Our missing links to progress
India's civilisational history demonstrates our linguistic diversity never hindered cultural and social unity. In ancient times, languages used in different parts of our country flourished alongside pan-Indian languages like Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Pali. These languages enabled spreading of knowledge, spirituality and governance across the nation without displacing local languages. Trade routes, universities like Nalanda and Takshashila, and Bhakti and Jain movements thrived in a multilingual environment. India never needed a foreign language to stay intellectually or culturally united.
English became dominant in India, not by natural choice. It was imposed. The British deliberately positioned English as a marker of prestige and power. The arguments that English should be a link language remind us that we have yet to decolonise fully. Mahatma Gandhi's opposition to English was grounded in linguistic self-respect, national unity, and decolonisation principles. He wrote in Young India in 1921: To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them… The foundation that Macaulay laid of education has enslaved us. There is no doubt that sole reliance on English as a national link language has the detrimental potential to reinforce social hierarchies and widen the divide between the privileged and the rest.'
The framers of the Constitution envisioned English as a transitional necessity—not a permanent feature. The Eighth Schedule recognises 22 Indian languages as vital to India's identity and governance. The decision to uphold linguistic plurality was a defining feature of our constitutional settlement. The framers of our Constitution resisted the temptation to impose a singular language identity. To demand English as the central link is to dilute that foundational commitment to linguistic justice.
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