There is no guarantee that if we speak in only Indian languages, all our faults will be washed away and India will shine. questions Shyam G Menon.
Why does the Indian Right-Wing hate English?
As per the 2011 census, the percentage of people capable of speaking English in India was 10.67 per cent of the country's total population.
That's significant as share within the English-speaking world internationally. However, within India, it's a small number.
Compared to English's 10.67 per cent share, the ability to speak Hindi was available with 57.09 per cent.
It puzzles sometimes why much bigger numbers of people, comfortably entrenched in the ecosystems of their language, feel annoyed by India's 10 per cent capable of speaking English.
One reason is that in India, the English-speaking lot is sometimes labelled an elite group because one's knowledge of English, has much to do with the type of school or college one went to and the quality of education received.
Add to it, the perception in the political Right that this club of English-speaking types has a disproportionate role in the criticism the Right-Wing faces periodically despite it parking itself with the majority as defined by religion, community and a settled lifestyle with emphasis on making money.
Attacking English is thus a nice, easy way to get back.
In June 2025 when India's Home Minister Amit Shah courted media space afresh with his pronouncements on English -- that the time would come when those speaking the language would be ashamed of it -- I found myself saying: oh, here we go again.
Uniquely, baiting English-speakers isn't an exclusively Right-Wing trait.
Decades ago, when I was attending school in Kerala, we had a term for anyone who could speak English well -- such a person was called the ash-push sort.
Ash-push referred to the impression struck in others by someone who spoke English; it positioned the speaker as a pseudo-foreigner or elite sort and yet, more likely as someone who handled well, a language that others struggled to speak fluently.
Despite it being designed for ridicule, ash-push had a distinct undertone of envy.
And what we are jealous of, we tend to demonise. So, being able to handle English well, rarely made one popular.
On the other hand, if one could speak English and at the same time handle one's mother tongue well, that made one acceptably humble in India.
And if someone who excelled in one's mother tongue could rile the English-speaking in their own language, it was cause for applause.
Mainly because in popular imagination, it signified the majority gatecrashing an exclusive club.
Indian films have often resorted to this imagery.
Suddenly in an Indian language film, the hero bursts into English dialogue putting a set of elite critics in their place.
None of the above is English's creation or English's fault.
It is actually an outcome of the language having suffered the same trajectory, education at large suffered in India, namely -- become trapped in Indian society's pursuit of high status and stay accessible to those who can afford the access.
Plus, there is the stigma of English being the language spoken by India's erstwhile coloniser.
Speaking the same language has been construed to mean several things -- from being approving of the British to not being good enough to unleash India's potential, which some among us insist, responds mainly to traditional cues.
It would be naive to assume that the British pushed for an English education in India, including the teaching of English, because of some great affection for their colony.
The immediate requirement they hoped to address was the creation of an English-speaking intermediary class for purposes of governance.
As was to be expected, this facility was availed most by the privileged communities; it's a stigma that followed modern education, especially education in English medium, into India's post-independence years.
English became the second language of the ruling class and an aspiration for others to learn to make it to the ruling class.
The Right-Wing's attack on English typically leverages the elitism surrounding the language in India.
But what if one kept the elitism triggered by the Indian environment (especially its penchant for categorised society and premium attached to being part of elite circles) aside and dealt with English as the language and window to a different set of perspectives it is?
The first recorded visits by English travelers to India happened around the late 16th century and early 17th century.
On the Internet, a clutch of Englishmen -- among them Thomas Stephens, John Mildenhall and William Hawkins -- find mention as having reached India during this period.
They represented a language, rather young by Indian standards, but spoken by a people participant in Europe's growing exploration of the world and more importantly, its drift into the Age of Renaissance, the looming ascent of science and scientific discovery and then, the Industrial Revolution.
William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest ambassador of the English language, was alive when the first English travelers reached India.
Shakespeare is unlikely to have counted for anything in India then.
But what Europeans and the British therein were embarking on; that would have served as a sustained need to know English.
