Our Missing Links To Progress

Once again, English finds itself at the heart of a national conversation.

- MAMIDALA JAGADESH KUMAR

Several important questions are being raised. Some ask: Why shouldn't India use English as a national link language? The counter view is: Why should English continue to dominate our lives in every sphere? Why do some people equate aspiration with English as a link language in a country so rich in its languages?

India's civilizational history demonstrates our linguistic diversity never hindered cultural and social unity. In ancient times, languages used in different parts of our country flourished alongside pan-Indian languages like Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Pali. These languages enabled the spreading of knowledge, spirituality, and governance across the nation without displacing local languages. Trade routes, universities like Nalanda and Takshashila, and Bhakti and Jain movements thrived in a multilingual environment. India never needed a foreign language to stay intellectually or culturally united.

English became dominant in India, not by natural choice. It was imposed. The British deliberately positioned English as a marker of prestige and power. The arguments that English should be a link language remind us that we have yet to decolonize fully. Mahatma Gandhi's opposition to English was grounded in linguistic self-respect, national unity, and decolonization principles. He wrote in Young India in 1921: To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them... The foundation that Macaulay laid of education has enslaved us. There is no doubt that sole reliance on English as a national link language has the detrimental potential to reinforce social hierarchies and widen the divide between the privileged and the rest.