discussion
Intellectual Bilingualism
N Kalyan Raman
Ramachandra Guha’s article
on decline of intellectual
bilingualism (“The Rise and Fall
of the Bilingual Intellectual”,
15 August 2009) does not
attempt to say much about the
implications of this decline for
the future of intellectual activity
in our country. This criticism
provides facts and evidence that
are missing or misrepresented in
Guha’s essay.
N Kalyan Raman (nkalyan.raman@gmail.com)
is a translator of contemporary Tamil poetry
and fiction and also with the Asian College of
Journalism, Chennai.
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   october 10, 2009  vol xliv no 41
R
amachandra Guha’s essay, “The
Rise and Fall of the Bilingual Intel-
lectual” (15 August 2009) is based
on the perception that “writers, thinkers
and activists of an earlier generation were
often intellectually active in more than one
language”, whereas in contemporary India,
intellectuals (read: writers, thinkers and
activists) tend to operate exclusively only
in one language, English or the “language
of the state”, leading to “a separation of
discourses”. Apart from speculating on the
factors that might have contri­buted to this
“decline of intellectual bilingualism” and
presenting a series of personal opinions and
anecdotes in this vein, Guha does not at-
tempt to say much about the implications
of this decline for the future of intelle­ctual
activity in our country.
The purpose of this comment is not
necessarily to contend with Guha’s inter-
pretation of his own perceptions – and
even less with his anecdotal forays into
reality – but to use this opportunity to
supply facts and evidence that are miss-
ing or misrepresented in Guha’s essay. In
this way, I hope to raise a few relevant
questions about the future.
Bridge Language
“Bilingualism” is defined as the ability to
use two languages with equal or near-
equal fluency. (The ability merely to read
in a second language does not qualify a
person as bilingual.) That having been
said, we can accept that bilingualism
might add to the societal reach of an intel-
lectual; but does it necessarily enhance
the merit of his ideas/works? Hardly. Gan-
dhi and Ambedkar were mass leaders and
continue to be revered not because they
wrote (also) in English, but because their
works, translated into many Indian lan-
guages, stirred the imagination of the
people. More importantly, English was,
for Gandhi, a “bridge” language through
which he communicated with other nation-
alist leaders, especially from south India,
who carried his word to the masses in
their respective languages.
As for Ambedkar, a leader of great con-
temporary significance, the availability of
his works in English, authored by him or
in translation, has served the same purpose
to this day. It would be foolish to argue
that their “bilingualism” was in any way
fundamental to their discourse or to its
ultimate reach and influence. Have “Periyar”
E V Ramasami Naicker and his writings
remained obscure because he spoke and
wrote only in Tamil?
It might conceivably be claimed that
their “bilingualism” brought Gandhi and
Ambedkar the direct attention of our rul-
ers and the international elites in their
time; and later on, of the world. Would
things have been any different if they had
used interpreters and if their works had
been translated into English? Clearly, the
answer must be in the negative.
As for the contemporary bilingual intel-
lectuals mentioned by Guha, it is not clear
what their bilingualism, specifically, has
accomplished. Have they mitigated, in any
significant way, the “separation of dis-
courses” he alludes to? If so, how? Does a
first-rank bhasha intellectual or writer
have any intellectual rationale for indulg-
ing in bilingual writing – for writing (say)
the same essay twice, in two different lan-
guages? Whichever way one looks at it,
from the intellectual’s – and society’s –
vantage, this particular parlour trick does
not appear to be a critical issue. Transla-
tion, a fact of life in the subcontinent for
ages, will likely have a big role to play
under the right conditions, but that does
not appear to be Guha’s focus in this essay.
However, from the article itself – and to
a greater extent, from its tenor of admira-
tion – we are able to infer that bilingualism
seems very important to Guha. How so?
The most direct rationale he offers is that
it enables him to be “a grateful recipient of
knowledge and understanding derived
from languages that I do not myself speak
or read”. If this is really true, Guha should
be equally eager, not to speak of grateful,
to read Indian language intellectuals in
translation. Surely, it is no sign of special
merit in the work of an intellectual that
he is (also) able to hold a conversation
75
discussion
with Guha in the latter’s chosen – and
only – language?
Native Tongue
Let us, therefore, leave Guha aside and
examine what is missing in his thesis.
