Storm over English in West Bengal-A Comment

Storm over English in West Bengal A Comment Jasodhara Bagchi BHABATOSH DATTA's thoughtful article on the language controversy in West Bengal (EPW, April 4) has cleared a number of cobwebs and raised certain important points which are worth emphasising and remembering whenever a society gets embroiled in such controversies. The most important of these is the grave warning Bhabatosh Datta sounds against wanton experimentation with the education of children. Children .should not just be treated as pawns in the game of adults. Since Independence they have often been handled as shuttlecocks, so that thirty-four years after Independence, education in the country has generated a noxious combination of cynicism and competitiveness among the adolescents going up for higher education.