– M Madhava Prasad

What is the relation between language and the nation-state form? A recent essay on a somewhat unrelated topic includes this passing remark about European history:

A very long time ago, the elite spoke Latin, and the vulgar, the rest of the people, spoke other languages: English, French, and German. The elite ignored the masses. The masses ignored the elite.

How does the Indian situation compare with this? The elite speaking one language and the rest of the people speaking others is for us not a feature of the distant past but of the immediate present. The language of the elite is one, while the languages of the rest can be and are multiple. English is the language of the elite today. In the past Sanskrit and Persian have occupied this position of the language of the ruling elite that was reserved for Latin in Europe. And what were known as the ‘prakrits’ or ‘desabhashas’ were many and constantly changing, and are today known as ‘modern Indian languages’, ‘vernaculars’ or ‘bhashas’. So far the facts of the Indian present seem to match those of the European past. Next we come to the relations between the two sections of society. Here there is a striking difference. Unlike what the above author says, neither the elite nor the masses can afford to ignore the other in our current set-up.

What happened in Europe ‘a very long time ago’ was quite similar to what happened in India a very long time ago. But what is happening in India today is only partially similar to what happened a very long time ago. In Europe, between that time long ago and the present, something intervened which made it impossible for the elite and the masses within one country to speak two different languages. After the revolutions of the late 18th and 19th centuries, it was established as a universal rule that the national language(s) would be the language(s) of all the citizens of the respective countries. As we know, these revolutions did not abolish the differences in wealth and status between different social classes. But they established a common ground of political equality and abolished all privileges that were justified by reference to long established tradition or custom and divine sanction. Everywhere that this revolution took hold, a side-effect ensued as if automatically: the two-tier language order was smashed and a single language became the language of the nation-state. What we need to understand is why this must be so, what is the necessity that finds expression in this change in the order of language from a structural bilingualism (that is, a structurally salient linguistic hierarchy) to a monolingual polity.

The idea of the commons, known in India by various names – eg.,oorottu in Kannada, oorummadi in Telugu – has seen a revival in the wake of globalisation, in such terms as ‘the creative commons’, ‘reclaiming the commons’ etc. There are those who believe that the restitution of the commons will fix all the problems of capitalism. It is often said that the commons has been redefined culturally in the present-day world to refer not so much, or not only, to economic resources held in common by a group, such as land or water, but also to the culture of such a group, say a type of music.Yet water and music are both material resources, ‘separable from a human community’, whereas there is another idea of the commons which is relevant to the time of capitalism we live in, as it is to all societies marked by inequality (note that the idea of the commons only makes sense in an unequal society). Language, the medium in which alone community interests and values become available for sharing, is the foundational commons, which ensures commonality of interests and values in the context of the new kind of social inequality, brought into being by capitalism. Not just economic or cultural but political meaning may thus be recovered for the commons. In modern nation-states, unity of language seems to be the foundation without which ideologies cannot perform their function. In these states, moreover, new structurally invisible but socially effective forms of inequality replace older symbolically sanctioned forms. What secures their unity and ensures the existence of a society, or the society-effect, is in the end a common language. The ‘commons’ dimension of this common language comes sharply into view only in exceptional situations, such as in India where a constitutional democracy, against universally acknowledged common sense, continues to operate in a minority language, instead of locating them in the commons where participation of all is assured. Conducting the affairs of a democratic state in a minority language is like shifting the panchayat meeting from its traditional venue underthe peepal tree to the interior of the local landlord’s home where entry is restricted.

The necessity of a common language is a result of the change in the definition of sovereignty (political authority) which finds theoretical expression in what is known as social contract theory. In summary this theory is based on the idea that all the members of a society agree among themselves to establish a new order of governance. In the first place this means that all these members, that is the people in that society, sign the contract as equals. Sovereignty or political authority belongs to all of them in equal measure. This marks an end to all previous forms of political sovereignty in which the king derived his authority from a power higher than himself (authenticated by the priest). In a contractual society, it is still necessary to delegate authority to someone for the maintenance of law and order and other necessary duties. This is done by different types of delegation or representation, the crucial difference being that the authority of such a person is only for a fixed period of time, after which s/he must vacate the seat of power for the next person who is elected. This is why it is said in political philosophy that in modern democracies, ‘the seat of power is empty’. Another fact to be noted here is that in reality it is impossible for all the members of a society to gather in one place and actually put their signatures to a contract. The most common form of the contract is the Constitution, such as the one we have in India, and this is usually drawn up and passed into law by a small group of people, who may be the leaders who led the movement for change. But even though everybody in the society does not sign the contract, it is assumed that it is agreed upon by all, including future generations. This is why it is called ‘fictive’. Once it is established, it becomes the law and every member of the society, present and future, is assumed to have agreed to and signed the contract.