First, it is natural for a linguistic commu-
nity to conduct its affairs, for the most
part, in its own language, and for its intel-
lectuals, artists and writers to use that
language to think, read and write – in
brief, to express themselves. This is the
reason why Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar
Patel spoke, read and wrote Gujarati; and
Ambedkar, Marathi. They spoke the lan-
guage of their community and constituency;
it was a sign of their engagement and com-
mitment. They learnt English, yes, but
that did not relegate or marginalise their
commitment. Instead, they knew how to
use English to expand their reach and in-
fluence to other linguistic communities in
India. As leaders, who were also intellec-
tuals, they could do no less; and we are all
the better for it. EVR, a Balija Naidu from
Erode who spoke Kannada at home as a
boy, did his political work in Tamil, bring-
ing his brand of social reform to the Tamil
nation. In fact, no writer, intellectual or
leader of any stature in pre-independence
India would have claimed, like Guha has
in this essay, that he knew only English to
the exclusion of his mother tongue. Many
of them – not all – learnt English and other
languages, exploring realms of knowledge
beyond the limits set by their own lan-
guage (all languages, let us remind our-
selves, set such limits); but such education
did not lead them to disengagement with
their own linguistic community.
Further, it remains natural for most
Indians to use their native tongue for the
business of living, which, of course, in-
cludes matters of the intellect and the arts;
it is equally natural for them to reach for a
wider knowledge of the world through other
tongues, while remaining steadfast in their
commitment to their own linguistic commu-
nity, expressed in and through their contri-
butions to that community. There are ex-
ceptions, of course, in the form of a tiny, but
powerful minority, to which we now turn.
Self-confessed Monolingual
Although, Guha alludes to himself as one
who effectively has no other language
76
except English, “the elephant in the room”
in his article is the growing band of mono-
lingual Anglophone Indian intellectuals
and its presumptive centrality in the na-
tional discourse. (That a self-confessed
monolingual can presume to hold forth
about bilinguals is by itself a signifier of
that misplaced centrality.) Increasingly,
our public sphere is occupied by social sci-
entists, administrators, historians, jour-
nalists, TV anchors, technocrats and plain
academics who cannot even hold a con-
versation of ideas in any Indian language.
Such fancies as they do harbour about a
sense of community – including activism
and inquiry – are played out ineluctably in
the metropolitan arena, nearly always
among their own kind. It keeps them busy
enough, I imagine, but they are neverthe-
less subject to two inescapable conse-
quences of their choice: ignorance of and
disengagement from the life-currents of a
larger community.
Language is an instrument of commu-
nity before it is anything else. It is not pos-
sible to engage with a community – with
its past, present or future – without ac-
quiring competence in its language. All
western scholars who are engaged in seri-
ous research in India learn the relevant
language of the community/region they
are studying. Even traders, pawn brokers
and shopkeepers pick up the language of
their customers, for reasons of business.
In contrast, the monolingual Anglophone’s
ignorance and disengagement, combined
with a presumption of superiority, result
in something that closely resembles a co-
lonial mindset, of which Guha himself is
an exemplar in this article.
Untrue Statements
Consider Guha’s inference from the avail-
ability of Tagore’s essays in English, au-
thored by him or in translation: “Tagore
understood that while love and humilia-
tion were best expressed in the mother
tongue, impersonal questions of reason
and justice had to be communicated in a
language read by more people and over a
geographical space greater than Bengal.”
Since Tagore is not quoted as having said
so, with due citation of reference, we must
assume that this is Guha’s own interpreta-
tion of Tagore’s “understanding”. In that
case, this must be the most preposterous
october 10, 2009  vol xliv no 41  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly
rationale for English translation ever to be
dreamed up by a scholar of repute. This
flawed perception also delivers a gratui-
tous insult to the Bangla language and the
great nation of Bengal. One may wonder
what Guha understands of language; or,
indeed, of reason and justice!
Consider this too: “…many – perhaps
most – of the best poets and novelists in
Tamil, Kannada, Oriya, Gujarati, etc, – are
likewise comfortable in one language only.
They may occasionally read a novel or
tract in English, but most of their reading
– and all of their writing – is confined to a
single language, their own...The Hindi
writers I meet are all deeply rooted in their
environment, yet few follow Nirmal Verma
in his curiosity about, or knowledge of, the
wider world.”
The absurdity of this statement is stun-
ning, because it is so demonstrably untrue.
Who might Guha be talking about –
Ashokamitran? Mridula Garg? Mahashweta
Devi? Krishna Sobti? Sitakant Mahapatra?
