Decoding the love for English in West Bengal...

Article written by Mr. Pranab Kumar Gupta and Mrs. Chitra Gupta

On the evening of 24th Jan, I felt the urge to call uncle (Mr Pranab Kumar Gupta) to find answer for a question which had become overpowering on me. " Do many good English teachers in Indian schools hail from West Bengal? And if Yes, then why?

We talked for 30-mins. It gave few answers but more importantly energy to my inquiry. After 2 days, I received the pleasant response to my question from Uncle and Aunty.

Start of article

Often one wonders, how is it that urban Bengalis take up English as a medium for education and conversation and excel so much more in the field of teaching English, compared to other states. What is the root cause behind it?

To find the answer, one has to look into the history of how the British stepped in India via formation of the East India Company in 1600 AD and then establishing British rule over India. Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the first capital of British India. The English men who landed in Kolkata as part of British Raj, needed people of Indian origin who they could rely upon to run administration under their rules. They created a class of so-called "Babus" who would work for them and form a bridge for communication with the rest of population.

Unlike other parts of India, The then undivided Bengal along with eastern provinces of Assam and Odissa had very fertile lands and people did not have to toil as hard and those of Western and Northern parts of India. As a result, they could indulge in various cultural and social activities along with use of more brain than brawn. Pursuing material wealth like amassing money and land property were secondary to most of the enlightened Bengalis, who were philosophic by nature and valued book education, world literatures and arts as more important than anything else for recognition in society. With such cultural bent of mind, the middle class urban people embraced and fall in love with English as a language for communication with chance for entry into the vast European/English knowledge bank amongst others.

Let us now look into the scenario of Western style education that was included in the early system of education brought in by many English scholars at that time in Bengal (mainly Kolkata). Amongst various stalwarts who contributed in building up the base of English medium education during that early years, two names of educationists are required to be mentioned as pioneers. They are Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and David Hare (18th - 19th centuries) under whose selfless guidance a group of highly educated and enlightened young minds were nurtured in following who is called "Queen's English", that strictly and religiously followed all the grammatical and correctness of the language. Many  English medium schools and colleges of high repute were established like Presidency College, Hindu School, St. Xavier's, Don Bossco, Scottish Church, La Martinere, Loreto Convent and many others.

As mentioned earlier, the then British rules had created a class of "Bengali Babus", who prided themselves in speaking fluent English and thus creating a class of elites in the society. The parents in this class of people would send their wards to these institutions where most of the faculty were of English origin. Major job/career opportunities in those days for educated persons were in the fields of law, medicine, civil service and academics where English as a language to learn and express in was a must.

Children born in such families were brought up in an environment where conversation used to be mostly in English amongst friends and kins. As a result fluency in English almost became inborn. With the spread of British Empire across continents, career opportunities of intelligent English speaking Indians - a majority of which had initial education in Kolkata based institutions increased rapidly. The Kolkata (Calcutta till recently) youth embraced these chances and engaged themselves in learning more and more of not only the language but also the English culture and etiquettes to widen their chances abroad and also in British companies established by then in large numbers in India.

Importance of English, following Independence of India continued further, as the medium of exchange not only within India but also with other countries. The states outside Bengal barring a few, started to realise this, though much later.

Almost all the Government run educational institutions till then were vehemently opposing English as the medium of learning and favored local vernacular, which was more of a political decision then love of mother tongue (this decision has been reversed in Jan 2019 by state government pacing way for English medium state board schools). Children educated in such schools and colleges were made to remain in a cocoon till they came out to face the harsh reality of challenges and competitions from those who had basic English language exposure.

Coming to present educational opportunities in W. Bengal, particularly the urban areas, which got enriched with the experience gathered from such historical background, almost all the colleges have English - Honours subject in their undergraduate curriculum. While science and commerce are the most pursued courses by boys, many girls prefer "Education" and 'English' as their Honours subjects. Many of the girls colleges and Co-ed colleges have very high profile teachers, under whose guidance the students get great exposures and learning opportunities of English language and literatures, with broad overviews of other European languages and culture. The interaction between students and teachers through elocution give the students opportunity to sharpen their skill of communication, qualifying them over other as eligible teachers for the young minds to get trained in English.

Conclusion and other themes of inquiry

Apart from the above arguments in favour of this hypothesis, my further threads of inquiry on "Does West Bengal give many good English teachers to Indian schools? are as follows:-

1. The class 10 and class 12 students of West Bengal fare quite well in English in ICSE and ISC exams. Last year English catapulted the performance of students nationally giving them top ranks in the country. This substantiates that the quality of English among urban-educated Bengalis is till today of high quality. The bearing of culture may have an bearing on these results.
2. One needs to analyse the IELTS and TOEFL scores to know if students who studied in West Bengal do better than others in these exams. If the answer is affirmative, it substantiates our argument of English language enabling literary culture in West Bengal
3. Another track of thinking could be that since West Bengal did not experience significant migration of Indians from other parts of the country, the homogeneity in society; literary and cultural practices remained intact (metropolitan culture did not penetrate deep enough) over the last 5 decades. As a corollary, the educated youth from West Bengal travelled to other parts of the country and chose vocation in education, art and culture thereby enabling their reputation as "lovers of English language and literature".
4. National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) will soon be releasing the ranking of recognised B.Ed. colleges of India. If one finds several colleges from West Bengal in top 100 of this list, it will further substantiate the quality of teacher education of this state.

Another study worth taking up is on the state of Kerala, probably the first Indian state post independence to make English compulsory in government schools. This decision taken few years after independence enabled the state to become net exporter of talent across the world, not just in the field of education and nursing but beyond.