BJP president Rajnath Singh has said that English education is hurting India's culture. He said that knowing or speaking the language was fine per se, but the problem starts when we start "acting like Englishmen". It is not easy to deduce what Singh meant, except for the fact that he has held the language responsible as the germplasm for an English (Westernised?) culture modifying, and even replacing, our indigenous ones.

We have to agree there is no pan-Indian culture. Heritage that broadly shapes culture varies widely within the country. There are, however, some distinctive features that may bear a semblance of commoness. At the same time, our colonial history has also shaped the cultures that exist within the country. It is most evident in our education in which we follow a very British system and curriculum. But does our colonial history, and along with it, our education system make us "less Indian" (or less Tamil, less Konkan, or less whatever regional, local nomenclature our respective cultures have adopted)?

Let us look at what has happened to us because of our decades of English education. Our funny accents aside, we are one of the largest diaspora globally because working knowledge of a language that is spoken almost globally has opened doors faster for us than, say, the Mandarin-speaking but incredibly disciplined and productive Chinese. We have, of course, adopted many ways of the West, most manifest in our clothing but this has more to do with the nature of our consumption and the free-market culture that globalisation has brought with it. In fact, if our culture(s) have eroded, it is because of economic policies (championed by both the BJP-led NDA and th Congress-led UPA governments) that have replaced our local consumption patterns with Western ones. In fact, English is a mere tool that can be used to give access to a global culture of consumption. The same truth will stand for any major language of the world. If Rajnath Singh is right, then the hawks of local/regional cultures could well blame Hindi for the Bollywoodisation of almost everything that the urban, periurban middle class practices in the name of culture.

So, is Rajnath Singh right in blaming English for corroding India's culture?