Language

Many people consider that educating children in a language alien to them culturally, is a form of genocide, or as a serious human rights violation.
If you educate Gond children only in Gondi or Toda children only in Toda language, you are totally closing their options to higher education.
As I have mentioned earlier, one of the girls in the village school I was teaching in, was very good at logical thinking, data correlation, etc-- any problem I gave , she would stare at it for 5 minutes and give the right answer while none of the others could even figure out how to start. This girl is educated in Tamil medium- she wants to study Mathematics. Most good colleges offer BSc Math in English medium. So I advised her to listen to English news on TV and familiarise herself with the language. Tamil is a mainstream language, and has books available for all subjects even for tertiary education. Still, even that puts her at a slight disadvantage. Imagine the fate of a child who may be brilliant, but had been educated in a tribal language. What chance does he or she have in higher education? Where will he/she go for an MA or MSc? or even BA /BSc?

Another aspect is this-- I, for example, have lived mainly in North India, but my mother tongue is Tamil. In a small town in UP, if I insist on my fundamental right to be educated in Tamil medium, is it a reasonable demand? It is feasible in Delhi, but in a small town in UP or Bihar is it possible to have Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Malayalam , Punjabi ....schools catering to three students each? So if I exercise my fundamental right to live anywhere in India, what about my right to education in my mother tongue?

However, the sad fact is that languages are dying out. When my son was born, I used to speak to him only in Tamil, and he knew only Tamil though we lived in some other state. This was till he started school. Then suddenly, I don't recall when, he started speaking English. Before I realised, he was speaking only English. Now my children are not comfortable speaking in Tamil.
My parents were educated in Tamil, I was educated in English and I speak Tamil as the norm. I do not read or write Tamil very well and I cannot understand classical Tamil. My children do not even speak the language very well. Their children may not even recognise Tamil. Yes languages are dying out.
But isn't that what happens to all cultures throughout time. If it did not, we would still be grunting in cave man language--- the culture of the stone age men died and gave rise to a different culture, which in turn died ... and so on.
The English we speak today is very different from the English of medieval times. The Tamil spoken in the streets of Chennai is different from the Tamil we speak at home, and the younger people speak the street Tamil even in households in Chennai or Tiruchi. The various forms of Hindi like Avadhi and Braj were quite different from the Hindi spoken today in urban areas. Deccani is dying out...I can see that from 20 years ago.... I used to hear a lot of Deccani in the streets of Hyderabad, now I rarely do.
Languages do die.
Should we then educate tribal children only in tribal languages and make it difficult for them to integrate into the more lucrative streams of life? Or should we use them to preserve their culture and language irrespective of the cost to them?
For, let us face it, tribal lifestyle while admirable and sustainable in the larger scheme, is not fetching the tribals a good enough livelihood.