Language differentiates us from all the other species. It is not only a facilitator of our social life but also gives meaning and attaches value to human thought. For this reason, control over language has also been a potent tool for ruling elites.
In India, historically, Brahmins used language to position themselves as trustees of God on earth. Consider, for instance, how Sanskrit for long remained inaccessible for the vast majority of Bahujans. This Brahminical hegemony was maintained not necessarily with brute force, but with the help of an intellectual elite class that opposed the spread of learning – the very act listening to the Vedas was deemed unacceptable – by devising notions of purity and impurity.
Pedantic obsession with language is a peculiar trait of the ruling classes. It helps to guard the ‘pure’ from the ‘impure’. This obsession manifests itself in censoring and scrutinising the everyday lives of the Bahujan. Right from school classrooms to the corridors of elite institutions of higher education, this obsession is on crude display. Trivial pronunciation corrections separate them (the pure) from the impure, who largely are defenceless in this game of linguistics. This separation establishes the authority of one and the submission of the other.
Since the rules of the game – i.e. what is the acceptable usage of language and what is not – are usually dictated by elite gatekeepers, the oppressed often find themselves revolting against their inner true selves. W.E.B Du Bois articulates it thus in The Souls of Black Folk (1903):
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”
There is an irony in the fact that the crude display of arbitrary diktats which has sparked an ongoing controversy in India has come from none other than Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, renowned for her work on the ‘subaltern’. In the video that has recently gone viral, Chakravorty is seen correcting a JNU student’s pronunciation of ‘Du Bois’ during the Q&A period which followed the lecture she delivered. The student, Anshul Kumar, visibly appalled at the constant heckling and jarring laughs from the audience, insists Spivak let go of the ‘triviality’ and allow him to proceed with his question, but to no avail. Since then, Kumar, who described himself as ‘founding professor of the Centre for Brahmin Studies’, has gone on a tirade on social media against Chakravorty, decrying the role of caste and language policing in perpetuating inequalities.
This is not an uncommon experience sadly, and is not limited to the use of English. The Brahmins gate keep native Indian languages too. With a laser sharp intervention at even the slightest mistakes in language, they seem ready with condescending remarks about ‘proper pronunciation’, which more often than not, are in poor taste. Considering the differences in socio-cultural capital, the ‘joke’ is often at the expense of historically marginalised communities.
By dictating language, the culture of society itself is policed. In seemingly unbreakable chains, many ideas are throttled at inception, in the name of what is defined to be acceptable and ‘pure’ usage by the ruling elite. Nagraj Manjule, the national award winning filmmaker, has recounted the hardship he faced in filming the critically acclaimed Marathi film Fandry in a non-Brahmanical dialect. He says that at every stage of the film making process he was advised to use dialogues in ‘pure’ Marathi, meaning Puneri (Brahmani) Marathi. He asserts that the Marathi language should be freed from the shackles of ‘purity’, which is an excuse to instil humiliation and embarrassment in Bahujans for the language they have spoken for centuries.
Even the boundaries to which one is allowed to deviate from become rebellious yet scholarly only when they are initiated or endorsed by the ruling elites. The rulers will reward you for deviating from the convention too, if it suits them and doesn’t materially affect the status quo. In a debate that has since ensued on social media, the upper-caste gatekeeping of supposedly inclusive programs like Dalit and Tribal studies at the universities has been noted.
One wonders how we really get to the point where the Brahmin asks if the subaltern can speak, and simultaneously shuts him down for ‘improper pronunciation’, with many students joining this public shaming. Mockery, after all, when used by the ruling classes can be a potent yet non-violent weapon to shut down any conversation. It strips a person of their dignity in that it dismisses them as unworthy of any attention. It reinforces shame within the individual, making her or him less capable of freely formulating and expressing original ideas. The recent Chakravorty incident should make one navigate this nuanced subject with considerable caution. One’s speech can have debilitating and discriminative effects on individuals from marginalised sections.
Being mindful and equanimous in our everyday lives goes a long way towards bridging existing gaps and promoting a sense of fraternity. Educational institutions should be the pioneers of this change, not the enablers and perpetrators of inequality. The fact that Indian universities end up doing the latter only highlights the urgency of breaking the Brahminical value system in it.
As Kuffir, editor of Round Table India, once put it, “everyone learns from everyone else. Overtime the student becomes the teacher and vice versa…or there would be no new knowledge or progress. Only in a Brahminical society does a teacher remain a Guru forever and therefore all ‘knowledge’ stinks of decay. Do away with the idea of teachers and students.”
Anitya Sanket is a Mumbai-based lawyer
