a practice Britain discarded "because everyone has wristwatches," says Richard Anderson, a Briton teaching mathematics at the Doon School.

For their classic public-school education, the 500 students act out plays at an open-air amphitheater, go online in air-conditioned computer centers and practice cricket and soccer on tree-lined fields. (The youngest students join the school at class seven, equivalent to seventh grade in America and form one in Britain, and finish after class 12.) Class discussions roam over an eclectic mix of topics, from the Asian economic crisis to nuclear testing. One subject that isn't so popular is Hindi.

In a cloistered building, a Hindi class is in progress. As English is taught in most government schools as a second language, so Hindi plays second string here. After class 10 it becomes an optional subject. Of the 20 class nine students in the room, only three raise their hands when asked who would continue Hindi studies after class 10.

Such coolness toward India's other official language is rooted in part in the country's complex ethnic mix. Besides Hindi, some 20 major languages are in wide use in various regions, in many cases by local governments transacting official business. To an Indian from a non-Hindi region, the benefits of learning Hindi aren't always obvious. But there is no doubt about the importance of speaking English.

"To find a good job in India you have to speak English," says Siddarth Sethia, one of the 17 who plan to go no further with Hindi studies when they become optional.

Activities to promote Indian culture abound at the school, but not nearly enough to counterbalance the English-first attitude. To some students, the imbalance is discomfiting. One of them is Aditya Bahadur. Sitting alone in an empty classroom, the lawyer's son from New Delhi says: "Speaking English gets you respect. With Hindi you get no respect."

A good-looking boy with spindly legs, Aditya is recognized by his teachers as a gifted linguist in English and Hindi -- and something of a misfit. Being a bad athlete got him off on the wrong foot with public-school life. He thought he made up for it at least in part when he got elected secretary of the school's Hindi Society. But his pride got deflated "when I discovered that people considered it a real sidey [an Indian derivative from sidekick] job."

-- Rasul Bailay contributed to this article.