Page 66 - EW FEB 2022

Postscript

Soviet-style unperson Indians — including some uber rich — are so desperate
to get out of this country? Especially when according to
our bully-boy political leaders and tub-thumping supra
HE RAVAGES OF SEVERAL WAVES OF THE
Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding, the Mumbai- nationalists, contemporary India is the world’s most
Tbased TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) Ltd, seems well-governed and high-potential — sare jahan se acchha
to be going great guns. The management of India’s most — country?
valuable company by market capitalisation (Rs.13.9 lakh It’s pertinent to note that the demised citizens men-
crore) recently announced a massive Rs.18,000 crore tioned above were of the Gujarati — India’s most entre-
equity shares buy-back programme. Moreover, it’s all set preneurial — community. There’s high probability that
to become the title sponsor of the IPL 2022 T-20 — the they wanted to migrate to the US to quickly start a small
world’s most popular and expensive — cricket tourna- business and prosper modestly, an anti-social aspiration,
ment, and has also bagged the rights to sponsor the according to our brahminic establishment pundits.
Toronto (Canada) Marathon in addition to the New York Writing in the New Indian Express (January 9),
and London marathon races. economist-author Shankkar Aiyar reveals that even in
In the circumstances, why the surreptitious campaign post-liberalisation India, “entrepreneurs are haunted by
within TCS to erase the memory of Fakir Chand Kohli 1,500 laws and over 69,000 compliances to follow”. Time
(1924-2020), a brilliant MIT alum who built India’s the timorous middle class spoke up for liberalisation!
wealthiest corporate byte by byte from scratch? For
over four decades, Kohli brilliantly stewarded TCS that Hindi imperialism revival
contributes over 85 percent of the profit of the Tata
Group. Unsurprisingly, in informed circles Kohli is widely
acknowledged as the father of the country’s booming IT JANUARY 17 DECISION OF THE TELANGANA
services and ICT industry. government to decree Inglish the medium of
After he stepped down as CEO of TCS, but in his A instruction in its 30,000 primary-secondary
capacity as vice-chairman, FCK — a notable champion of government schools statewide, should be welcomed by all
education and human capital development — flagged off committed to the unity amid diversity aspiration of post-
the unprecedented annual TCS-EducationWorld Teach- independence India. Earlier in 2019, the YSR Congress
ers Awards in 2005 which selected and felicitated the government of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh had also de-
country’s best government and private school teachers. creed Inglish as the medium of instruction in all govern-
Annual expenditure: Rs.8 lakh. However, in 2009 when ment schools statewide.
N. Chandrasekaran whom Kohli groomed for the corner These decrees were overdue. Because for decades,
office, was appointed CEO of TCS, his first initiative was self-serving politicians from the country’s most socio-
to scrap the TCS-EW Teachers Awards on the plea of economically backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya
corporate poverty. Since then, despite repeated entreaties Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states have been
to resuscitate the teachers awards, neither Chandrasek- attempting to foist Hindi — their under-developed lingua
aran nor Rajesh Gopinathan, his handpicked kith and kin franca — as the national language of the country. The sole
successor as TCS supremo, have responded to appeals to argument in favour of this proposition is that these states
revive FCK’s pet project to keep his memory alive. host a majority two-thirds of the nation’s population.
Meanwhile these clannish techies who have little Never mind that they also host the country’s largest pool
respect for poorly remunerated school teachers, have done of poor, illiterate and deprived citizens.
handsomely for themselves. Chandra is CEO of the Tata Latter day Hindi champions tend to suffer historical
Group with a pay package of Rs.60 crore p.a, while Gopi- amnesia. They seem to have forgotten that in the 1960s
nath (Rs.20 crore p.a) has awarded himself membership when Hindi was declared the sole national language of
of the upscale Bombay Gymkhana. Moreover an autho- India, massive protests and riots broke out in peninsular
rised biography of FCK remains mysteriously frozen inside India. Therefore in the mid-1960s, English was conferred
Penguin Book publishers. FCK is set to become a Soviet- the status of associate official language and the language
style unperson in Tata history. Like he never existed. of the upper judiciary and inter-state communication.
Despite this since 2014 after the BJP, whose main sup-
port base is in the BIMARU states, was swept to power in
Elephantine question Delhi, a backdoor campaign to impose Hindi as the na-
tional language of communication has been re-started. In
his broadcasts to the nation, and in forums abroad, prime
JANUARY 23 NEWS ITEM TO THE EFFECT that
a Gujarati-Indian family of four including two minister Narendra Modi who is acceptably conversant
A children, froze to death in sub-zero temperatures in Inglish, speaks Hindi. Ditto all BJP leaders, including
on the Canada-US border while attempting to illegally talking heads on Inglish language TV news channels.
migrate to the US, has been reported in a surprisingly Despite a 2014 Supreme Court ruling that parents are
matter-of-fact manner in Indian media. As an inevitable the final authority on choice of medium of instruction,
accident. the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommends
Yet the elephant-in-the-room question that neither primary education in the mother tongue. Wiseacres who
academia egg-heads, establishment worthies nor the drafted the policy don’t seem aware that 19,500 lan-
country’s stone-hearted middle class prospering in a guages/dialects are alive in contemporary India and that
desert of poverty seems to be confronting, is why so many without Inglish, the country would be a tower of babble.

66 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2022