Satchidanandan? And what makes him
think that the “wider world” is not, and
has never been, accessible through Tamil
or Kannada or Malayalam? Immediately
following his admission of the monolingual
Anglophone Indian’s ignorance (“…know-
ing the world well (sic), without knowing
the locality (sic) much – or at all”), Guha
means to foist, through that likewise, a re-
ciprocal ignorance on those who work in
the Indian languages. The extent of igno-
rance on both sides is, unfortunately for
Guha, not so symmetrical.
Wrong Presumptions
Yes, it is time to set the record straight on
this presumption. No modern intellectual
– artist, thinker, writer or social scientist
– of any stature can hope to function with-
out informing himself of history and of
the contemporary world. To cite just one
instance, Tamil society has, over the past
50 years, spawned and nurtured a new
genre of poetry – pudukkavidai – to meet
the demands of the times we live in,
throwing off the burdensome and anach-
ronistic rigours of the tradition of classical
Tamil poetry which had held sway for
nearly 2,000 years. It can be nobody’s case
that this act of cultural invention and
renewal was accomplished without “a
knowledge of the wider world” or without

a culture of vigorous debate and polemical
arguments. Let us be clear: the great po-
litical, social and cultural transformations
in this country have been, are and will be
wrought by leaders and groups who com-
municate in the language of the people.
Therefore, Guha may rest assured that
most serious intellectuals in the “locali-
ties” are at least as well read as anyone
else. They are, in fact, better read because
they can directly relate what they read to
the ongoing life and history and destiny of
a real community with which they are
genuinely, democratically, engaged. Every
free society forges and deploys its own
epistemic strategy, appropriate to its history,
politics and aspirations for the future. To
privilege the role of the so-called bilingual
intellectual while ignoring – or remaining
largely ignorant of – such strategies seems,
in a way, invidious.
The other presumption, which is a run-
ning theme in Guha’s essay, is the equation
of English with the “cosmopolitan” and
Indian languages with the “parochial”.
This one, too, deserves a quick burial. In
India, those who choose to have English as
their only language are automatically in a
state of disengagement with the world
around them. This disengagement mas-
querades as cosmopolitanism, which term
is understood coarsely as an all-weather
virtue and applauded as such. Cosmopoli-
tanism is, in fact, a virtue only in contexts
which require such approaches and per-
spectives – for instance, collective meas-
ures to address climate change or elimina-
tion of hunger worldwide. Entire societies
cannot aspire to the kind of free-form
“cosmopolitanism” which happens to be
the sole recourse of the monolingual
Anglophone. Nor is natural engagement
with one’s community and its destiny – of
the Gandhi and Ambedkar variety, using
an Indian language – to be condemned
reflexively as parochial.
Separation of Discourses
Finally, we must commend Guha for his
reference to “a separation of discourses,”
even if he does not elaborate on it. It is in-
deed true that the English language dis-
course is separate from discourses in other
Indian languages. It is equally true that in
the public sphere, the former is privileged
over the latter. While the English language
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   october 10, 2009  vol xliv no 41
discussion
discourse is accessed by other linguistic Guha’s article could also be construed
communities as an integral part of their as the recognition of a crisis in the mono-
epistemic strategy, no such osmosis is fea- lingual Anglophone community of intel-
sible or permitted in the English language lectuals in India. The arena of their
discourse. Seldom do we encounter articles engagement seems increasingly limited
or columns translated from Indian lan- to metropolitan life, affairs of the central
guage magazines and newspapers in the government, commerce and industry, the
English language press. This fails to hap- Anglophone diaspora and an endless
pen even if the event in question is the parroting of voices and ideas from the
siege of Lalgarh or Tamil Nadu’s expres- western world. Beyond this, they have
sion of anguish over the lost cause of no means of participating in – or influ-
Eelam or the post-Godhra riots. Nor does encing – contemporary political, cultural
it seem feasible to make the work of Indian and intellectual currents which would
language scholars readily available in be inevitably shaped by the subaltern
English translation. Therefore, the “sepa- classes in the natural course of our quest
ration of discourses” is largely put in place for a more democratic society. The time
and maintained by the community of is perhaps right for this community to
monolingual Anglophone Indian intellec- recast not only their epistemic strategies,
tuals for their own reasons. As someone but also the politics of their praxis in
who seems to want to take a different this country. To hanker for “bilingual”
path, Guha could contribute to the promo- intellectuals may not be the best way
tion of such bi-directional exchanges, in- to begin. Instead, they could focus their
stead of writing this lament for bilingual energies on devising other ways and
intellectuals, based in large measure on means by which to learn more about their
dubious premises. own society.
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