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Kothari Commission, 1964-66 on Language Education: in Retrospect

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Kothari Commission, 1964-66 on Language Education: in Retrospect Landmarks Kothari Commission, 1964-66 on Language Education: In Retrospect Shreesh Chaudhary Background remuneration, school and college buildings and Kothari Commission, 1964-66, was created to other related issues. Summary of its find a model of education for an integrated recommendations is a 140-page document4. socialist and secular India. Mid-1960s saw some Annexes and enclosures account for another of the worst language riots in India. The elder thousand pages. statesman C Rajagopalachari cautioned that Highlights of some of the important without English India’s federal structure may recommendations of Kothari Commission, 1 be under threat . Since independence, there had relating to language education, are given below.5 been two commissions and numerous 1. Evolution of a Language Policy (Section committees, with little progress in finding a nationally acceptable model of education. The 1.49): To help social and national integration, government resolution appointing the Education a language policy must be evolved. ‘ Commission, 1964-66, noted: 2. Development of Modern Indian Languages … a wide and distressing gulf persists (1.50): It is essential for development of between thought and action and community feeling. Energetic action is programmes concerning the quality of needed to produce books and literature. education, even where these were UGC should provide guidance and funds. well-conceived and generally agreed 3. Medium of Education at School and College to, could not be implemented (1.51): The development of the modern satisfactorily..2 Indian Languages is linked with the place given to them in the educational system. The Commission About thirty years ago, Rabindra Nath Tagore had said: Including its chairman, Daulat Singh Kothari, the 17 members of the Commission In no country of the world, except were eminent educationists3. Besides, the India, is to be seen this divorce of Commission spent about a 100 days going round language of education from the 6 the country and finding out. In 1966, it submitted language of pupil… its recommendations to the Government of India In general, India wanted to bridge this gap. (GoI), suggesting a system that would promote 4. Language of Communication: The country “national prosperity and integration”. The should have one language as the medium Commission dwelt upon the desirable objectives, of higher education (1.53), so that students method and medium of general, vocational, and teachers can move from one part of religious and teacher-education and the country to the others. Language and Language Teaching Volume 3 Number 2 Issue 6 July 2014 41 5. All graduates will need to have some the pinch comes. Of the nearly 1700 mother proficiency in a library language (1.60), tongues enumerated by the Census of India, which will be English for most students. over a 1,000 have no tradition of use in schools9. Other languages should also be developed Kothari Commission says that relevant material besides Hindi (1.62). We should create B be prepared in these languages. Japanese do A and M A programmes where students so10. But the task in India is stupendous. Printed can study two Indian languages together. collections of even native poems and stories are 6. Policy for Urdu: Urdu should be taught, unavailable in many modern Indian languages. because it is “spoken by certain sections of Birhor and Kurukh, spoken in Jharkhand plateau, the people in different parts of the country” for instance, do not have enough of even these. (1.56). Even Maithili, Santhali, Konkani, Nepali, 7. Role of English & Foreign Languages: All Manipuri, etc., relatively developed, with a India institutions can continue using English tradition of written literature, do not have a body 11 for the time being (1. 55). A change over to of academic writing . They do not have books Hindi may be considered in due course. Just in Natural and Social Sciences, Economics, now, a student should possess an adequate Geography and History. Textbooks come out command over English. The Commission of a traditionof academic discourse. felt that India would need a small but Besides, people speaking many of these proficient group of peopleknowing some languages are many and poor. Printing even an foreign languages (1.57). alphabet book for all school-age children in all of these languages may cost a fortune. Where Critique is so much money going to come from? Will all Due to lack of space, discussion is limited to or only some mother tongues be used in the following issues, namely, education? Shall we do so in a phased manner – producing a quota of books in some languages (1) a. Mother Tongue, & Medium of Education, this year, in some others next year, and so on? b. Role of Hindi / Urdu and Regional The Commission has no word on these issues. Languages, and Consequently, many modern Indian languages c. Role of English and Foreign languages. are not taught in schools even today. Census Mother Tongue (MT) in Education figures for Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal, etc., besides those Since Charles Wood’s despatch of 18547, all commissions and committees have supported for languages of many scheduled tribes in Central the use of MT in the early years of education8. and peninsular India, such as Lambadi or Learning is not smooth where both medium and Lamani, show that there are more languages message are new. in this region than those used in the But we choose medium of instruction in view (government) schools. also of things other than students’ familiarity with the language. Primary education also needs Promotion of Hindi and Regional methods, materials, teachers and teacher Languages education. We, therefore, take a language which Commission recommended encouragement has a tradition of use in education, rather than toHindi and regional languages as the media of another without such a tradition. That is where internal, regional and national communication, Language and Language Teaching Volume 3 Number 2 Issue 6 July 2014 42 But this was selectively implemented in different government. We can encourage book production states. In Bihar, for instance, study of English in our languages, by both translation and original was made optional in the late 1960s, but no writing. Amar Chitra Katha15series of books language from another region was introduced. have been both literary and commercial success. Mother tongue and Hindi are generally taught We may learn from them. enthusiastically, but the place of the third Kothari Commission would like Hindi to replace language, to be taken from another region, is English as the language of Pan-Indian either left vacant, or, is generally filled with lip- communication, and as the sole medium of service to Persian, Arabic or Sanskrit. This instruction at the university level. But, being policy created an unnecessary over-load of pragmatic, the Commission recommended 12 languages, and was criticised . support to both Hindi and the regional languages. The Commission recommended that books could Theoretically, the policy is sound. The student be specially written in and for those languages will continue to have education in the familiar that have no tradition of academic books. But language. UGC must encourage preparation of text book-writing is askilled-job. They come out text books in these languages16.Bengali, Marathi, of a certain culture of reading and writing in the Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil seem to have some community, they take shape in the network of academic and technical literature even in natural authors, publishers and distributors, all catering and social sciences. But many other languages to a reading public. Where are the readers of have few books of this kind in them. academic books in many modern Indian Then there is the problem of attitude. Even when languages? Do we have enough people who can an occasional academic paper or book appears write books on various subjectsfor various in a modern Indian language, it remains classes in various languages? Experience of the unrecognized17.It is possible today to write in 13 Children’s Book Trust , National Book Trust, Hindi and other regional languages many all India Sahitya Akademi and the other government examinations for admissions to institutions of bodiesengaged in the business of book- higher education, and for recruitment in production is not quite encouraging. They are government service. Yet, in actual practice, only always behind schedule, their show rooms are a few choose from Indian languages18. burdened with unsold copies. Whereas this is Kothari Commission recommended preparation true that some deliberate effort is required to of terminology in Hindi and other regional create appropriate literature in some languages, languages. The Council of Scientific and it must be recognised that state has hardly ever Technical Terminology (CSTT) has prepared been the best producer of literature of any kind. glossaries of administrative terminology19, none Kothari Commissionalso recommended creation of which significantly furthers the use of Hindi of appropriate books through translation. But a in non-conventional domains. The question once good translation is no easy job. The translator again is how it can happen. Must we translate needs to know the subject and the source and “collector” and “commissioner” and “atom”, the target languages involved. Again, experience etc. which have through usage become parts of the National Translation Mission at Mysore of modern vocabulary, just as many words from has not been very encouraging14.
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