Language, education, and empowerment: Voices of Kumauni young women in multilingual India

Abstract

Local and minority means of producing, knowing, and communicating are often undervalued in the face of modern development schemes, universal systems of education, and languages of wider communication. Through this research, I attempt to understand a local situation from local perspectives – specifically the language and education situation in the Kumaun region of North India from the perspectives of rural Kumauni young women and in light of their views on empowerment and their aims for the future. My questions address language and education issues in the Kumaun (1) in relation to national policies and local ideologies, (2) as experienced and negotiated by young women, and (3) as applied in a unique Gandhian educational context. The Kumauni people of the Himalayan foothills, numbering over two million, are one of several linguistic minority groups in the Hindi-speaking state of Uttarakhand. My research was based at Lakshmi Ashram, a Gandhian boarding school serving disadvantaged girls from throughout the Kumaun. I used ethnographic methods during nine months of primary fieldwork, observing interactions around language and education, starting conversations on these themes, and conducting interviews, focusing on a group of Kumauni young women. National-level language planning through the Indian Census, Constitution, and educational policies minimize some diversity. Locally, discourses about language and dialect, or bhasha and boli, and mother tongue allow for flexible categories and identities. Medium of instruction also takes new meaning through informal multilingual classroom practices. Each language – English, Hindi, Kumauni, and Sanskrit – is valued in its place or environment and in relationship with the other languages. Meanwhile educational opportunities vary in quality and reputation, including a push for English education and influenced, sometimes unexpectedly, by government policies. While constrained by social and economic realities, Kumauni young women look for ways to improve their lives. Alternative values advocated at the Ashram, and negotiated by the young women, point to empowerment as involving high thinking, self-confidence, and progress within community. I conclude using the ecology of language and continua of biliteracy to highlight significant themes and exploring the issues of collaboration and empowerment, community and ecology in relation to language and education.

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