No Computers,नो इंग्लिश

Last week Samajwadi Party(SP) had come out with their manifesto for Election '09,in which they had stated that if SP came into power then they would reduce the usage of Computers at workplace and curb the compulsory usage of इंग्लिश language in administration,judicial places and in schools and would rather promote national and regional languages.

My first reaction,just like any of you,when i heard this news was a mixture of WTF with a wide grin on my face.I thought,here we go back to 1960's,how can these people even think of such a thing in today's time and age? How can anyone come out with such regressive plans for people of India?With passing of time,English media bombarded questions on them asking about the same,me and most of my friends too thought they had gone crazy coming out with such an idea.And now a week later sitting in my bed,suddenly a thought stuck me.

So let me present another side of this story which i think none of us ever care to think of.I'm not defending anybody over here,but just merely trying to bring in a different perspective.

First of all let's get one thing figured out that SP is a regional party contesting elections in UP and maybe some states around UP.Now do we really think that there is a wide-spread usage of computers in villages of UP or for that matter in UP itself? Do the people over there converse in English? Does anyone even know how to read and write English?Sometime i have found myself and even some of my friends saying "Look at France,Germany,Japan,China they haven't given up on their national language,they force others to speak in their own native language and NOT in English" , BUT when it comes to our own country,we totally detest the idea of anyone speaking in Hindi or any regional language(Alright,i may not be in favor of totally regionalizing languages but Hindi will do) .

From what i gather there is widespread poverty and unemployment in UP, so does a state like that really need computerization? Yes, computers can do the work of several individuals but why would anyone in his right mind favor that in villages or small towns?Heck, Who would want to reduce the number of jobs? Why would any political party promote that?Why do we think that getting proper English education will be to utmost importance to the dalits of UP?

I would not be saying the same things if these were opinions or manifesto of a national party.But in this case I think WE,the metropolitan population,the bloggers,the Facebook/Orkut users,should really stop believing the that we make up the whole of India,when in reality ,we are not even 5% of the whole population of India.In fact we all are so disconnected from the rest of India,that not even in our dreams we can realize the state of affairs in rest of the India and especially the rural states unless we go and visit them ourselves.

Well,in the end,I guess all I want is for people to start viewing things such as these with a different perspective and not just confine the whole of India within our own small realm of Internet.