The first rule of discussing language policy in India is to leave any expectations of a calm conversation at the door.

With four major language families — as distinct from each other as English is from Mandarin — and 23 languages holding official status, reasoned debate is almost always abandoned in favour of passionate infighting.

Language has reappeared at the forefront of Indian political discourse over the National Education Policy, a recent revamp of the education system. But while this conflict’s flashpoint is language, it hints at something deeper about India’s governance.

The union government has unilaterally demanded that all states implement the NEP, despite education being an area of shared responsibility between the union and the states. One of the key sticking points is the three-language formula. While its professed aim is to foster greater understanding between India’s diverse regions by requiring states to teach the local language, English and one other Indian language of their choice, some states view the policy as a veiled scheme to enforce Hindi.

While most non-Hindi speaking states offer Hindi as their third language, Hindi-speaking states tend to teach its extinct classical parent, Sanskrit, instead of a contemporary language from another region.

India’s complicated debate over language is etched into the national psyche. At its core lies a tension between two public policy priorities — the longstanding Indian national project on the one hand, and the more recent pursuit of rapid economic development on the other. The two need not necessarily be contradictory but are increasingly diverging as India’s economic liberalisation rubs up against its inward-looking instincts.

As a newly independent nation in 1947, India was desperate to construct national unity. English was seen as the language of colonialism and India was keen to remove signs of imperialism across public life. Though several major languages could be seen as regional connectors, there had never been a common language spanning the entire subcontinent before the British imposed English.

Independence leaders in the Hindi belt were keen to implement Hindi as the language of commerce and public life but the political climate made the task impossible. Many communities within India had fought as much to liberate their own linguistic community as to liberate “India” as a whole, so the idea that another “foreign” language would replace English has always been a political non-starter.

The current status quo is an effective two-language system — English is the dominant language of commerce and interstate co-operation, and regional mother tongues occupy prominent cultural, social and political roles in their homelands. Yet the union government officially maintained that Hindi should be the “link” language within India, including in the 1986 National Education Policy.

A common argument for the three-language formula is that there must be a language to facilitate internal migration. But English is the only common language explicitly prescribed by the policy, creating a co-ordination problem in selecting an Indian language to be taught across all states. According to the 2011 census, 57.1% of Indians spoke Hindi as a first-, second- or third-language, compared to 8.9% who speak the next most common Indian language.

Hindi might seem the most practical option, but the number of speakers is greatly inflated because the government lumps 56 languages under the Hindi umbrella – the proportion of first-language Hindi speakers falls from 43.6% to 33.6% if the 12 languages seeking distinct recognition are removed. And even though Hindi is spoken on the largest scale, its fraught political history has seen its increasing presence create tensions in states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal, making it untenable as a link language.

Plus, the vast majority of migration in India is intra-state, where people speak the same or similar languages. Inter-state migration, accounting for only 12% of all migration, is likely too insignificant for an entire language policy to be designed around it. Migration that crosses linguistic boundaries primarily involves people from northern states moving to southern states for work, where different languages are spoken and Hindi is more opposed.

Another problem is that Hindi has yet to demonstrate significant commercial value. India’s impressive GDP growth is driven by the 10% of the population with relatively high disposable incomes. Becoming part of this elite segment usually requires proficiency in English and a professional job in the formal economy – most of which are located in the non-Hindi-speaking southern states. Even if the government pushes learning Hindi, the market offers no reward.

Given these realities, English is the most economically beneficial and politically neutral choice for internal communication.

Since teaching three languages is time- and resource-intensive, India must focus its limited resources on prioritising goals that will lead to the greatest marginal benefit for economic outcomes. Only 51% of new graduates are considered employable and a lack of English fluency has been identified as a significant issue. The 2011 census found that only 10.6% of India’s population speaks English, underscoring the urgent need to expand English education.

If economic transformation is the priority, India should recognise the political status quo and the realities of development. Permitting or encouraging states to pursue a two-language policy, with mother tongues as the primary languages of public and cultural spaces and English as the language of commerce and co-operation, will enable India to access the world while maintaining stability. With only around 20 years before its demographic dividend begins to expire, India has to act quickly to demonstrate that it should be a hub for industry and foreign investment. The union’s quest for a national language may need to be abandoned for India’s economic ambitions.

Republished from East Asia Forum, 1 July 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.