6 ms·

This politician wants to take India back to 1940s by abolishing English and Computers

16 points by ideamonk 18y ago

ideamonk 18y ago
The worst part, he has got his own sons educated in English medium schools. Do politicians try to introduce such retarding ideas in your nation too ?
- saurabh 18y ago
  It's just for creating some controversy to gain eyeballs.
- ckinnan 18y ago
  Ah, Indian Luddites. We fought this battle during our industrial revolution as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite Here's a great parody of these ideas from Bastiat. It is a petition from candle-makers to the government, complaining about the competition from the sun. http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
plinkplonk 18y ago
First, election manifestos in India are largely documents full of whatever the authors think (rarely accurately) will get them a few more votes in an election, or signal various postures to various electoral allies, not something they have the remotest intent of implementing to the letter. If one hundredth of the promises made in the last election's manifestos were implemented, India would be a very different place. Publishing manifestos is an almost empty electoral ritual, beyond the above mentioned mild "signaling" effects. No one holds any party accountable for what their manifestos promise and by the time the next election comes around, everyone has forgotten what the manifesto said (and there will be a new manifesto!). As an example, any party that plans to curry favor with the Muslim populace would include a "resist American imperialism" theme in its manifesto (though my friends who are part of the ground campaign report that many muslims think that Barack Hussein Obama is muslim, so they are feeling friendly to the USA and so the "anti American stance to please muslims" plank is backfiring occasionally!) Second, the Samajwadi Party is largely confined to the "cow belt" of India, which has the least educated populace in India. There is a national election coming up in the next few days and this is just posturing on Mr.Yadav's part to score points with his uneducated/ English unfriendly constituents (or so he thinks. Most people, even the desperately poor, would,given the chance, send their children to English Medium. computer friendly schools). A large chunk of the bureaucracy functions in English (though ever larger chunks have moved to the local language over the years) and this causes English illiterate people some difficulty when they have to interact with the bureaucracy. This is the sentiment Mr Yadav is (faintly) trying to add to his vote bank, without pissing off the english using bureaucrats. And of course, there is always a bunch of hard core language chauvinists who hate every language but their own (This in a country with 20+ official languages and 2000+ dialects) The elections are likely to be very close this year and every bit helps. The smarter folks just ignore this kind of posturing and look at what the candidate/party did in the past(vs what they said). Think of an American politician in a heavily republican evangelical constituency talk about how he'd enforce Christian Prayer in schools and work diligently overturn Roe vs Wade. The American pol would have powerful interest groups watching and publicizing every deviation from their agendsa. In India nothing like that exists.To a much greater degree than in the USA, in India no one really cares about party manifestos anyway except in a very abstract sense. Elections are decided on local/current issues and alliances. Believe you me, any action to make this a ground reality would cause a massive backlash, if not outright rebellion. Indian governments are largely coalitions of disparate parties and there is no way Mr. Yadav will get the votes in parliament to implement this. (he is a very canny politician, he wouldn't even try!) To repeat, It's just posturing. Mr Yadav was recently hauled over the coals by the Election Commission for making vaguely threatening noises about a very honest and incorruptible District Magistrate in charge of overseeing the elections in his constituency and probably just wants a last minute burst of publicity to shift the focus elsewhere. To conclude, Computers aren't going anywhere. Neither is English education. This is all posturing!
- ideamonk 18y ago
  I hope nothing like this ever becomes a reality. What I was worried was that if such people, popularize these ideas into the poor majority in India, then winning by numbers is not difficult for them. When we look at the reservation of seats issue (http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12spec1.htm http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12spec1.htm), such people when in power were actually able to create policies that would harm over-all development. I wish the well-educated minority here doesn't sit back at home and we all say it our aloud that we can't tolerate such people, by going to vote! Thanks, it was a pretty nice and optimistic read :)
  - plinkplonk 18y ago
    "When we look at the reservation of seats issue " reservation (kinda sorta affirmative action based solely on caste for any non Indian readers )uses an "economic progress" bait to line people up behind it. Whether the purported benefits actually manifest, one can debate about. Removing English Education and computers has economics working against it. Your kids won't be taught English or computers because we... errr ... want them to remain peasants forever? Besides , this move if ever attempted (it won't be . No one will be able to get it through parliament) pisses off the teachers, the urban population, students, the business folks, the bureaucrats, illiterate/poor people who want their kids to get the best education ... just about anyone who is not some kind of local language fanatic. There aren't enough of the latter around (except in small pockets) to change the last few decades of history and economics in India (though the few who do exist are very voluble). At best they are able to shift the primary language of education in middle/high school to the local language alongside English (and there is a good case to be made for that). There's simply no way this can be done at the undergrad level and above. The logistical comlexity of textbooks preparation for a few hundred branches of science, engineering etc (for e.g) would kill any initiative like this. but it won't get this far. As I said above no one will get it through parliament. As I said, just posturing :-) [ Ok I am sick of discussing politics here. Iam not sure this is an appropriate forum for this. I am signing off from this thread. ]
    - jonas_b 18y ago
ideamonk 18y ago
IIT Foundation did respond to Arjun Singh's decision on quota - http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=83 http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=83 could we also have such activities for these kind of situations.
- plinkplonk 18y ago
  "could we also have such activities for these kind of situations." the reccomended "activity" for "these kind of situations" involves going to your polling station and voting ;-)
z3r0p4r4d0x 18y ago
No wonder we're experiencing a brain drain, and the articles about US Immigrations usually feature a smart Indian trying to live his dream.
kesava 18y ago
I am sure the manifesto was made on a word processing software.
- paraschopra 18y ago
  and they would have a copy of it in English too!
FraaJad 18y ago
it is sad that the same land which gave us one of the ancient world's greatest universities -- Nalanda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_University produces these dingbats. That said, plinkplonk's analysis of the situation is very accurate.
alexk 18y ago
Hi All, Please don't get me wrong, but I don't get what hackers interest HN user can get from this article. I am from Russia and there's enough crazy politicians in my country as well, but I don't feel like it's the right place to post their ideas here. Flagged this article.
- ideamonk 18y ago
  Well some issues related to politics, etc also affect hackers, and future hackers. For example, the education system in some places lacks vision, making hackers feel restricted, like I do, overburdened with unrelated subjects of high credits under a CS degree. Otherwise I could've learnt things I wanted to, started projects that I wished to do, and C# app dev for a project we are doing wouldn't have taken 3 months, if we didn't have tests every other week and loads of assignments to do. I could have had time to experiment, learn and create so many things then. I think such decisions and efforts to do such illogical things as abolishing use of computer and english would create more and more problems for those who wish to learn and make lives more comfortable by use technology. I thought such things do matter a little bit and even this one.

