The class and caste capital behind ‘correct’ English: A Dalit scholar writes

“It's leviOsa, not levioSA!” It was cute and logical when Hermione corrected Ron’s pronunciation of the magic spell in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was cute because of Emma Watson. It was logical because those words have magical effects, and mispronunciation will render the spell ineffective. But it’s not the same with the Muggles and their vocabulary. 

In a video that recently went viral, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is seen bullying a participant who posed a question to her during a lecture at JNU. The video of the participant, who identified as a professor and founder of the Centre for Brahmin Studies, being ridiculed for mispronouncing ‘DuBois’ is disgusting and infuriating to watch. As someone humiliated for my English during my school days, I couldn’t help but relive the humiliation while watching the video.   

I want to let out the troubles I have encountered. I am writing this to share, from my Dalit experience, what bullying one’s English could do to our very existence. 

It’s ‘Do Boys’ not ‘Do Bwah’ 

In the video, Spivak said, “Will you please learn his name? If you're going to talk about the man who is perhaps the best historian-sociologist of the last century and this is supposed to be an elite university, then please take the trouble to learn how to pronounce his name.” 

She continued policing the participant’s pronunciation and successfully avoided the question about her privilege. The crowd at the lecture, enjoying her bullying, were not even ashamed of their schadenfreude. (‘Schadenfreude’ means ‘malicious enjoyment of the misfortune of others’, and I am not sure how to pronounce it correctly. Forgive me, Spivak!) 

I had a similar experience during my school days. I studied in a Jain school in Chennai. There were only a few Tamil students and even fewer Dalits in the school. And I was the only Dalit in my class. When I was in class 8, a Brahmin English teacher humiliated me for mispronouncing ‘fashion’. 

The entire class laughed at me. Even now, I do not know how to express the emotions I went through at the time. I felt crushed. I had not thought that this incident would severely affect my psyche, but I am yet to recover from it completely. Thinking of it still triggers me. 

Identity reduced to grammar

The school incident exacerbated my fear of the English language. It reduced me to my mispronunciations and grammatical errors. It made me feel worthless. It reminded me that no matter how hard I tried, I could not converse in English smoothly and fluently like the other Dvija kids. 

Since that incident, I have mostly avoided conversing in English with others. If the situation was unavoidable (like mandatory presentations), I would spend hours rehearsing to avoid embarrassment and humiliation. Even after a casual conversation with others, I would be worrying for hours about having used the wrong prepositions. 

From writing emails and research papers to messaging in a WhatsApp group and posting on social media, I would worry about making grammatical mistakes. I would run the content several times through Grammarly. It was a painful process as I identified myself with my grammatical errors. 

Burden of ‘correct’ English 

Coming from a Dalit background, which forces me to prove my ‘merit’ constantly, I am tired of this English burden. It discouraged me from applying to universities abroad, as I was sure that I could not crack TOEFL or IELTS. It prevented me from having a social life, let alone a happy one. In short, it impacted me in every aspect of my life. 

At the same time, English is a language that is dear to me. It’s more democratic than the Indian languages, which are filled with casteist slurs. It has an emancipatory potential that the Indian languages lack. I hope my fellow marginalised students can understand this contradictory relationship with English. 

To those coming at me with the ‘English is just a language, not a sign of intelligence’ type of advice — please stop. The problem I’m talking about is not an individual one that ‘selfcare’ quotes can solve. It is about the role of language practice in reinforcing hierarchical structures. 

When English is a symbol of caste and class capital in India, the ritual involved in correcting one’s grammar and pronunciation is not merely innocent. It is a strategic device to remind the marginalised of their social position so that they dare not breach the boundaries. It silences and makes them feel unworthy of questioning the privileged so that the status quo is maintained. That’s what Spivak has done by policing the pronunciation. She successfully dodged the question about her privilege. 

It’s high time that the Dvijas in the academia realise the violence they commit against marginalised students. There is nothing to feel proud about your unearned cultural capital. The ego boost you get by correcting one’s pronunciation and grammar is not only dehumanising and disgusting, but it also reinforces hierarchy. Stop doing it. 

You don’t have to be Albus Dumbledore. But at least stop being Dolores Umbridge.

Views expressed are the author’s own.

Bhimraj is pursuing MPhil in Law at the University of Oxford. He is a Zaiwalla Scholar at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, Somerville College.