It’s 7:30 in the morning. Kamla Nehru Road, barely two km from Allahabad University, is buzzing: the honking of bikes, the ceaseless tring-tring of bicycle bells and chants of “Ram Siya Ram” from a nearby Hanuman temple blend to create a distinctive hubbub. SBJ American Institute of Foreign Language, an English coaching institute on Kamla Nehru Road, is the epicentre of the action. This writer walks in, to find some 150 students seated in rows in a packed classroom, awaiting their teacher. Suchit Sharma walks in at 8. The din dies down, students take out their registers and Sharma gets ready to teach a new grammar lesson on quantifiers. “There’s little beer left in the bottle, and I’ve put a little sugar into your tea,” reads the 39-year-old from his grammar book. What’s the difference between ‘a little’ and ‘little’, he asks. There’s no response. “Kya meri aawaaz peechey tak jaa rahi hai [Am I audible to the backbenchers],” he screams. “Yes, sir,” comes the reply. Sharma goes on to explain the difference: A little and little are uncountable nouns and are used with the singular form. While a little conveys a positive meaning, little has negative connotations. “They always had a mother [Hindi, the mother tongue]. Now they are finding their father [English], which will give them a professional identity,” Sharma tells this writer once the class ends. He’s got nine more lined up for the day. The students are eager to master the alien language to succeed in life, he explains. Just a kilometre from SBJ American Institute of Foreign Language is Unicorn Career Institute, another coaching centre for English, which is also teeming with students. Anu Singh Shekhawat is trying her best to remove the phobia of English from the students. The 30-year old, who is teaching adjectives, asks her students to correct the sentence: ‘Sita is more intelligent and wise than Mira’. Vishesh Anand spots the error. “Sita is more intelligent and wiser than Mira,” he says. Anand, who completed his education from a Hindi medium school and college, explains why wiser should be used: When two or more adjectives are used to show the qualities of the same person or thing, all the adjectives should be in the same degree. “It’s the survival of the fittest and we can only survive if we can master the language [English],” says the 23-year old who has been taking English classes for the past one year. An Inspiration from things Foreign These days Allahabad, often known as the literary capital of Uttar Pradesh and for doyens of Hindi literature from Mahadevi Varma to Harivansh Rai Bachchan, is perhaps looking to Rudyard Kipling for inspiration. The works of the English author, who was an assistant editor and overseas correspondent for The Pioneer (an English-language newspaper of the city) in the early 1900s, may well be reading material for many students in the English coaching institutes mushrooming in Allahabad. In end-2014, an education department survey indicated that students were leaving primary school in droves to join English medium ones. This prompted the move to make English a medium of teaching in at least two primary schools of each district in Uttar Pradesh. This also involved translation of books of various subjects from Hindi to English. For those who have finished schooling, however, the English coaching institutes are the best bet. “They [students] have stopped living in denial,” Shekhawat contends. “Instead of running away from learning English or living in the hope that Hindi would open the floodgates of opportunities for them, they have started embracing the ‘foreign’ language.” This is what Satyam Pandey did when he realised that his career was not taking off. Pandey, a BTech from Allahabad University, failed to clear any competitive examination due to his poor English. “I was always a topper in college,” claims Pandey. “But I never thought that English would shape my career,” he says. A Crash Course to Success A visit to Civil Lines, a hub of coaching institutes for all kinds of competitive examinations, shows how the area has been attracting students. Apart from the banner advertisements by international fast food giants such as McDonald’s and KFC enticing students to try their new menu, the area around the University is replete with posters of institutes offering English courses. In fact, some make the claim that students will be able to speak fluent English in just three months! And there are many takers. Gaurav Yadav is one of them. Born in the small town of Etah in Uttar Pradesh, the 20-year old completed his education from Lucknow and came to Allahabad eight months ago to learn English. “I was rejected for a salesman job by a telecom company in Noida because I couldn’t speak English,” he says. Aggrieved, Yadav decided to master the language and enrolled in a language course over eight months back. So is he hopeful of grabbing a job after the course? “Bilkul [Absolutely],” he says. While Yadav’s aspirations might be confined to getting a job, Madhu Singh is aiming higher. The 20-year old, who enrolled in TCM Institute in Civil Lines for English classes, wants to crack CAT (Common Admission Test) so that she can get admission into one of the top MBA colleges in India. “Aspirations of people from small towns and cities are changing,” she says. “And English can help us in achieving our dream.” Agrees Ajai Singh, the managing director of TCM. “The Hindi heartland is warming up to English in a big way,” says Singh, who did his BTech from Allahabad University and started a coaching institute a couple of years back. “English connects people across the country irrespective of linguistic barriers,” he says, adding that the myopic educational policy of the government of the state over the last few decades has resulted in millions of unemployable, unskilled graduates. Singh feels sorry for students coming from government schools as their tryst with English starts when they reach Class VI. “By that time the damage has been done as you don’t know the fundamentals of the language,” he contends. He supports his claim by pointing out at a recent order of the Allahabad High Court. Last month, the court took serious note of the deplorable poor condition of primary schools in Uttar Pradesh, and directed the chief secretary to ensure that the children of government employees and people’s representatives are sent to primary schools run by the government. Singh, however, look at the brighter side. He says that students are increasingly enrolling themselves in language courses. Professor RK Singh, the head of English department at Allahabad University, would vouch for the trend. “There has been a resurgence of English,” says Singh, who maintains that even during the peak of the “Angrezi Hatao” movement in the state during early ’80s, the enrolment of students never dropped below a respectable level. “The hinterland always had a desire to master the language. And now it’s getting manifested,” he contends. But what about the school of thought that claims that Indian youth and culture are increasingly getting Westernised, and English is a means to such “pollution”? Singh doesn’t feel so. “Learning a language is not Westernisation,” he says. The problem, he explains, arises when people fall into the trappings of Westernisation by embracing their fashion and lifestyle and getting away from their own tradition and culture. Not everybody thinks that way. Just a few metres from Singh’s chamber, a group of students is canvassing for the upcoming students’ union polls on September 30. While removal of English from the campus is not one of their electoral planks, they exhibit their mindset by opposing English. “Angrez chale gayein, angrezi chodh gayein [Britishers quit India but left the English behind],” rues Abhishek Yadav, a 19-year old contesting for the post of cultural minister in the college. “Our mother tongue is gradually being consigned to history,” he laments, adding that talking in English has become a status symbol and people feel ashamed to talk in Hindi. But what are the prospects of getting a job if one doesn’t know English? “That’s not our headache,” he says, adding that “ye government ko sochna chahiye [the government should think about this].” Alok Singh, his friend helping him in campaigning, joins in. “Modiji bhi angrezi main bolne lag gaye hain [Even Modi has started speaking in English],” he says. “It’s quite unfortunate.” Contrary to Singh’s fears, the prime minister is in no hurry to make the switch. Early this month, Modi while inaugurating the 10th World Hindi Conference in Bhopal reportedly said that “If we forget Hindi, it will be a loss to the country.” He added that “we must continuously strive to bring prosperity to our language”. Professor Mustaq Ali, head of the Hindi department at Allahabad University, feels lip service would be of no help. The condition of Hindi-medium schools across the cow belt is deplorable, he shrugs; neither are there quality teachers nor good infrastructure. “The NDA government has a majority in the Lok Sabha. Why don’t they make Hindi the national language,” wonders Ali (Hindi is an “official language, according to the Constitution, along with 22 other Indian languages. But there is a demand to include English in the VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution). Unless steps are taken to improve the standards of teaching and open job avenues for those pursuing Hindi the future of those pursuing t h is language would be bleak. The city symbolises the deep churn that’s underway in the Hindi heartland across the North India. As thousands of young students take tentative steps towards learning English which they believe would open new job avenues and better life prospects, there are others who feel threatened by the rising dominance of the alien language.