As with learning any language, it would have been need-based (including as a means for the privileged classes to cozy up to the colonisers) and also fueled by curiosity for the angles resident in how strangers perceive us.
While the Indian Right-Wing appears to have a good time ridiculing the elitism surrounding the usage of English in India, that last bit of how strangers see us and our customs, often gets their goat.
Western society has its generous share of class divides and class-based discrimination.
But India was unique in practising such divides for a long period of time and wiring it into society's foundations as an unavoidable, inherited entrapment from which there was no escape.
Generations stayed trapped in suffocating social circumstances that had been established as their fate by caste.
When I was in school and college, a Western perspective was seen as providing awareness of a larger world and motivating us to shed many of our social shackles.
This was a popular line of reasoning, when outlining the benefits of an English education.
That has since regressed and it is largely thanks to narratives manufactured to counter what was seen as Western education robbing Indians of the capacity to be proud of their culture and heritage.
The Right-Wing has been active in this regard.
The regression has solidified courtesy the ability of the Right-Wing (in no small measure due to its superior financial resources) to repeat its electoral success and acquire the dimension of being a permanent winner on the Indian electoral scene.
Many years ago, the British as coloniser, had appeared similarly immovable.
In India, inevitability I suppose, is a great teacher to elicit surrender and compliance.
What stands out for me in this emergent approach is how politically incorrect it has become to question aspects of Indian culture one disagrees with.
My own culture as an autocratic coloniser in my head -- that seems justified now.
And it hurts because to my eyes, even as we are all born into one circumstance or the other, our journey and our choices remake us.
I have always loved evolution and the idea of choice.
Willingness to be part of faceless collectives, scares me for the level of respect for the individual it holds.
While those opposing the political Right in India are often suspected of being Communist, those seeking greater respect for personal freedom and individual rights are stamped anarchist.
I have felt that the political Right views English through the same prism as it views Communists and individualists (both of who they disapprove of).
I have also felt that the dislike the Right-Wing has for the said two groups is carried on to the English language for its role as purveyor of western ideas / values and the education and perspective it signifies.
Similar distrust graces the Right-Wing's approach to religions that reached India from the outside world and the cultures and linguistic ecosystems they spawned.
Overall, the aversion is a denial of introspection, for sometimes what the outsider's perspective does, is to remind us of the need to introspect when we forget to.
I think that's why contemporary Right-Wing politics is such a prickly pear.
It feels most secure when nobody criticises it and it is on a roll casting a whole country in its self-image.
And in that blessed Right-Wing portrait of India, the considerate punishment for anyone unlike the recommended norm, is to feel ashamed. Time to visit what Shah said.
On June 20, 2025, The Hindu reported: Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday (June 19, 2025) that those who speak English in India would 'soon feel ashamed' and that the creation of such a society was not far away.
He added that without Indian languages, 'we cease to be truly Indian.'
Mr Shah was heard making these comments at the launch of a book by former IAS officer Ashutosh Agnihotri. ANI had posted the video of the speech on its X handle, but later deleted it.
Mr Shah was heard saying, 'In this country, those who speak English will soon feel ashamed -- the creation of such a society is not far away.'
The report further said: 'I believe that the languages of our country are the jewels of our culture. Without our languages, we cease to be truly Indian.'
Mr Shah further said that 'our culture, our history, and our religion cannot be understood in foreign languages.'
'With self-respect, we will run our country in our own languages and lead the world too,' he added.
I agree with Shah partly in his observation that India's culture, history and religion cannot be understood in foreign languages.
I say partly because as the English-speaking (like this author) knows, they haven't totally missed knowing India due to information consumed in the English language.
There are gaps and nuances, which only Indian languages can fill. Which is why, genuine scholarship does not discriminate between languages. All of them count for proper knowledge.
However, for me, the key word in what the home minister said is 'ashamed'.
He suggested that a time would come when those speaking in English would feel ashamed.
