Introduction:

A Writing Pedagogy of Failure

Abstract

The Introduction begins with the consensus that writing pedagogy in India is grappling with its own identity within university ecosystems. It is currently at a stage in Indian higher education that is marked by failures and relentless trials. The Introduction argues that this failure could be productive of forging new pathways best suited for the multilingual nature of the Indian classroom. It emphasizes on writing as a process and not just as a product, and how such process-oriented approach towards writing can make use of lived or peripheral languages in the process of producing the final product in Standard English prose. It pays close attention to some of recent proposals of the National Education Policy 2020 in this regard. The Introduction is also consistent with the existing literature on writing pedagogy based on care. However, it is cautious in treading this path of care as it notes that care must move beyond the discourse of ‘sickness’ and ‘remedy’ for those who lack proficiency in English. Instead, it proposes that these centres could emerge as an emancipatory antidote to a collective sickness of putting pen to paper: a struggle shared by all, regardless of socio-economic statuses. In the final section, the Introduction proposes a pedagogy that can be built through a commitment to affirmative action policies in private universities. Through references to Ambedkar’s statements during the debates on linguistic states and Hany Babu M.T. 's proposal on bilingual education, it contends that English could be an equidistant language from all the other languages in the classroom and live a life of objective reasoning in that space. It also contends that we must imagine the multidisciplinary writing centre as a space that is equidistant from specific disciplinary regimes of writing and knowledge production to make the project of the writing centre truly emancipatory.