The vanishing art of shorthand in India

The Greeks and Romans are known to have practised it and, until not so long ago, it was a much sought after skill in India too. But stenography or shorthand writing has all but disappeared now.

Under the impact of IT, shorthand has become a vanishing art in India. Ironically, this has happened at a time when there is a clamour for skilled stenographers from the corporate world.

'This demand can never be met as few people take to learning shorthand, since it is no more a lucrative job,' said S.V. Ramaswamy, president of the Chennai-based Stenographers' Guild of India (SGI).

Ramaswamy, who was in the city to give a lecture to the Ahmedabad Management Association's (AMA) secretarial training programme, said alternatives to shorthand like voice recognition software have not been much of a success.

As a result, at a time when corporate executives at home and abroad are looking for efficient shorthand writers, they are not available.

Ramaswamy said R&D was going on in Canada to develop a shorthand-writing machine. This machine has a capacity to take 40 words per minute, which is not at all adequate, he said.

Efforts are under way to double this speed, yet even at the increased speed it will be nowhere near the speed that human beings have achieved in the art.

But for the virtuosity in stenographic skills, great speeches, debates and landmark judgments would not have been available for posterity, Ramaswamy said.

A stenographer himself, Ramaswamy who rose to become chief manager in a nationalised bank said shorthand writing or more succinctly rapid writing existed in the Greek and Roman era that employed abbreviations. The Greeks particularly used this technique to record Socrates' speeches.

But in modern times, Sir Isaac Pitman developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known as Pitman Shorthand. With his system, speeds of about 300 words a minute are attainable.

VERBATIM REPORTING EXTINCT

Ramaswamy said because of the waning importance of stenography, the concept of verbatim reporting by the media has almost become extinct.

Attempts are now being made to revive shorthand and work is on in full swing to develop a good alternative to shorthand in the US, Canada, Germany, Britain and China. Stenography has been made compulsory in the media courses of the European College of Journalism and the Asian College of Journalism.

Ramaswamy said the mushrooming of call centres and opening up of BPOs that give handsome salaries have weaned away youths to imbibing proficiency in verbal communications.

Further, youths are now focusing on higher education, which in a way is good, he said. SGI has therefore diversified into conducting secretarial training, personality development and improvement of communication skills.

When at its zenith, the guild, established in 1940, was the most important source for high-speed stenographers.

'We have supplied many of them for the Indian parliament, judiciary and the police forces,' Ramaswamy added.