Aside from the risk of not connecting while communicating (if the other person does not speak the same tongue) and the hazard of numerical superiority leveraged to bully minorities into feeling ashamed, I don't see any reason why anyone should feel ashamed of talking in a language of their choice.
Indeed, I would argue that a sense of shame and the desire to compensate exists in the Right-Wing, which has a problem with English.
While Shah's forecast of shame for English-speakers in India was reported in June, from several months before that incident, one of the highly tracked developments in Indian politics was where writer-diplomat-politician Shashi Tharoor may be headed.
Tharoor has been the poster boy of English in India.
Currently a member of the Congress party, the above said media curiosity surrounding Tharoor has been largely on account of -- what appears to be -- his dalliance with the political Right.
There has been periodic approval for Tharoor, from the Right-Wing.
If India's political Right is -- as Shah's comment indicates -- averse to the ecosystem of the English-speaking, why do they like Tharoor; why did the government want him on the team of parliamentarians that recently went overseas after Operation Sindoor?
In the architecture of what Tharoor is today, how much of a role do we see English having played?
Unlike Shah, the people I come across have a practical approach to the English language.
In many countries at present, the political Right sees itself as true guardians of patriotism and nationhood.
As this brand of politics grows, three realities have surfaced alongside.
First, systems authored by the wave of globalisation on since the 1990s, have got checked; they are in retreat, perhaps temporarily.
Second, this retreat is happening at exactly the time when the planet finds itself saddled with the highest human population yet.
Currently, India is the world's most populous country.
Human migration in search of opportunity, greener pastures and sometimes simply space to survive, is unstoppable. It has always happened.
Today's scale of migration worries those zealously invested in identity-based nationhood.
Notwithstanding globalisation paused or slowed, the search for space to live and prosper will continue.
This means, there is no running away from the fact that the world is much bigger than what one's mother tongue alone can tackle.
The world needs connecting languages and if some languages have already achieved required scale or learning it enhances chances of employment (example: Indian nurses learning German), practical minds will embrace that reality rather than battle it.
Third with its multitude of cultures, languages and dialects, India is a microcosm of the world.
Sub-nationalism exists and a genuine connecting language has to be one that does not provoke anyone's sub-nationalist cultural loyalties.
English filled some of this space well in India because it belonged to no community from within the country.
As did Hindi despite its Indian origin and its promotion by New Delhi sometimes sparking strong protests in Tamil Nadu.
Hindi's spread was thanks to the largely unintrusive manner (and the purpose for which, it was used -- to communicate and get things done) in which the language gained currency in many non-Hindi-speaking states till India's emergent brand of Right-Wing politics made Hindi de facto ambassador of national identity.
This has brought Hindi into direct competition with English, a language introduced to India by a former coloniser but one that finds traction in non-Hindi states as link language because it doesn't give the impression of one part of the country colonising another.
Hindi and English had coexisted peacefully but given the Right-Wing's sense of security is never complete unless it paints a whole landscape in its colours, coexistence would seem traded for competition.
Mother tongues are spared because the Right-Wing knows, it's a hornet's nest and they would be stung badly if they disturbed it. English is fair game.
Here, we must pause and recall two minor details from the 2011 Census.
First, the number of people speaking English as first language in India is just 0.02 per cent.
The overall share of 10.67 per cent is reached by adding those speaking English as second and third language as well.
It points to the share of the language's utilitarian, connecting quality in the overall number of people speaking English in India.
Against this, out of the 57.09 per cent of the Indian population that speaks Hindi, as much as 43.63 per cent speak it as first language.
At first glance, this would seem nothing. But if you recognise the universe of those speaking Hindi as first language as enormous compared to the same for English, then the numbers accepting Hindi as second and third language are hardly reflective of matching proportion.
From being 43 times bigger in size as indicated by the share of population speaking Hindi as first language, Hindi ends up just about six times bigger than English when those using it as second and third language are also factored in.
