Why English In India?
But what happened when the hold of the British Empire started breaking away? By the 1950s, most of the colonies had gotten their independence. Or they had begun a strong independent movement. The British had to leave the country, and had to give independence to these countries. One of these countries was India.
Even after getting independent, in most of the colonies English remained as an official or the national language. Why? There were different reasons in different countries. When India’s Constitution was being drawn up, the Constituent Assembly discussed this in detail. Whether English should be used as an official language in India, or should Hindi be used only? Should Hindi be made into the national language? Many people favoured Hindustani becoming the national language of the country.
The language, which is a mix of Hindi and Urdu. But many people believed, that English should continue as the official language. One of these people was Dr BR Ambedkar. He believed that the best way to represent the Dalit community the English language was the best option. In fact, he believed that of all the communities in Indiathe English language is the only language that’s equidistant to all others. There isn’t an added advantage to any community. He used the example that Brahmins would be at an advantage is Sankritised Hindi became the national language.
Apart from him, many leaders from South India were also concerned about it. They believed that Hindi is a North Indian language and if it became the national language, then South India would feel underrepresented. That’s why it was decided that there’d be two official languages in India. Hindi and English. But at the same time, over the next 15 years, they would work to phase out English because during the independence, English was also seen as the ‘Language of the Coloniser.’ That since it was the language spoken by the British, it shouldn’t be promoted.
It was said that by 1965, English would be completely phased out. Although, the Parliament was given the option that the Parliament could continue using English. In 1967, an ‘Angrezi Hatao‘ (Remove English) movement was also launched. By a Socialist leader. That English should be completely phased out. But it wasn’t done so. Because this movement had to phase a lot of resistance from the South Indian leaders. And obviously, their demand was also justified, they asked why Hindi should be the one chosen. Why not Tamil? And because of this reason, English is still an official language.
