English should be removed as official language, says social reformer Manu Kumar Raje Urs

Bengaluru: Social reformer Manu Kumar Raje Urs has urged the government to remove English from the status of official language and to conduct central and State level government exams in Indian languages.

He said, "21% of the population in the country is below poverty line (BPL), 25% are illiterate, 86% literates are non-graduates. 80% of the students in schools who are socially and economically backward are studying in non-English medium government schools with no infrastructure, poor teacher-pupil ratio under unqualified and untrained teachers.

How using English will make their life better? What will this strata of the population achieve with English medium education or English as the official language? India is a democratic country and when the majority of the population has nothing to do with English, then I do not understand the reason behind the imposition of this language upon large poor masses by making it official and compulsory in education & government job exams?"

Urs opined," It is only the Indian elite who want English as they want to exclude the socially and economically backward mass from achieving high social and economic status and getting high profile jobs both in government and private sectors."

Delving further into the issue, he explained that those who feel they need English in their life can learn it from English speaking courses/classes at any private institutions.

"The government can have English as a third language non-compulsory and qualifying paper in schools & colleges by not considering the score of that paper into merit or graduation. The required proficiency in English of government servants shall be trained during their probationary period and not testing or making it compulsory in government job exams," he tells The Hans India.

Urs substantiates his reasoning stating that in the last 20 years across the world English has witnessed a dip as a language on the internet.

"English has dropped from 82% to 25%. In India 50% internet users are non-English which is expected to increase to 80% by 2021. This trend shows that there is nothing like English fever or mania," he added.­