JOIN USIFS officer shares his struggles with English; Twitterati join in
An IFS officer and IISC Bangalore alumnus Parveen Kaswan opened up about his insecurities related to English on Twitter
“I was surprised to notice that people were not only talking in English but even listening songs in English,” wrote Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Services (IFS) officer wrote on Twitter on July 13th, a day after CBSE released the class 12th results.
English was the tough nut to crack in my boards. Given rural background. When joined college I was surprised to notice that people were not only talking in English but even listening songs in English. Down the line I found funny that those things once made me worried. Life.
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 14, 2020
“Down the line I found funny that those things once made me worried. Life,” he added.
English is the second-most widely spoken language in India but it continues to act as an elitist criterion to judge someone’s worth and capabilities.
Kaswan’s tweet touched a nerve with his followers, many of whom shared their own struggles with the language.
“Imposing English is also a kind of colonisation,” wrote another follower in response to the original tweet.
Our imaginations and creative thinking are paralysed due to the alien language that has been fed to our brain which normally takes hefty time to digest and start working. Imposing English is also a kind of colonisation. Nothing can match with mother tongue.
— Saravanan Devarajan (@sarav_deva) July 14, 2020
Kaswan regularly shares images of the wildlife and is popular on Indian Twitter for his tweets on wildlife and nature.
Read some responses from people who related to this him on his struggles about English:
Just forwarding a WA image received few days ago. Show how screwed up and biased are we towards english. pic.twitter.com/PARLZPbvIi
— Shackled... (@skchomi) July 14, 2020
It’s really sad. In France, Spain, Germany people take immense pride in their national language. I tried English in Paris, Barcelona ( can’t speak the local language) and it seemed people were frowning upon me. Speak Hindi in India, same reaction. Really really sad!
— Pavan Periwal (@PavanPeriwal) July 14, 2020
Language is a medium to communicate. But due to decades of British rule, one still carries the convulted dogma of being labelled a poor communicator if one can't speak fluent English. Regional or native language speakers still find it difficult to make their mark in mainstream.
— kaviraj devaraj (@kavirajd) July 14, 2020
Reminded me my college days. studying in telugu medium then came to posh college(NIFT). I used to speak butler English, on top of it people used to make fun of my (south) accent. Hindi did not know except hindi alphabets.
— swapna (@swapna1822) July 15, 2020
Guess what i came a long way
Completely agree. Entering into Engineering college from RB was initially difficult only because of English. Now also when I teach my son and subconsciously call Intertia as “जड़त्व” My son is like “whaaaat”😜😜
— DieHardPatriot (@dmathur22) July 14, 2020