The deeply rooted Indian biases

Vidyasankar Sundaresan shared Teach India - English for Employability's photo.

11 January 2017 at 00:15

Interesting. I saw the same two pictures in greyscale in another ad in the Indian print media four years ago, when I was visiting Delhi.

What change are they targeting? What sort of message are these kinds of ads really sending? Aakhir, phool hi to bechti rahti hai! Is the girl really improving her lot in life substantially, just by selling different flowers to a different market segment?

Aparna Krishnan, Nima Srinivasan, Sivapriya Krishnan, Radhika Rammohan - for your attention! Does improved employability through English education, whatever that means, have to be invariably accompanied by a marked culture shift - long stemmed non-native flowers to be put in vases as opposed to strings of short-stemmed native jasmine, on a photo frame on the wall or in your hair?

Major fail, #teachindia.

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Teach India - English for Employability is with Gajanan Pardhi.

4 January 2017 at 13:26

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Comments

Vidyasankar Sundaresan Notice also the tvak-shweta-fication from picture on the left to picture on the right. The #britishcouncil's Western racist lens, obviously, to my mind. But people will always blame caste consciousness for Indian attitudes towards skin color!

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Balaji Anandapadmanaban tvak-shweta-fication - I like the term

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Vidyasankar Sundaresan I refuse to use the two adjectives that have become a brand name for it!

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Uday Shankar Quite ridiculous in many respects. And don't forget that wrapping flowers in non-biodegradable plastic wrappers is a step up. Chee !

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Vidyasankar Sundaresan That too!

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Nima Srinivasan I volunteered at Avvai Home in 2009 where I offered to teach anything they wanted to learn. The only two skills the girls (not staff/management) cared about were English and computer skills. These are seen as tickets to a better life. I offered to do both but they wouldn't give me access to the computer. It's locked safely because otherwise "spoil aayidum." The English I was given free reign. I'll tag you on the video I made with these girls so you can see the profile I'm talking about. These are girls from.broken homes, not orphans. In some cases mom.works, dad is potential rapist drunkard, mom wants to.protect daughter, etc. They absolutely see the ability to speak in English as major levels of salvation. And that part is true.

Regarding the execution here, I don't know numbers on left vs right of what they will earn. Intuitively I'd say the right option will earn more, but that's a dead end job too. But could open more.doors to other customer service hideousness. Or even corporate admin, if you're truly motivated. There's another execution with two photos like this. Idli vadai on one side and fast food on the other. Evoked caustic reactions from a lot of elite rightwingers. I know for a fact that for the audience that this is aimed at, they won't see it negatively. It reinforces what they believe.

Vidyasankar Sundaresan I'm not disputing that learning English can potentially open lots of doors. What bothers me is the visual message here. If they had shown the flower seller girl becoming something that your daughters and mine would aspire to be, I'd not be so bothered.

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Jason Schwartz Vidyasankar Sundaresan Such a clear message. Indian traditional culture is bad. Monoculture with no-social mobility-that is good.

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Nima Srinivasan A lot of these girls couldn't articulate an answer to thr question "what do you like?" Because no one had ever asked them that in their life. Many of them don't aspire to being policy makers at brookings and such. It's simplistic. Which is what works for most of India.

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Nima Srinivasan I do see why you see it the way you do though, but that's the same fallacy as "fairness cream

equals slave mindset and white people sucking up." It's convenient, but doesn't really appreciate the construct.

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Vidyasankar Sundaresan If it were an ad for those skin creams, I wouldn't give it a second thought. It's supposed to be an ad with a positive message about giving learning opportunities for the girl child. It could do with a little bit of education passed along in the visual itself. After all, the was a time when most Indian girls would have only thought of getting married young and churning out chubby babies and round round rotis. If #teachindia wanted to show a wider range of possibilities to these girls, the ad fails, IMO. Unless, of course, the goal is indeed, as my friend Jasonnoted, the message is "Indian bad, faux Western good." If so, the ad achieves its purpose.

Aparna Krishnan Education deracinates totally. Education moves one from a sustainable life possibility to an unsustainable life possibility (like we all are wallowing in). It moves one from simplicity to snobbery. I think this ad is very very precise !

Radhika Rammohan It is an idiotic ad. with British Council also disgracing itself. That said, I have no doubt that English education makes us look down on our own culture and creates a paradigm shift in our minds.

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