16 points by ideamonk 18y ago

The worst part, he has got his own sons educated in English medium schools. Do politicians try to introduce such retarding ideas in your nation too ?

saurabh 18y ago
It's just for creating some controversy to gain eyeballs.
ckinnan 18y ago
Ah, Indian Luddites. We fought this battle during our industrial revolution as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite Here's a great parody of these ideas from Bastiat. It is a petition from candle-makers to the government, complaining about the competition from the sun. http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html

plinkplonk 18y ago

First, election manifestos in India are largely documents full of whatever the authors think (rarely accurately) will get them a few more votes in an election, or signal various postures to various electoral allies, not something they have the remotest intent of implementing to the letter. If one hundredth of the promises made in the last election's manifestos were implemented, India would be a very different place. Publishing manifestos is an almost empty electoral ritual, beyond the above mentioned mild "signaling" effects. No one holds any party accountable for what their manifestos promise and by the time the next election comes around, everyone has forgotten what the manifesto said (and there will be a new manifesto!). As an example, any party that plans to curry favor with the Muslim populace would include a "resist American imperialism" theme in its manifesto (though my friends who are part of the ground campaign report that many muslims think that Barack Hussein Obama is muslim, so they are feeling friendly to the USA and so the "anti American stance to please muslims" plank is backfiring occasionally!) Second, the Samajwadi Party is largely confined to the "cow belt" of India, which has the least educated populace in India. There is a national election coming up in the next few days and this is just posturing on Mr.Yadav's part to score points with his uneducated/ English unfriendly constituents (or so he thinks. Most people, even the desperately poor, would,given the chance, send their children to English Medium. computer friendly schools). A large chunk of the bureaucracy functions in English (though ever larger chunks have moved to the local language over the years) and this causes English illiterate people some difficulty when they have to interact with the bureaucracy. This is the sentiment Mr Yadav is (faintly) trying to add to his vote bank, without pissing off the english using bureaucrats. And of course, there is always a bunch of hard core language chauvinists who hate every language but their own (This in a country with 20+ official languages and 2000+ dialects) The elections are likely to be very close this year and every bit helps. The smarter folks just ignore this kind of posturing and look at what the candidate/party did in the past(vs what they said). Think of an American politician in a heavily republican evangelical constituency talk about how he'd enforce Christian Prayer in schools and work diligently overturn Roe vs Wade. The American pol would have powerful interest groups watching and publicizing every deviation from their agendsa. In India nothing like that exists.To a much greater degree than in the USA, in India no one really cares about party manifestos anyway except in a very abstract sense. Elections are decided on local/current issues and alliances. Believe you me, any action to make this a ground reality would cause a massive backlash, if not outright rebellion. Indian governments are largely coalitions of disparate parties and there is no way Mr. Yadav will get the votes in parliament to implement this. (he is a very canny politician, he wouldn't even try!) To repeat, It's just posturing. Mr Yadav was recently hauled over the coals by the Election Commission for making vaguely threatening noises about a very honest and incorruptible District Magistrate in charge of overseeing the elections in his constituency and probably just wants a last minute burst of publicity to shift the focus elsewhere. To conclude, Computers aren't going anywhere. Neither is English education. This is all posturing!

