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Question
Give one reason why English continued to be used in India after Independence.
Solution
The question of language is an important one in the Indian setup. India is a land of several regional languages. In 1956, the Indian states were reorganised on the basis of language. In such circumstances, imposing any one of the regional languages on the entire country would have proved divisive, as it did in the case of Pakistan (which imposed Urdu on the Bengali-speaking East Pakistan) and Sri Lanka (which made Sinhala the sole official language of the country, disregarding the Tamil-speaking minority who lived in the North of the island).
While discussing the language question in the Constituent Assembly, many members wanted Hindi to take over as the sole official language in place of English. However, those who did not speak Hindi were of a different opinion. They did not wish Hindi to be imposed on them. A compromise was finally arrived at: namely, that while Hindi would be the “official language” of India, English would be used in the courts, the services, and communications between one state and another.
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