“A time will come when people in India will feel ashamed of speaking in English!” - The Saffron Oracle-Cum-Chanakya
In a land where diversity is as common as chai stalls, India’s Home Minister recently dropped a linguistic bombshell: speaking English, apparently, is something to be ashamed of. Yes, you heard that right. In 2025, when the world is zipping along on AI-driven hyper-loops and debating the ethics of brain-computer interfaces, India’s political elite are wagging their fingers at English, the global lingua franca, as if it’s a colonial stain that needs to be scrubbed out with patriotic bleach. But let’s not be naive—this isn’t about pride in Hindi, Urdu, or Tamil. This is a masterclass in manipulation, a page ripped straight out of the playbook of our neighbours in Pakistan, where language has long been weaponised to keep the masses docile and the elite smugly in power. It’s an absurd, yet sinister, plot to keep India’s masses linguistically shackled while the ruling class sips Scotch whiskey and quotes Shakespeare in private.
The English-Shaming Gospel: A Politician’s Favourite Sermon
On a balmy day in 2025, India’s Home Minister, with the gravitas of a man who’s just discovered the secret to eternal votes, declared that speaking English is a shameful act, a betrayal of Indian-ness. Never mind that his own children likely attended elite schools where English is the medium of instruction, or that his own colleagues’ speeches are peppered with angrezi phrases when he’s wooing foreign investors. The hypocrisy is as thick as Delhi’s smog. This isn’t a new tactic. In 2019, a prominent BJP leader, while addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh, proclaimed, “Hindi is our soul, English is a foreign ghost.” The crowd roared, blissfully unaware that the leader’s own website was in flawless English, optimised for global SEO.
The message is clear: English is for the elite, not the aam aadmi. By shaming English, politicians create a cultural wedge, painting it as the language of snobs and sellouts. Meanwhile, they ensure their own kin are fluent in it, securing their place in the globalised world of Ivy League degrees and Davos summits. The irony? The same leaders who decry English as “un-Indian” are the ones negotiating trade deals in London and New York, where their Hindi would be as useful as a bicycle in a flood.
Pakistan’s Playbook: A Masterclass in Linguistic Divide
To understand the game, let’s take a quick detour to Pakistan, where this strategy has been perfected. Since its inception, Pakistan’s ruling elite—military generals, bureaucrats, and politicians—have cultivated a system where English is the golden ticket to power. The country’s top schools, like Aitchison College and Karachi Grammar, churn out English-speaking elites who dominate politics, business, and media. Meanwhile, the masses are fed a steady diet of Urdu-medium education, laced with jingoistic narratives about India, the West, and the evils of “foreign” influence. The result? A population primed to cheer for the elite’s agenda while remaining blissfully under-qualified to challenge it.
Take the case of Pakistan’s education system. A 2018 report by the British Council revealed that only 10-15% of Pakistanis have functional proficiency in English, despite it being the official language of government and judiciary. The rest? They’re stuck in Urdu-medium schools, where textbooks often glorify military rule and demonise outsiders. This isn’t an accident. As Pakistani sociologist Ayesha Siddiqa noted in her book Military Inc., “The elite use language as a gatekeeper. English opens doors to global opportunities; Urdu keeps the masses loyal and limited.”
The parallels in India are uncanny. In North India, where Hindi chauvinism runs deep, politicians have long pushed for Hindi-medium education while ensuring their own families attend English-medium schools. A 2020 study by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) found that 60% of students in Hindi-medium government schools in Uttar Pradesh lacked basic English reading skills by Class 10. Meanwhile, the children of MPs and MLAs are enrolled in Delhi’s posh schools, mastering the Queen’s English while their voters are told it’s a badge of shame.
The Hindi Heartland Hustle
In North India, the anti-English crusade is particularly vicious. Politicians in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh have turned Hindi into a sacred cow, milking it for votes while ensuring the masses stay linguistically stunted. The logic is simple: if you can’t speak English, you can’t access the global knowledge economy. You can’t read international journals, apply for high-paying tech jobs, or even understand the fine print of the trade deals your leaders are signing. You’re stuck in a cycle of low-skill jobs, dependent on the benevolence of the same politicians who told you English is evil.
Consider the 2020 National Education Policy (NEP), which emphasised “mother tongue” education. On paper, it’s a noble idea—teach kids in their native language to improve comprehension. In practice, it’s a trap. In Hindi-speaking states, the push for Hindi-medium education has led to a decline in English proficiency among rural students. A 2023 Annual Status of Education Report found that only 24% of Class 8 students in rural Uttar Pradesh could read a simple English sentence. Meanwhile, urban private schools, attended by the elite, continue to prioritise English, creating a two-tier system: one for the rulers, another for the ruled.
