27/12/2014
English has been with India since the early 1600's,
when the East India Company started trading and
English missionaries first began their efforts. A large
number of Christian schools imparting an English
education were set up by the early 1800's. The
process of producing English-knowing bilinguals in
India began with the Minute of 1835, which officially
endorsed T.B. Macaulay's goal of forming "a class
who may be interpreters between us and the
millions whom we govern - a class of persons,
Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in
opinion, in morals and in intellect" (quoted in
Kachru 1983, p. 22). English became the official and
academic language of India by the early twentieth
century. The rising of the nationalist movement in
the 1920's brought some anti-English sentiment
with it -- even though the movement itself used
English as its medium.
Once independence was gained and the English
were gone, the perception of English as having an
alien power base changed; however, the controversy
about English has continued to this day. Kachru
notes that "English now has national and
international functions that are both distinct and
complementary. English has thus acquired a new
power base and a new elitism" (Kachru 1986, p.
12). Only about three percent of India's population
speak English, but they are the individuals who lead
India's economic, industrial, professional, political,
and social life. Even though English is primarily a
second language for these persons, it is the
medium in which a great number of the interactions
in the above domains are carried out. Having such
important information moving in English conduits is
often not appreciated by Indians who do not speak
it, but they are relatively powerless to change that.
Its inertia is such that it cannot be easily given up.
This is particularly true in South India, where
English serves as a universal language in the way
that Hindi does in the North. Despite being a three
percent minority, the English speaking population in
India is quite large. With India's massive population,
that three percent puts India among the top four
countries in the world with the highest number of
English speakers. English confers many advantages
to the influential people who speak it -- which has
allowed it to retain its prominence despite the
strong opposition to English which rises
periodically.
