The Case for English in India

Its foreignness long gone, English is the passport to social and economic mobility

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Language is politics by other means in India. Which is why Union home minister Amit Shah's clarification that the Centre is not opposed to any foreign language is significant. In the same vein, he added that "there should be an urge to glorify one's own language". A few days earlier, Shah had lit a small political fire with his remarks that "those who speak English will soon be ashamed". This remark was interpreted by Opposition leaders as a backdoor attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speakers. The BJP has always been in favour of making Hindi the official language of the country and eliminating the use of English, a potentially explosive issue in the non-Hindi-speaking states of southern India. Now, Maharashtra, again a state that has a history of strong linguistic identity, has become restive over the BJP-led government's move to introduce Hindi as a language from primary classes.