ideamonk 18y ago
I hope nothing like this ever becomes a reality. What I was worried was that if such people, popularize these ideas into the poor majority in India, then winning by numbers is not difficult for them. When we look at the reservation of seats issue (http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12spec1.htm http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12spec1.htm), such people when in power were actually able to create policies that would harm over-all development. I wish the well-educated minority here doesn't sit back at home and we all say it our aloud that we can't tolerate such people, by going to vote! Thanks, it was a pretty nice and optimistic read :)
- plinkplonk 18y ago
  "When we look at the reservation of seats issue " reservation (kinda sorta affirmative action based solely on caste for any non Indian readers )uses an "economic progress" bait to line people up behind it. Whether the purported benefits actually manifest, one can debate about. Removing English Education and computers has economics working against it. Your kids won't be taught English or computers because we... errr ... want them to remain peasants forever? Besides , this move if ever attempted (it won't be . No one will be able to get it through parliament) pisses off the teachers, the urban population, students, the business folks, the bureaucrats, illiterate/poor people who want their kids to get the best education ... just about anyone who is not some kind of local language fanatic. There aren't enough of the latter around (except in small pockets) to change the last few decades of history and economics in India (though the few who do exist are very voluble). At best they are able to shift the primary language of education in middle/high school to the local language alongside English (and there is a good case to be made for that). There's simply no way this can be done at the undergrad level and above. The logistical comlexity of textbooks preparation for a few hundred branches of science, engineering etc (for e.g) would kill any initiative like this. but it won't get this far. As I said above no one will get it through parliament. As I said, just posturing :-) [ Ok I am sick of discussing politics here. Iam not sure this is an appropriate forum for this. I am signing off from this thread. ]
  - jonas_b 18y ago

ideamonk 18y ago

IIT Foundation did respond to Arjun Singh's decision on quota - http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=83 http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=83 could we also have such activities for these kind of situations.

plinkplonk 18y ago
"could we also have such activities for these kind of situations." the reccomended "activity" for "these kind of situations" involves going to your polling station and voting ;-)

z3r0p4r4d0x 18y ago

No wonder we're experiencing a brain drain, and the articles about US Immigrations usually feature a smart Indian trying to live his dream.

kesava 18y ago

I am sure the manifesto was made on a word processing software.

paraschopra 18y ago
and they would have a copy of it in English too!

FraaJad 18y ago

it is sad that the same land which gave us one of the ancient world's greatest universities -- Nalanda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_University produces these dingbats. That said, plinkplonk's analysis of the situation is very accurate.

alexk 18y ago

Hi All, Please don't get me wrong, but I don't get what hackers interest HN user can get from this article. I am from Russia and there's enough crazy politicians in my country as well, but I don't feel like it's the right place to post their ideas here. Flagged this article.

ideamonk 18y ago
Well some issues related to politics, etc also affect hackers, and future hackers. For example, the education system in some places lacks vision, making hackers feel restricted, like I do, overburdened with unrelated subjects of high credits under a CS degree. Otherwise I could've learnt things I wanted to, started projects that I wished to do, and C# app dev for a project we are doing wouldn't have taken 3 months, if we didn't have tests every other week and loads of assignments to do. I could have had time to experiment, learn and create so many things then. I think such decisions and efforts to do such illogical things as abolishing use of computer and english would create more and more problems for those who wish to learn and make lives more comfortable by use technology. I thought such things do matter a little bit and even this one.