And who benefits? The political class, of course. By keeping the masses ignorant of English, they ensure a pliable electorate, fed on populist rhetoric and unable to question the fine print of policy. As Noam Chomsky once said, “Control of language is control of thought.” In India, the thought being controlled is the aspiration to rise above one’s station.
The Elite’s English Hypocrisy
Let’s not kid ourselves—the politicians preaching anti-English gospel aren’t burning their Oxford dictionaries. They’re fluent hypocrites. Take the example of a prominent North Indian politician who, in 2022, thundered against English as “a colonial relic” during a rally in Varanasi. Weeks later, he was spotted at an international conference in Singapore, delivering a keynote in impeccable English, complete with buzzwords like “sustainable development” and “digital transformation.” The crowd of global investors lapped it up, unaware that back home, he’d just slashed funding for English-language training in government schools.
This double game isn’t new. In 2014, a senior BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh famously declared, “Hindi is the language of our soul, English of our servitude.” Yet, his son was studying at a prestigious university in London, majoring in economics and tweeting about Arsenal’s latest match. The elite don’t just speak English; they wield it as a weapon to maintain their grip on power. As George Orwell put it in 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” In India, controlling the language controls the present.
The Economic Cost of Linguistic Jingoism
The anti-English brigade isn’t just playing with culture; they’re playing with India’s future. In a globalised economy, English is the key to unlocking opportunities. India’s IT sector, which employs over 5 million people and contributes 8% to GDP, runs on English. Companies like Infosys and TCS don’t hire in Hindi or Tamil or Kannada—they demand fluency in the language of Silicon Valley. A 2021 Nasscom report warned that India risks losing its edge in the global tech market if English proficiency among young graduates continues to decline.
Yet, the political na rrative remains stubbornly anti-English. In 2024, a Uttar Pradesh minister proposed replacing English with Hindi in all government job exams, claiming it would “empower the youth.” The result? A generation of graduates unable to compete for jobs at multinationals, relegated to low-paying local roles while the elite’s children snag internships at Google. It’s a linguistic caste system, and the politicians are the Brahmins.
A Pakistani Parallel
Back to Pakistan for a moment. The Urdu-medium masses there aren’t just linguistically limited; they’re fed a narrative that keeps them in line. Textbooks glorify the military, vilify India, and paint the West as a moral cesspool. The result is a population primed for jingoism, ready to rally behind the elite’s agenda without questioning it. As Pakistani journalist Nadeem Paracha wrote in 2020, “The Urdu-educated masses are taught to love the nation but not to think for it.”
In India, the Hindi-medium narrative isn’t much different. Textbooks in North Indian states often emphasise cultural nationalism, portraying English as a tool of Western domination. A 2022 history textbook in Uttar Pradesh described English education as “Macaulay’s plot to enslave Indian minds.” Never mind that Thomas Macaulay’s 1835 Minute on Education was about empowering Indians through English, not enslaving them. The truth doesn’t matter when the goal is to keep the masses ignorant and angry.
A Modest Proposal
So, what’s the solution? Here’s a modest proposal, in the spirit of Jonathan Swift: let’s ban English entirely. Not just from schools, but from Parliament, corporate boardrooms, and Netflix subtitles. Let’s force our politicians to negotiate trade deals in Hindi, write software code in Tamil, and tweet their outrage in Marathi and Kannada. Imagine the Home Minister addressing the UN General Assembly in chaste Hindi, with no translator in sight. Picture India’s tech giants trying to pitch to Silicon Valley in Tamil or Sanskrit. The chaos would be glorious, and the hypocrisy would be exposed faster than you can say “post-colonial trauma.”
Of course, this won’t happen. The elite need English to maintain their global clout. They’ll keep their children fluent while preaching linguistic purity to the masses. But here’s the kicker: the masses aren’t as gullible as they seem. In 2024, a survey by the English and Foreign Languages University found that 78% of Indian youth aged 18-25 wanted better access to English education, citing job opportunities and global connectivity. The people know the game, even if the politicians pretend otherwise.
Breaking the Linguistic Chains
The anti-English crusade is a scam, a deliberate ploy to keep India’s masses subservient while the elite play global chess. It’s time to call it what it is: a conspiracy to perpetuate inequality. If India is to compete in the 21st century, it needs a population fluent in the language of opportunity, not shackled by the rhetoric of shame. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” In India, that weapon is English, and it’s time to stop letting politicians wield it against us.
So, the next time a politician tells you to be ashamed of speaking English, ask them why their kids are studying in London. Ask them why their speeches at Davos aren’t in Hindi. And then, in perfect English, tell them to shove their hypocrisy where the sun doesn’t shine. Because in the end, the only thing we should be ashamed of is letting a handful of elites dictate our future.
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