In a major experiment with technical education, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to introduce Bachelors of Engineering (BE) course in the civil and mechanical disciplines in the Tamil medium also in 15 constituent colleges of the four Anna Universities. The state would create an additional cumulative 1,800 seats in these institutions to accommodate students who prefer to study BE in Tamil medium.
- The Times of India, TNN, Feb 25, 2010
The Minister of Education in Tamil Nadu (India), K Ponmudy, has announced the introduction of BE courses in select engineering colleges of the Anna University in Tamil. It is going to be piloted first with freshmen students. The minister also added that students would have the option of choosing which medium to study in, English or Tamil.
Unlike most people in northern India, citizens from southern states – especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala – have been known to consecrate their language and hold it so close to their daily life that both English and the worldliness it brings with it is lost in in an often-meaningless pursuit of nativity.
I am from Tamil Nadu, and if I were to back home and so much as suggest some parallel anglicisation with Tamil, I will be shot down as a “traitor of the culture” – a phrase I am accustomed to hearing these days. There is some English in the Tamil airs, but it is of an esoteric nature. Even Hindi for that matter: speakers of the national language are treated with a different kind of affection, one that is constantly affectated with scorn.
A cultural disparity does exist, and it will not be a surprise when a Tamilian is mocked in Mumbai or when a Mumbaikar is mocked in Chennai. However, there is no move to embrace anything from either end. Although a pacifist, I am not being one when I hope that the Tamilian mindset will change. There is more to it than meets the eye, including a state-wide cohesion that means progressive thinking will be very slow and very painful.
To that end, the TN government’s decision to only “introduce” the opportunity to study in Tamil is, simply put, bad and in poor judgment. Of course, the “true” Tamilian won’t see it. After all, 1,800 new seats will be opened up and that too to people who have had no formal education of English. However, in affording such an opportunity, the government is also blindly sidelining the importance of English when it comes to employment.
For example, in 2007, BMW India opened its first production plant in the country in Chennai. If a through-and-through Tamil speaking engineer enters the job scene, how can he hope to be hired? Tamilians have to remember that when Tamil is concerned, it is important only within the state. When the state itself concedes and opens its arms to host European companies on its soil, why can’t it see the cons in denying the college student a global perspective on life?
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