Asian Education on Film, Episode 9

Asian Education on Film - Episode 9

English Vinglish, Gauri Shinde (India, 2012)

The previous two films in this series dealt with educational inequality in India (Aarakshan) and the (sporting) legacy of British imperialism on the subcontinent (Lagaan). In different ways, both also highlighted India’s diversity and the challenges of forging a cohesive national identity there. One feature of contemporary Indian (and South Asian) society that is intimately related both to social divisions and attempts to transcend them is language; namely, the tensions between vernacular languages and English.

Across post-colonial South Asia, English has maintained its cultural dominance and social cachet. It remains a major language of government and administration; of law and justice; and of elite education. Amidst the region’s linguistic diversity, English continues to function as an important ‘link language’. And while Britain may no longer be the major world power it once was, the economic and cultural dominance of the USA has further bolstered English as the global lingua franca. Command of English is therefore required for many desirable jobs in the professions, academia, and commerce - not least in India’s burgeoning tech sector. It has consequently become entrenched as a crucial marker of social and cultural status for South Asia’s educated middle classes - some of whom even speak English at home.

This association of English proficiency with ‘elite’ status has fuelled significant resentment amongst the majority of South Asians for whom English-medium education is beyond reach. The neglect of vernacular languages by many educated South Asians also widens divisions of sentiment and identity between them and less privileged social groups. Anglophone South Asian elites may come to feel more culturally connected to the USA or Britain than to their own societies, and end up feeling truly at home neither in South Asia nor the West. Meanwhile, nativist political movements such as India’s BJP have capitalised on widespread resentment of Anglophone dominance to promote increasingly extreme forms of xenophobic nationalism.

The film English Vinglish offers a relatively light-hearted examination of the implications of the role of English language proficiency as an indicator of social status and education. It does so by focusing on the experience of Shashi Godbole (played by Sridevi), a housewife who suffers various humiliations due to her inability to speak English. By making Shashi the focus of an exploration of the tensions surrounding the role of English, the film also highlights the dimension of gender, in a society where the educational attainment of women still significantly lags behind that of men.

This film can be viewed online via this link: https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/4788011286009344

Further reading: Jayasooriya, L. B., & Vickers, E. (2025). Bilingual education and identity politics in post-war Sri Lanka. Comparative Education, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2025.2460916

LaDousa, C., C. P. Davis, and N. Choksi. 2022. “Postcolonial Language Ideologies: Indian Students Reflect on Mother Tongue and English.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 32 (3): 607–628. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12378. Pennycook, A. 1998. English and the Discourses of Colonialism. London: Routledge.