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The quote by Karl Kraus sets the tone of the book. "My
language is the universal whore whom I must make into a
virgin." Such shocking statements abound. As does an
inflexible attitude. Whether language should serve people or it
should be vice versa is something the writer is ambivalent
about. To substantiate his thesis about English language being
in a state of neglect, he quotes Robert Graves and Alan Hodge’s
handbook of English usage, The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943):
"As a rule, the best English is written by people without
literary pretensions, who have responsible executive jobs...and
as a rule, the better at their jobs they are, the better they
write...Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of
knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience
and goodwill." What about some of the most scintillating
language used in our literature and scriptures?
His contention is
that deterioration of usage of language is due to the fact that
journalism has become respectable. If both writing and
publishing had continued to be dangerous professions, it would
have discouraged dilletantism.
The section where
he dwells on the abuse of language to throttle freedom, as
during Emergency, is readable as is the reliance on newsspeak in
the Indian context. It is a fact that "When there is gap
between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it
were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms."
Also true is the assertion that political language is designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to
conceal and not to tell.
At times, the
author gives the impression of being caught in a time warp.
Advertising and political correctness are now very much a part
of the public discourse that Nambisan wants to critique. One
cannot wish them away, howsoever one might detest them. So he
sounds rather opinionated when he denounces both of them.
The writer relies
heavily on James Thurber’s book The Years with Ross (1959)
on Harold Ross, founder-editor of the New Yorker, and his own
articles published in The Hindu to build, consolidate and
carry forward his argument.
It is Eric Bentley’s
conviction that ours is an age of substitutes: instead of
language, we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and
instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas. All the quotes and
examples be it from George Orwell, Thurber or The Hindu
to illustrate usage make one wonder where are the writer’s own
convictions? One is impressed by the secondary sources he uses
and applauds the original, rather than Nambisan.
Objectivity is at
a discount, especially in the essay The Problem of English. Here
he sounds peevish and self-pitying by turns. The writer carries
a chip about being at the receiving end of English-bashers and
wears it unabashedly. He does admit that "Good art is
universal and will find it’s audience." Why the fuss
about the English-bashing bhasha writers?
One wonders is it
ethical on the writer’s part to denounce the bhasha
writers? It is an undeniable fact that the English language
press does not give a fair representation to bhasha
writers and their views. The politics of language is operative
and to link the assertion of bhasha literatures to
emergence of Right-wing politics is as inaccurate as it is
ideologically motivated.
A part of a series
called Interrogating India that looks critically at the common
sense prevailing on some of the most "pressing issues of
our times", Language as an Ethic does not give a
fresh perspective on the debate about English.
The prose is
seductive and engaging. The racy style captivates the reader to
the extent of making him lose sight of reason beyond the
rhetoric. One almost forgets to question the argument.
An-attempt-to shock analogies, pithy one-liners cannot mask the
lack of rigour. "It is rare for journalism to transcend the
day but increasingly common for it to degrade the hour."
Nambisan too is doing exactly what he debunks. He too is
indulging in a dilletante, cavalier attitude because the issue
is much more serious than is the treatment he metes out to it.
One would think
that pressing issues deserved a more incisive and in-depth
treatment than has been handed out to them by discussing them in
this drawingroom, chatterati style. Style doesn’t always
manage to win over substance. In this case it is a surefire
loser.
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ACCORDING
to Wittgenstein, we live inside the language. However, the English
language that came to live as a guest is now centrestage and even
perceived more as a privileged tool of domination and empowerment
than as a medium of communication. The relationship between the
English language and the Indian people is not only complex but it is
also constantly evolving to be able to encompass an entire range of
experience.