Contract theory is thus a fictive construct which nevertheless captures the essence of the great shift in political power brought about by the revolutions of the 18th century. One problem with it is the impression it conveys of an absolutely new beginning. It is as if a new contractual society comes into being out of nothing, without any relation to anything that existed before . This is of course impossible. The philosopher Hegel penetrated to the heart of the matter when he asked a simple but absolutely fundamental question: in what language is the contract drawn up? The question immediately reveals the fact that only those who speak a common language can draw up and sign such a deed. In other words, the society that is constituted as a post-monarchic state based on popular sovereignty, must already exist in the form of a linguistically unified community. This shows the ineluctable, constitutive link between democracy and the common language. Theories of nationalism suggest that claims to national identity are usually based on one or other of a set of criteria like race, religion, language. This is misleading insofar as a common language is a necessity regardless of what other criteria might have been invoked in claiming national identity. As long as the claim to national identity remains cultural, language might seem like one of the criteria, but as soon as the claim is extended to statehood, language detaches itself to become the means of attainment of political existence. In a nation-state, language is no longer an ethnic attribute but is sublimated into a political commons which the ethnie can no longer claim as its own inviolable property.

But when communities fail to achieve contractual reconstitution in the modern world where it has become the norm, they become pathologized in governmental discourse as ethnicities. Language in such a situation remains an ethnic attribute. In recent years, all Indian ‘vernaculars’ have begun to attract this definition because they have ceased to be politically salient. To take Telugu as an example, one sees efforts being made by all kinds of institutions and individuals to ‘protect and preserve’ the Telugu language. The World Telugu conference that was held in Tirupathi a few years ago is a case in point: these protectors, whether they are in government or associated with private initiatives, treat Telugu as a part of the state’s ‘cultural heritage’. Thus they speak of Telugu festivals, Telugu cuisine, Tirupathi laddu, Kuchipudi and Telugu language as if they were all the same sort of thing, all aspects of Telugu cultural heritage which must be protected and preserved! This is an indication that the political argument for the people’s language as a medium of political enablement and authorization is no longer taken seriously by anyone in positions of power and influence. And in the absence of popular sovereignty which can only be ensured by a language functioning as political commons, it is not surprising that social scientists report the proliferation of all kinds of substitute sovereign figures who claim divine or other sanction for their exceptional status: politicians, sadhus, film stars and so on.Attempts at religious unification are also encouraged by the suppression of vital necessities of a healthy democratic society.

The twentieth century has been the century of the universalization of the nation-state form. In the 19th century there were only some nation-states, mostly confined to Europe, and many of them were also imperial powers. They ruled territories that were scattered all over the globe which they possessed as colonies. When independence movements in these colonies led to the withdrawal of European rulers and the formation of independent states, the force of the idea of the nation-state was such that all of them either on their own or by the compulsion of historical circumstances came to be defined as nation states. This is where the gap between the European norm and the postcolonial actuality in these new states begins to acquire importance. Many of these postcolonial nation-states were internally divided into many communities — tribal, religious, racial, ethnic – and they each spoke their own separate languages. This situation gives rise to what is commonly referred to as the problem of ‘national unity’ but is in fact about the integrity of the state. The unity of the postcolonial state is being misrepresented as a problem of national unity. It is as if every state, regardless of its history and territorial and social character, must compulsorily proclaim itself a nation. As a direct consequence of this compulsion, actually or potentially existing nations are forced to regress to the pathological status of ethnicities because they cannot help themselves to the sublimating powers of a constitution drawn up in their own languages. The contemporary world state system discourages and pathologizes nationalism as a means to the achievement of human freedom. It is as if the question of freedom is now obsolete and shelved forever. Meanwhile ethnicities fester and periodically erupt in irrational violence.

These questions of political enablement are not unrelated to the question of language in education which is currently a hot topic of debate in India. Education in India has evolved into an anarchic system combining government schools teaching in the vernaculars and private schools offering ‘English-medium’ education, mostly of dubious quality. Quality English education is available to a very small elite while the rest are forced to choose between a vernacular education which is widely (and not always with reason) deemed worthless and an ‘English-medium’ education that is presumed to ensure employability and access to exclusive privileges. (In the debris left after the accident in which more than 20 school children were killed in Medak, a text book of ‘Mathmetics’ [sic] stood out.) In fact the fees paid to English medium schools is nothing but an aspiration tax which goes directly into the pockets of unscrupulous entrepreneurs. Having actively colluded to bring about this situation, and let it worsen apparently beyond remedy, the state now provides, instead of education, the ‘right to education’!The central governments’ creeping intrusion into the education sector, designed to protect the colonial class’s interests, has managed to turn English into the precious object that all aspire to, the pie in the sky which holds the masses in thrall and ensures the perpetuation of this form of exploitation and deception.For it is a matter of course today for all countries of the world to teach English alongside their own languages, in order to equip their citizens to function effectively in a globalizing world. There is no reason to deny the Indian child the same access to English that children in most countries of the world today enjoy. But in India English has remained the property of a class and the envy of the excluded. The social effectivity of English prevents its wider availability as a useful skill, a situation that cannot be changed without reviving the suppressed question of language and democracy.

 

M. Madhava Prasad teaches at EFL University.