Today I visited the
local fish market and was surprised to hear fisherwoman bargaining in English
using words like “fresh”, “expensive” and “twelve hundred.” Yet, nearly a month
ago, I saw several participants getting punished for using English phrases during
day-to-day conversations in India’s premier reality show, Big Boss. Why is this
anti-English idea being mooted on popular television shows when most of the
world has adopted the language as their own and the world has gone truly
global? Are TV show producers steadily succumbing to the paranoia of the
medieval mindsets.
And, by the way, what
is a medieval mindset? In the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire
from the 5th century right up to the sixteenth century religion
ruled the roost. All the major religions of the world came into prominence
during this period but culture declined. The followers of these modern
religions were just as brutal and barbaric as their pagan counterparts. The
Christian armies burnt and even ate the corpses of their foes during the
crusades at the start of the previous millennium.
The Renaissance in
the 15th and 16th century came as a breath of fresh air
to the sea of unenlightened humanity who just could not look out of the box
they had so ‘religiously’ prepared and entrapped themselves in. But the
medieval mindset continued on and has survived even up to this day of tablets, Smartphones,
iPods and YouTube videos.
Unfortunately,
fascists as in Egypt and possibly in India as well, the chief proponents of
this medieval mindset, are being elected to power all over the world. We can
ignore this threat to our own peril. People accept them as a means of change from
all that is not right with their present systems, but they could be in for a
rude shock when the change does happen!
