India Uncut
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This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Bye Bye Black Sheep
BBC reports:
Don't worry, the guardians of Indian culture aren't going to get any ideas reading my blog. I write in English, after all.
Update: Manish Manke emails to inform me that "Ba Ba Black Sheep" ran into trouble recently in some English nursery schools as well, with "black" being replaced by "rainbow." Ba Ba Rainbow Sheep? That'll lead to some colourful sweaters, won't it?
The Madhya Pradesh government has banned the teaching of English nursery rhymes in primary schools to "reduce Western influence" on children. [...] "There is no need for English rhymes when there are Indian rhymes to infuse patriotism in children," says state education minister Narrotam Mishra.Sigh. The posturing that goes on in the name of nationalism reaches more and more absurd limits as the months pass. Next, they'll probably insist that all the world maps used in the Geography textbooks show just India. Or that all the channel logos that you see on TV have the name of the channel in Hindi, not English.
Don't worry, the guardians of Indian culture aren't going to get any ideas reading my blog. I write in English, after all.
Update: Manish Manke emails to inform me that "Ba Ba Black Sheep" ran into trouble recently in some English nursery schools as well, with "black" being replaced by "rainbow." Ba Ba Rainbow Sheep? That'll lead to some colourful sweaters, won't it?
