For the love of the language

Balachandran Chullikkad’s plea to withdraw his works from school and college curricula raises several questions about the standards of pedagogy in Kerala

April 19, 2018 01:34 pm | Updated 01:34 pm IST - Thiruvananthapuram

 Balachandran Chullikkad

Balachandran Chullikkad

Celebrated poet Balachandran Chullikkad recently made a fervent plea to the authorities in Kerala. He eloquently appealed to syllabus committees and authorities of various universities in Kerala and school education boards to withdraw his poems from school and college curricula. Sharply criticising the education system, he gave his reasons for the plea: “I don’t want to be party to the insult inflicted on Malayalam.”

Riddled with errors

He added that Malayalam pedagogy and incorrect use of the language, riddled with grammatical and spelling mistakes, even by post-graduate students and researchers had been bothering him and many academics for years together. He added that the present education system had failed the basics of language. Flawed use of the language with wrongly written words and ungrammatical constructions have been rampant and wrong spellings change the entire meaning of the word, he said.

Balachandran admits that he had allowed several universities to use his poems in their books earlier, hoping that someone interested in poetry might be benefited but his hopes were in vain. His announcement is only a reflection of the sentiments of all language-loving writers, scholars and the public. Several leading writers, including M.T. Vasudevan Nair, have supported him.

“My poetry, written for kindred souls, should not be misused for academic purposes… Anyone with a love for poetry would seek out my poems if he or she wishes,” Balachandran reasoned in appealing against the use of language with wrong spellings and usage. It is also noteworthy that inclusion of poems and stories in text books for schools and colleges fetches substantial royalty to the writers and to give up that requires courage of conviction.

Balachandran is not only a gifted poet but also a lyricist, screenplay writer, music composer, playback singer and film and television actor. Born in a traditional Hindu family, he left his family and took to Buddhism as a religion, heavily coming down on the shackles of Hindu religion.

Endowed with a powerful voice, he is often invited to recite his poems in literary and academic circles. It was during one such recitation session that he came down on the state of education in Kerala. He received a note from a post-graduate university student and in that note even elementary words were wrongly written and this infuriated him. There was also an inane questionnaire from a teacher as part of a research project on his poems. Both provoked the temperamental poet. It was untenable to seek any legal recourse to stop teaching one’s works in the wrong way and hence he made “the humblest appeal”.

He justified his entreaty, as during the half decade of his writing career, he has not accepted any honour or award from anyone for his poetry. Uninformed teaching and shoddy system of evaluation, overlooking bad writing, ungrammatical usage and misguided conceptualisation had wreaked havoc with language teaching. This came about as a result of appointment of inefficient people as teachers by means of political influence, nepotism and caste and religious considerations. These teachers serve the corporate agenda of denuding the language of its latent strength, logic and thoughts. Successive governments in the State have been competing with each other to raise the percentage of passing students with liberal valuation to ensure nearly 100 per cent success in the SSLC examination.

It is a pity that the present generation of teachers find nothing wrong in wrong spellings and usage of language, but will penalise the student if mistakes are found in English! Also, social media contribute to the decline in the language. The Malayalam alphabet has 52 letters and that, some say, makes it a difficult language to study.

Question of answers

Balachandran’s request raises many moral and ethical questions. Once penned, can a literary work or art be excluded from studies and research? Investment on education in the past has paid rich dividends in the social and economic sectors, providing substantial employment and income from overseas but the damage done to the language remains irreparable as overhauling the system may not be feasible and practical.

Falling education standards are concerns in any evolving society and unless more investment and concerted efforts are made to save the language and its literature, conscientious writers would raise their voice in revolt to save their works from being distorted. The moot question is whether such appeals would result in improving educational standards in the most literate State?

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