Hindi Medium: a cultural critique of neo-liberal education policy

A “committed literature” constructed the conscience of our society since Independence till the 1970s and 1980s. It helped our society to evolve as well as to develop a critical worldview. Nowadays, this role of constructing an individual’s conscience is being performed by films like Hindi Medium.

I will say Hindi Medium is not obviously political but political undercurrents are strong and intense.

It was like watching Ivan Illich’s famous book Deschooling Society on screen. The world-famous book on education kept reverberating in my mind. I could see that everybody around me in the cinema hall was overwhelmed with various emotions— the audience identified with the laughter, the sorrow and the struggle of a Delhiwala as portrayed in the film. Most of us have gone through similar experiences in life. We all want our kids to study in the best of schools, and for that we are ready to sacrifice anything.

Both the book and the film have striking similarities. Both present a critical discourse on education in a new economic system. Imparting education was considered a noble profession sometimes ago but it is a business now, and a booming one too. How commercialisation of education is creating problems in our life and in society per se is the focus of the film.

The film is a thoughtful comment on culture too. It unearths various subtle layers of our society which took shape after the economic liberalisation. As we all know, there are only 2 or 3 % of the people who hold the 85-90% of the assets. Due to privatisation, many categories have evolved within the middle class after the second phase of liberalisation.

Broadly, we can say that economics has bifurcated the middle class of our society into three main classes. A very rich ‘upper’ middle class which belongs or claims its allegiance to the global elite, a neo-rich middle class which has amassed wealth but culturally it could not upgrade itself and a middle class which has mostly migrated from small towns to the cities for work and carried and nurtured is culture with a tinge of nostalgia.

The protagonist of the film, a business man living in Chandni Chowk, belongs to the second category. He has a lot of money but poor ‘culturally’.

In our country, cultural supremacy is inevitably linked to English speaking and that too with an Americanised accent. The protagonist cannot speak English and his happy the way he is; but his wife wants to change all that. There’s an inferiority complex lurking, and she insists on their daughter getting admitted into an English medium school.

After many twists and turns, he finally manages to get his daughter’s admission in the school. Ironically, the daughter gets admission under the reserved category. He had snatched away a seat that was reserved for a poor man’s child. He has to pretend to be poor to do that.

Look at history closely and you will realise that this is something that has happened everywhere. Those who claimed to be the champions of the poor, have exploited them in some way or the other.

After privatisation, English medium schools have mushroomed in the country. Some have done well and earned a name for themselves, others are known for their commercial disposition but they too are doing well economically, if not academically. These schools are now legally bound to give admission to children belonging to the economically deprived class because they were not doing so by themselves.

These schools are very class conscious. A person who does not belong to their class, cannot get his or her child admitted there. Being meritorious is not enough, even speaking English is not a decisive parameter. You should know how to walk, how to eat, what to wear and how to speak in American accent.

The sheer peer pressure is such that we all are spending huge amount of money to look, behave and become like belonging to that class. Tragically, in this process, how many of us actually can retain of what we actually are? Getting into education almost amounts to losing yourself here. Whereas, if we remember correctly, education was meant to guide you to the path to self-discovery and discovery of the world. A cinematic criticism of neo-liberal education policies, Hindi Medium, although comically, makes you realise it.

If you count my experience, I had to swim across a river to go to school in Class 6. My childhood school was run under a tree. We did not see blackboard until middle class. But, despite all odds, we became a generation that is far more humane, more aware and sensitive. Of course, we may not be that market savvy or chic enough but we know ourselves well and we are aware of our roots. The film left me wondering whether the present education system—so deeply immersed in the fallacy of shallow information and acquired behaviour—will provide our children with this realisation.

As told to Vishwadeepak.

Uday Prakash is a well-known Sahitya Akademi award winner, Hindi writer and poet.