The Accent Olympics: India’s favourite hobby is judging English

The day Sheila spoke to her friend in the American accent she had picked up from television, she decided she should never try that again in India.

She was only 10 and, gifted with an ever-wandering mind, could seldom pay attention in class. But she seemed to have no such trouble when she tuned deeply into her after-school television. The accent – a mix of Indian and American English – was natural for her, given that English was a foreign language she picked up from wherever she heard it most – in this case, less from her Indian teachers and more from American shows.

She was not trying to be ‘cool’, just real. Only, Sheila realised it sounded fake, coming from an Indian who had lived nowhere else all her life, when her friend asked if she was mimicking the new kid in class who had just moved back from the US. After that, Sheila forced herself to sound neutral whenever she spoke, ending up tongue-tied and unable to articulate even the simplest thoughts.

An accent in English – whatever form it takes – is often still judged almost obsessively in India. You are never speaking the right English in the eyes of these unsolicited critics. If you have the influence of your regional language, they tell you your English is bad. And if you have a foreign accent, they tell you it is fake.

Funnily enough, this yardstick is used almost exclusively for English. For any other language, you will be praised for how closely you sound like a native. A Malayali who can speak Tamil like a Tamilian, a Kannadiga who can speak fluent Bengali, or an Indian flaunting French are all put on a pedestal. But English, spoken like someone from an English-speaking country, is ‘wrong’. English, spoken like a native, is apparently even more wrong.

Everyone’s an accent judge

A couple of months ago, journalist Stanly Johny shared his experience of moderating a session in Chennai, after which someone ‘advised’ him to take care of his ‘heavy Mallu accent’. Stanley asked the man about the English accents of the Germans on the panel, who agreed they spoke English like Germans, not like the English.

“I am an Indian, who was born, raised and schooled in Kerala, and I speak English, a foreign language which I learned while growing up, like an Indian and a Malayalee. That’s absolutely fine,” Stanley said in a post.

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Another journalist, Azeefa Fathima, posted on Instagram about how it becomes unappealing if someone has an Indian language influence on their English, but is considered ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ when it is a foreign accent. She points to perhaps the most obvious reason for this strange obsession Indians have with the English language – our colonial past.

Nearly eight decades after independence, many of us, it would seem, are still unable to free ourselves of the long-lasting aftereffects of British rule. Even those who mock people with an American or British accent give undue importance to how English is spoken – otherwise, why would it matter so much?

We don’t hear anyone being mocked for speaking French like a Frenchman or Chinese like the Chinese.

Sukhi, a speaking and communication coach for global English speakers, recently reacted to a comment that said: “You’re literally the very first Indian I hear talking English without ‘the’ Indian accent.”

Sukhi brushed away the assumption that because he looked a certain way, he should have a certain accent.

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“There isn’t just one Indian sounding or looking accent,” he said.

In fact, Indian English itself can come out in many different ways depending on which part of the country you are from and what your mother tongue is. Taking the accent critique further, people belonging to one part of the country often mock the accent of another part – Tamil-influenced English versus Hindi-influenced English, for example.

Interestingly, English is an official language in a few states and remains the language used in courts across the country.

As Sukhi explains, “English doesn’t belong to a group of people; it is truly global. And the idea that you need to sound native or look a particular way to be taken seriously is an inherited idea, and it’s outdated.”

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Inheriting the anxiety

What makes the accent debate particularly revealing is that it is no longer only about language. It is also about aspiration, class and mobility.

This is hardly a new discussion. It is one that has always been there, despite the awareness and sensitivity newer generations often show towards other forms of bias.

In the 2015 film English Vinglish, Sridevi beautifully portrayed the exact predicament faced by many Indians lacking confidence in the English language. That she could pick up the basics of the language after a few weeks’ training is no exaggeration; it only shows that this is no rocket science that someone in the know should feel superior for.

At one point, short-term spoken English classes became the rage in India, and celebrities who had once seemed uncomfortable with the language turned into fluent speakers.

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In a reversal of language influence, there was also a period when television anchors appeared to adopt a stylised version of their regional language by adding an English accent to it. It even seemed fashionable at one point for young people to say they were not fluent in their respective mother tongues, until writers and linguists came out bashing such hypocrisies.

But even with all the discourse around the undue importance we give to English, comments belittling Indian accents continue to surface. They often come from the privileged, looking down upon others. As Azeefa states, such an attitude “belittles the effort we put into learning a completely foreign language alongside our mother tongue.”

Perhaps the bigger irony is that generations who grew up being mocked for their English became determined that their children would never face the same humiliation. What was once a source of embarrassment became a marker of opportunity.

It isn’t uncommon to hear children in urban elite neighbourhoods conversing mostly in English, polished and perfected, while showing a lack of confidence in speaking their mother tongues.

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Interestingly, the three-language question is now doing the rounds, with proposals for schoolchildren to learn Hindi in addition to their regional language and English – an idea opposed by some states.

The toll of all this – be it learning multiple languages or getting the accent right – is unfortunately borne by the children, whose say in the matter no one really bothered to ask for.