Passage 5:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nEnglish encodes class in India. It does so by sliding into the DNA of social division: income, caste, gender, religion or place of belonging. The threat it poses to social cohesion has worried public commentators across the political spectrum. In an address delivered as independent India\u2019s Parliament dilly-dallied over the suggestion to replace English with regional languages as the medium of instruction for higher education, Gandhi said, \u2018This blighting imposition of a foreign medium upon the youth of the country will be counted by history as one of the greatest tragedies. Our boys think, and rightly in the present circumstances, that without English they cannot get government service. Girls are taught English as a passport to marriage.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A hundred years later, the language continues to be seen as a tool of exclusion. The problem now is about inequality of access. \u2018To be denied English is harmful to the individual as well as our society,\u2019 writes Chetan Bhagat, self-appointed leader of a class war set off by unequal access to English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bhagat, an engineer-turned-investment banker, wrote his first college romance in English in 2004. Then only a certain kind of person\u2014someone who grew up reading, writing and speaking the language\u2014wrote books in English\u2014big words, long sentences, literary pretension, heavy with orientalism. In the ten years since Bhagat put the popular in \u2018popular\u2019 English fiction, he has written six other novels and sold millions of copies all told. With every new book, all written in deliberately simple English, Bhagat has recruited thousands of new soldiers in his crusade against what he calls the \u2018caste system around the language\u2019. Bhagat even has a term for Indians who \u2018have\u2019 English: E1. \u2018These people had parents who spoke English, had access to good English-medium schools\u2014typically in big cities, and gained early proficiency, which enabled them to consume English products such as newspapers, books and films. English is so instinctive to them that even some of their thought patterns are in English. These people are much in demand.\u2019 The people E1 presumably control, through a nexus of privilege built on ownership of English, are E2: \u2018probably ten times the E1s. They are technically familiar with the language. [But] if they sit in an interview conducted by E1s, they will come across as incompetent, even though they may be equally intelligent, creative or hardworking.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The situation may not be so comically stark. The haves and have-nots may not exactly fit into Bhagat\u2019s stereotypes of urban, sophisticated rich people and provincial, uncultured poor. His argument does not factor in many other walls around English in India. You are more likely to learn English if you are born a man rather than a woman, high caste rather than low caste, south Indian rather than north Indian. There is more than one kind of E1 and more than one kind of E2. And there is more than one way E2s can overthrow E1s. One is to speak it like they know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World,<\/em> by Snigdha Poonam, Penguin Viking, 2018.]<\/p>\n\n\n\nQ21. Which of the following can be inferred about the author\u2019s views on English in contemporary India?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n- The ability to speak English in India depends on place and social identity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- English is not an Indian language.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- English language fluency does not necessarily imply competence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- People\u2019s views on English are divided along political lines.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Q22. Who among the following would defy Chetan Bhagat\u2019s neat categorisation of Indian English-speakers into E1 and E2?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n- Savitha, an above-average student in an English medium school in Mumbai, belongs to an upper-middle class family. Public speaking makes her extremely nervous and she fumbles through all her interviews.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Moin, once a milkman in Ranchi, learns English at the age of 17. After a lot of hard work, he becomes an instructor of spoken English at a thriving institute.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Both (A) and (B)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Neither (A) nor (B)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Q23. Which of the following best describes the author\u2019s response to Bhagat\u2019s views on English?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n- The author dismisses his views as a self-appointed expert.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The author completely agrees with his views.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The author neither agrees nor disagrees with his views.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The author considers his views and finds that they lack nuance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Q24. Which of the following can be inferred from Gandhi\u2019s views with respect to English in post-independence India?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n- English should not be taught as a subject in Indian universities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- English proficiency is vital in order to gain entry into the bureaucracy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Indian women cannot get rich if they do not know English.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- None of the above<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Q25. All the following pairs of words are synonyms, except:<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n- stark, sharp<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- sophisticated, spoilt<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- crusade, campaign<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- cohesion, unity<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Passage 6:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\u2018So pick a bird,\u2019 Iff commanded. \u2018Any bird.\u2019 This was puzzling. \u2018The only bird around here is a wooden peacock,\u2019 Haroun pointed out, reasonably enough. Iff gave a snort of disgust. \u2018A person may choose what he cannot see,\u2019 he said, as if explaining something very obvious to a very foolish individual. \u2018A person may mention a bird\u2019s name even if the creature is not present and correct: crow, quail, hummingbird, bulbul, mynah, parrot, kite. A person may even select a flying creature of his own invention, for example winged horse, flying turtle, airborne whale, space serpent or aeromouse. To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it \u2014 well, that\u2019s a way of bringing the said thing into being. Or, in this case, the said bird or Imaginary Flying Organism.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018That may be true where you come from,\u2019 Haroun argued. \u2018But in these parts, stricter rules apply.\u2019 \u2018In these parts,\u2019 rejoined blue-bearded Iff, \u2018I am having time wasted by someone who will not trust in what he can\u2019t see. How much have you seen, eh? Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there? And submarines? Huh? Also, hailstones, baseballs, pagodas? Goldmines? Kangaroos, Mount Fujiyama, the North Pole? And the past, did it happen? And the future, will it come? Believe in your own eyes and you\u2019ll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.\u2019 With that, he plunged his hand into a pocket of his auberginey pajamas, and when he brought it forth again it was bunched into a fist. \u2018So take a look, or I should say a gander, at the enclosed.\u2019 He opened his hand, and Haroun\u2019s eyes almost fell out of his head. Tiny birds were walking about on Iff\u2019s palm; and pecking at it, and flapping their miniature wings to hover just above it. And as well as birds there were fabulous winged creatures out of legends: an Assyrian lion with the head of a bearded man and a pair of large hairy wings growing out of its flanks; and winged monkeys, flying saucers, tiny angels, levitating (and apparently air-breathing) fish. \u2018What\u2019s your pleasure, select, choose,\u2019 Iff urged. And although it seemed obvious to Haroun that these magical creatures were so small that they couldn\u2019t possibly have carried so much as a bitten-off fingernail, he decided not to argue and pointed at a tiny crested bird that was giving him a sidelong look through one highly intelligent eye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Extracted, with edits and revisions, from Haroun and the Sea of Stories,<\/em> by Salman Rushdie, Granta & Penguin, 1990.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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