By Indrani Sen

The advertising and media industry has applauded the Union Budget 2018 focusing on the rural and agricultural sector with doubling of allocation to Rs 3,037 croreon Digital.By end of 2018, Wi-Fi hotspots in the country are expected to grow from 38,000 to 5lakh ensuring that every village has access to at least one Wi-Fi hotspot providing internet access to crores of Indians living in rural areas. The Budget has proposed broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats under the Bharat Net project deploying high end Blockchain technology. Artificial Intelligence will be employed by NITI AAYOG for national development. Rs.10,000 crore has been allocated to telecom industry for early adoption of 5G.

As we accelerate fast forward to Digital India, it is the right time for the Communication Industry to deliberate on the deep divide in the language of education and language of communication in India. If we have to effectively communicate with our audience in Digital India, then what will be the language of digital communication? How are we going to create effective and efficient content for the crores of rural citizens who are going to be digitally enabled within a very short span of time?

Almost all smartphones selling in India now are enabled with regional language settings and we are increasingly noticing the use of regional language in texting and chatting on various platforms like Whats App, etc. The practice of using English typeface for writing messages in regional language is also a common practice among mobile phone users across our country. We have also started receiving on our mobiles sales and promotional messages in Hindi and other regional languages. Social media platforms like Facebook etc. as well as email services like Google Mail also offer the use of regional languages. We do not have any research which has explored the use of regional language by mobile phone users or internet users in India, so it is difficult to assess their numbers, but they are definitely growing.

According to IRS 2017, the percentage of children studying in English medium schools varies widely from state to state as seen in the table below:

On Dec 1, 2018 DNA published a report stating that only 17% children in India go to English medium schools (http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report-only-17-children-in-india-go-to-english-medium-schools-2278538). There have been lot of debates on how this issue should be addressed in our Education Policy which follows a three language (English, Hindi and mother tongue) formula for school education. The RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas has been asking the Indian government to make Hindi the primary medium of instruction across all schools in India instead of English or state language. On the other hand, educationists and researchers have been pointing out that a child understands any concept best in her or his mother-tongue. They have been arguing that India’s craze for English-medium schools is depriving many children of a real education.

My intention is not to engage in such debates related to the medium of education, but to merely point out that our Media & Entertainment Industry (TV, Print, Radio and Cinema) is thriving on Hindi and regional language content in spite of our so-called craze for English medium education. The advertising industry has managed to keep pace with brand communication in various languages across India by outsourcing the copywriting or script writing in regional languages. As consumers become digitally enabled, they will find it more and more difficult to manage the digital content creation for their brands in regional languages.

A deep divide seems to exist between the language of communication used by our advertising industry and the language understood and appreciated by their target audience across India. A partial solution may be provided through hiring resources proficient in regional languages and can lead the digital content creation in regional languages. An alternative business model for digital marketing and advertising may emerge to bridge this deep divide which may squeeze the shrinking profitability of the creative agencies in Digital India.