Not just that -- while the numbers using English as second language as per the 2011 Census, are the second biggest among the major languages after Hindi, in the category of those using it as third language, English tops (source: 2011 census details as available on Wikipedia (external link).
Second, there is a vast area -- mostly in the center of India and to its north -- where (as per the 2011 Census), the percentage of English-speaking people is not as high as in some other places.
These lands are home to a sizable chunk of India's population.
It is also where the Indian Right-Wing has traditionally held strong, including in elections.
So, if today, there is the observation in some quarters (particularly South India) that the Right-Wing promotes Hindi at the expense of English because that is directly helpful to its main constituency; it is an argument, which is hard to ignore.
An associated question that crops up is -- which is more attractive to the non-Hindi-speaking lot looking for a connecting language: The scale and quality of world accessed by Hindi or the scale and quality of world accessed by English? I leave it to you to decide.
From my side, I will merely share my personal experience.
Years ago, when attending school in Kerala, Malayalam was taught with the intention that students should take pride in their mother tongue.
One was expected to wrestle with literature beyond one's years likely because there was no other paradigm to showcase pride.
Consequently, I found myself staring at complex lessons in the language and by the time I reached high school, I had grown tired of it.
The language stopped being enjoyable. On the other hand, I loved English because expectations were less.
Hindi fell in between and was reserved for use when one left Kerala and headed north.
Needless to say, as time passed by, my comfort was most in English, wherein there was no pride attached and I happily read whatever I could lay my hands on.
As for the familiarity with Hindi (not scholarship), it helped when I left Kerala and moved through Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh on work.
At each of these places, I made friends. Bottomline -- whatever didn't put pressure on me and rested easy, I took along with me on my life's journey.
Now in my senior years, almost retired and wanting to know Kerala better, I find myself more patient with Malayalam.
There is a time for everything. To vagabonds like me (we are a minority), linguistic pride is a red flag because it hints of insularity and limiting imagination, while the vagabond-instinct favors moving on in search of wider world and interesting things.
Problem is -- when has the political Right liked anything other than itself, leave alone vagabonds?
Not to mention -- vagabonds who maybe secular or atheist or agnostic.
If the Right-Wing had the ability and confidence to understand beyond its own self, would it have sought the crushing domination by hook or crook, it became known for?
Finally, there is the question of whether dumping all faults on English and burning the language at the stake, will stop uncomfortable questions from rising.
Late June in Thiruvananthapuram, I found myself in the audience at a talk (in English) by an eminent Malayali jurist on the longstanding problem of division by caste and how it impedes the principle of one humanity-one citizenship in India.
One of the slides in the presentation listed the flurry of social reformers born in India in the 19th century.
Given the talk was happening in Kerala, the names were mostly from the state.
All the people in the list had questioned the caste system. They went on to speak against it and seek its dismantling (the disappearance of caste is yet to happen).
Later, while chatting about the lecture, a friend and I noted that apart from a giant in the field like Dr B R Ambedkar, who studied overseas, most of the other names listed in the presentation didn't seem so strongly linked to an English education as to call them children of an English education.
Their rebellion appeared rooted in their personal experience and awareness of the Indian environment.
And the insights and wisdom they offered was remarkable.
Simply put, one does not need English to be a rebel or a reformer in India.
Honest observation would do to notice what's wrong. In other words, even if the English-speaking are snuffed out or shamed to extinction, the Indian environment and the Right-Wing therein, would still face questions.
There is no guarantee that if we speak in only Indian languages, all our faults will be washed away and India will shine.
I don't think the Right-Wing is unaware of any of the above. They know it quite well.
Why then do they bully and belittle the English-speaking?
I think it's click-bait and the best way to ensure a click -- that gateway to great visibility nowadays -- is to provoke and irritate.
Not to mention, in the arena of politics, bullying the English-speaking probably gets applause from fans of the Right-Wing.
The English-speaking huddled together in fright in the gladiators' pit.
Caesar's thumb goes up or down?
For some politicians and their parties, it's sport.
Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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