Sunday, May 29, 2016

Smart only if you know English

Some years ago, i did a post called "Friendly only if you know English".  As an example of how our media perpetuates biases against rural India and non-English educated persons here's another piece. The very first line of this article says: 
An Orissa villager, who is not even fluent in English, learnt the skill of hacking using an old smart phone.
(emphasis mine)

So apparently, if you've not been educated in English in India you're not supposed to do anything smart. I can imagine the profile of the reporter. Convent-educated, never stepped out of Hyderabad (the story is filed from there), and thinks his rural cousins are inferior.

If anyone wonders why Narendra Modi gets so much hate, this is one of the contributory factors. These 'elites' cannot digest anyone with such a background coming up. 

We need to strongly encourage learning and publishing high quality education material in regional languages. I am also in favor of English entering learning only later in high school.