Resisting English: Excavating English Ideologies of Young Boys through Chutkule at an Indian Orphanage

Abstract

The prevailing scholarship on Indians’ beliefs about English has, with few exceptions, largely failed to capture ideological resistance. Given the supremacy of English within the hierarchically ordered and unequal linguistic landscape in India, this study intervenes within this limited area of research. This investigation excavates ideologies of resistance to English through chutkule, a humorous folk genre, narrated by young boys at an anathashram (orphanage) in suburban New Delhi. The theoretical lens of language ideology is employed to unpack latent issues of resistance and erasure within the chutkule, and emergent ideological tensions are interpreted in the context of educational equity. In addition to locating beliefs about language in a previously unresearched genre, this study adds to the limited scholarship on Indians’ ideological resistance to English. Further, because these notions are mined through the boys’ chutkule at the anathashram, this investigation illuminates previously neglected discourses from India’s socioeconomic margins.

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