English: An Uncanny Disruptor in the Inherited Order of Desi Tongues
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent remarks, such as “those who speak English in India would soon feel ashamed” and “without Indian languages, we cease to be truly Indian”, might sound culturally assertive and protective, echoing the patriotic spirit of nation-building.
But scratch the surface, and these statements reveal deeper anxiety and confusion about how language works in a multilingual country like India. This is not simply about taking on the opportunism and hypocrisies of the affluent political class. Yes, many who promote Hindi as the national language send their kids to English-medium schools. Yes, their own political careers rely on English for international dealings. But there are bigger stories to be unfolded here.
Needless to say, calling English a colonial foreign language in 2025 is like calling cricket a colonial sport. Though the Britishers brought it, we have made it our own. English has been spoken, written, debated, and inhabited here for more than two centuries. In fact, Indian English is now a global dialect. At this critical juncture, trying to shame English speakers is like trying to shame someone for using Google Pay in a cashless economy.
In place of English, Hindi is being promoted as the authentic language that represents the ideal spirit of the nation state. Ironically, Hindi is not the mother tongue of any Indian state in its textbook form. In so-called Hindi-speaking states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, what people actually speak are Bhojpuri, Magahi, Bundeli, Bagheli, and so on. The question of how the Hindi public sphere was carefully engineered is an interesting point to be explored further.
The nationalist engineering of the Hindi public sphere
On a closer analysis, Amit Shah’s remarks reveal the buried historical context of language policy. While often presented as the natural national language, Hindi was historically constructed as the symbolic benchmark of Indian identity, especially in the post-Independence period. The central government used state machinery to push Hindi into national consciousness. What we today call “Hindi” was elevated by state policy, school curricula, and state-run TV and radio.
Francesca Orsini’s seminal work “The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism” (2002) delineates the formation of the Hindi public sphere in colonial India. The kind of Hindi promoted in various literary and public discourse was not the Hindi people spoke at home (like Awadhi, Braj, or Bhojpuri), but a standardised and Sanskritised version of Hindi purged of Persian and Urdu influences.
Subsequently, Hindi came to be associated with Hindu identity during the nationalist movement, while Urdu was linked to Muslim identity.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nationalist leaders sought a unifying medium to counter British rule and mobilise mass politics. To make way for one-size-fits-all, Hindi (specifically Khari Boli Hindi written in Devanagari script) was standardised and promoted over other regionally spoken North Indian languages.
Most so-called Hindi-speaking states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan have diverse vernaculars: Bhojpuri, Braj, Magahi, Maithili, Bundeli, Bagheli, etc., which are linguistically and culturally distinct. These languages, which had rich literary traditions of their own, were often reclassified as dialects (bolis) of Hindi, systematically suppressing their sovereign status.
English broke open the upper caste-hegemony in the educational systems
Quite surprisingly, though colonial in its origins, English ended up doing something unexpected: it broke open the upper caste-hegemony in the educational system. Dalit thinker Chandrabhan Prasad even calls British bureaucrat Macaulay an “accidental liberator” for promoting English. That may sound hyperbolic, but his point is clear: English allowed new voices to emerge, voices long silenced by the weight of Varna tradition in India.
English gradually became a way for Dalits and other marginalised communities to bypass the gatekeeping of Sanskritic education.
We are defined by the walls and ladders of language. French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once said that language is not just a tool we use; it is something that shapes us. We do not just simply speak language; we are spoken by it. In the context of India, English has undermined inherited hierarchies, and it is the very foreignness of English that has built new homes for hitherto silenced voices, acting as a democratising and liberating force.
In the global economy, English functions not merely as a utilitarian tool, but as what Lacan might call a “master signifier” – a linguistic anchor around which fantasies of neoliberal modernity, mobility, and success are organised.
Millions of young Indians turn to English-medium education not because they are ashamed of their mother tongues, but because English occupies the position of symbolic power in the social order. It is the language through which people can imagine access to global capital, emerging job markets, knowledge, and recognition.
The real shame is not in speaking English. It is in denying people the tools and training to speak it fluently, making it a class barrier rather than a bridge.
Philosopher Alain Badiou talks about the “generic set” – something that belongs to no one, and therefore, can belong to everyone. English occupies the space of a generic set in India. It’s no longer a British possession. It’s a shared space, shaped by Indian stories, idioms, and rhythms.
Who gets to define what “Indian” means in the first place?
The pertinent question, then, is not whether English is Indian, but who gets to define what “Indian” means in the first place. What truly makes a language “Indian”? Is it geography, ancestry, script, emotion, place of origin or something more elusive? Rejecting English as “foreign” is like rejecting the Constitution itself.
After all, the Constitution was written in English, debated in English, and continues to function in English. By the same logic of opposing English as a foreign language, one can also reject Arabic numerals, Persian poetry, Sanskritic grammar, and even the very idea of the modern nation-state, none of which are purely indigenous.
You can speak Konkani at home, study in Marathi, watch Tamil movies, text in English, and recite Urdu poetry. You can still be called “Indian”. To a great extent, that’s what being Indian means: stitching together a life from many threads. An Indian who speaks Bhojpuri at home, codes in Python, and negotiates in English is not suffering from cultural shame; they are the living proof of a rich history, contradictory and complete in its very incompletion.
The resilient future of global India lies not in choosing between English and Indian languages, but in embracing both, which is to say, accepting and strengthening a multilingual vision of India that dethrones the very foundation of monolingual mission upheld by Hindi hardliners.
The author serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Yeshwanthpur Campus, Bangalore. He can be reached at sudeeshpadne@gmail.com.
The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
