English is now code for ‘Khan Market Gang'. BJP is fighting a phantom enemy

The Print

4 hours ago

He stated that 'to understand our country, our culture, our history, and our religion, no foreign language can suffice. The idea of a complete India cannot be imagined through half-baked foreign languages.' Shah also went on to say that he was aware of the challenge, but also 'fully confident that Indian society will win it. Once again, with self-respect, we will run our country in our own languages and lead the world too.'
Last week at a book launch, Union Home Minister Amit Shah made that clear. Shah said that those who speak English in India would 'soon feel ashamed' and that the creation of such a society was not far away. He went on to say that Indian languages are the jewels of our culture, and without them, 'we cease to be truly Indian'.
It's been 11 years since the Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in India. There is a long string of victories that the government can claim, but defeating a language isn't one of them.
Shah's pronouncements aren't emerging in a vacuum. For years, language debates have simmered in India, particularly around the New Education Policy's three-language formula, which southern states view as Hindi imposition (although the policy does not explicitly mandate Hindi). Tamil Nadu has been especially vocal in its resistance, labelling the policy as a direct assault on linguistic federalism. The timing of Shah's remarks – delivered just as Bihar prepares for October-November polls and Tamil Nadu gears up for elections next April – is carefully calibrated electoral ammo. By villainising English, the BJP is no doubt betting that linguistic nationalism will energise its base in the Hindi heartland, even if it alienates the southern states.
The backlash to Amit Shah's remarks was swift – and very likely, desired. The Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, wrote on X: 'English is not a dam, it is a bridge. English is not shameful, it is empowering. English is not a chain – it is a tool to break the chains.' He went on to accuse the BJP and RSS of opposing English education for poor children to suppress their ability to question authority and demand equality. Kerala ministers R Bindu and V Sivankutty dismissed Shah's remarks as 'restrictive and narrow-minded', warning that discouraging English would only make Indians' worlds 'more restrictive'.
From other corners of the internet came memes and videos: Of Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking in English at a recent Bihar campaign rally; another of Jay Shah, Chairman of the International Cricket Council, speaking English haltingly.
Khan Market Gang
All of these reactions ignore the fact that when Amit Shah derides English speakers, he's not just talking about the language. He's tapping into a phantom enemy that has befuddled the BJP-RSS machine for years. 'English' is now code for a clever adversary we've known in the past variously as 'anti-national', 'tukde-tukde gang', 'Lutyens' Delhi (pejorative)', 'champagne leftists', 'limousine liberals' and my personal favourite, 'Khan Market Gang'.
Several of these labels have been around since Mr Modi's first term, but the last gained currency in 2019, when the PM famously identified them as a cabal of people that wanted to dismantle the legacy he'd built with '45 years of tapasya'. Crucially, this gang has kept the non-elites, the Hindi-speaking heart of India's population, from adequate representation in the corridors of power.
Aside from a handful of non-compliant journalists and writers, no one has yet been identified as a Khan Market Gang member. It is everyone and no one – a shapeshifting enemy that expands to include anyone who has a passing problem with the Indian state. Originally used to refer to Delhi's English-speaking, Western-educated elite who frequent overpriced cafes and wine bars, the gang's membership has grown magnificently elastic.
Say you are a farmer from Punjab or Haryana, taking exception to bills that didn't take your dissent into account. Maybe you haven't even heard about the existence of Khan Market, but mentally and spiritually, you are a member of the gang. Your integration with the Khan Market Gang organically began the day you chose to be an NGO or an activist, working to better the lives of non-elites. As a young JNU student, the gates of middling coffee shops and overpriced wine bars are probably closed for you, but no one can wrest your Khan Market Gang membership card from you.
The genius lies in the label's infinite flexibility: it can absorb any critic, and anything can be blamed on the Khan Market Gang. No one embodies this contradiction better than Shashi Tharoor. On odd days, he's Exhibit A of the Khan Market Gang's English-speaking treachery; on even days, he's dispatched to represent India's interests at global forums, in the same shameful colonial tongue.
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BJP is Lutyens Delhi
Here's why Amit Shah's latest remarks on English are particularly rich. After 11 years of railing against Lutyens Delhi, you could argue that the BJP is Lutyens Delhi.
They govern from the same corridors. They live in the same bungalows that they claimed were symbols of elite capture. As 'outsiders' who promised to drain the swamp, they now control every single institution – executive and regulatory bodies, investigative agencies, media houses – that they once accused of being compromised. Yet somehow, the Khan Market Gang remains the perpetual threat.
In 2022, Caravan magazine wrote about a 'Khan Market cast of mind' and the failure of the urban elite to reckon with caste in a meaningful way: 'It is eight years since 2014, certainly time enough for any efforts at increased diversity and inclusiveness to show up. But consider the G-23 list of the Congress. More than a third are Brahmins, and half are either Brahmin or Thakur. Consider the NDTV ads of their anchors beaming down at us, a majority of them Brahmins, all of them upper castes.
Look through the editorial ranks of even the new digital portals that lead the challenge to this government, and you see the same old caste profile, the article stressed. 'Stare at the faculty at Ashoka, take the case of any of the most prominent civil-society organisations or consider any gathering of people from the Left and the same phenomenon is repeated.' The same Brahmin-dominated elite that the BJP claimed to challenge continued business as usual.
Meanwhile, the masses who believed this anti-elite promise face a more complex reality. While there is clear evidence that India has made significant strides to reduce extreme poverty, our employment figures tell a different story. Economic growth that doesn't translate into sufficient job creation for a young, expanding workforce. Policy decisions like demonetisation and the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns hit people in the informal sectors – championed by the BJP – the hardest. Meanwhile, champagne liberals, insulated in formal employment and inherited wealth, weathered these storms largely unaffected.
India's non-English speakers have been promised a moving target of a $5-trillion economy and dreams of becoming the 'vishwaguru', a global teacher leading the world through ancient wisdom and modern prowess. Yet, both these headline objectives require exactly what Amit Shah now wants Indians to abandon. English dominates international commerce, scientific research, diplomatic engagement, and knowledge exchange. India's IT and service sectors, which have represented upward social mobility for lakhs of families, exist because of our English proficiency.
So when Shah promises that English speakers will feel ashamed, it begs the question: How exactly does India plan to become the 'vishwaguru' if its citizens are ever more insular? Phantom enemies are fine; every government needs a few. But when you convince people that their limitations should be viewed as patriotic victories, the consequences extend far beyond politics. This is how a country talks itself into irrelevance.
Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)