The Burden of Babel: India’s Language Policy, Lost in Translation

A policy meant to unite the nation’s classrooms has instead left students juggling burdensome tongues and policymakers without a clear vision.

In early August, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, unveiled a two-language formula - Tamil and English - for the state’s schools. With that announcement, Tamil Nadu thumbed its nose at the three-language policy mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) of 2020. The southern state is not alone. Maharashtra and several other non-Hindi speaking states have already voiced unease about Delhi’s prescriptions on language. The clash is emblematic of a deeper paradox: a country that trumpets its multilingual heritage but cannot agree on how to teach its children.

Across India, young students are compelled to learn at least three languages: English, Hindi (or another regional language), and the mother tongue. Migrants often shoulder a fourth, if rudimentary familiarity with their community’s speech is expected. Such linguistic multitasking may sound impressive, but it comes at a cost. Pupils spend precious hours memorising vocabulary and grammar when they might instead be mastering algebra or physics. While other countries streamline education by teaching mainly in a single language, India’s young are saddled with linguistic burdens that crowd out core learning.

This tension has persisted since independence. The framers of the Constitution, wary of privileging one tongue over another, declined to impose a compulsory national language. Hindi was given pride of place but not exclusivity. English was retained for official use, partly out of practicality, partly because no one could agree on an alternative. It was a pragmatic compromise, but one that left unanswered the question of how to balance the strengths of English, Hindi and the myriad regional tongues. Eight decades on, successive governments have failed to provide a coherent vision.

Consider Hindi, India’s most widely spoken language. Its dominance in politics and the media lends it an aura of inevitability. Yet Hindi is, in many ways, a modern construct: a colonial invention that blended Sanskrit and Hindustani to displace Urdu under British rule. Northern states adopted it as a replacement for their dialects. Compared with ancient and classical tongues such as Tamil or Bengali, Hindi lacks the claim of deep historical roots.

Proponents of Hindi often attempt to impose it on non-Hindi regions. But even in the Hindi belt, the language is ill-equipped to serve as a medium of higher education or professional training. Witness the travails of Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi University, which shuttered its engineering programme after only a handful of students enrolled. Parents in Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh are as eager to send their children to English-medium schools as their counterparts in Mumbai or Chennai. Without investment in textbooks, research, and technical vocabulary, Hindi cannot hope to become the lingua franca of India’s laboratories or boardrooms.

Tongue Tied

Elsewhere, the pattern is similar. Bengal, despite its literary tradition, struggles to ensure Bengali is taught even as an optional subject in private schools. Other states with proud linguistic heritages have done little better. Vernacular schooling has been allowed to wither. Government-run schools are plagued by underfunding, corruption and political meddling, pushing ambitious families toward private English-medium institutions. As a result, regional languages are increasingly relegated to the home and the street rather than the classroom and the workplace.

Such neglect breeds contradiction. Politicians invoke the grandeur of Tamil, Telugu or Marathi on campaign trails, yet do little to expand their practical utility. Few serious efforts exist to produce high-quality science or engineering textbooks in Indian languages. Nor have state governments invested in teacher training or built robust curricula. Without such infrastructure, regional languages cannot sustain themselves as vehicles of higher learning.

English ascendant

Into this vacuum strides English. Once a colonial imposition, it has become the passport to opportunity. For the urban middle class, English-medium schooling is not just desirable but essential. The boom in information technology and outsourcing has only reinforced this tilt. The clerks who once served the British are replaced by software engineers who service clients in New York or London.

The dominance of English is not inevitable. Other countries have shown that scientific and technical progress is compatible with education in native tongues. Japan, Korea and China all instruct their youth primarily in their own languages, reserving English as a tool for international communication rather than a medium of instruction. This allows students to focus on mastering core subjects rather than juggling multiple grammars.

Yet India remains stuck. The absence of a viable alternative in higher education makes English indispensable. Universities in Delhi, Bengaluru or Pune conduct advanced studies overwhelmingly in English, not because it is intrinsically superior, but because Hindi and regional languages have not been developed to carry the weight of modern science and scholarship.

Employers, meanwhile, have grown more pragmatic. In the civil services, candidates may write exams and interviews in vernacular languages. In corporate offices, English often mingles with Hindi or local dialects in a functional if inelegant patois. For software firms, fluency matters less than coding ability. Increasingly, workplace competence trumps linguistic pedigree. A baseline proficiency in English suffices, provided domain knowledge is strong. This reality should, in theory, ease India’s language wars. If opportunities exist in multiple languages, perhaps the choice of instruction need not be zero-sum. But the education system continues to lag. Students are still forced to grapple with three-language formulas in school, while neither Hindi nor regional tongues are nurtured sufficiently to rival English at higher levels. The result being that English grows stronger by default, while Indian languages weaken from neglect.

It was not always this way. A generation ago, vernacular schools produced bright scientists and engineers who excelled in competitive exams. Many thrived in jobs abroad despite having studied in their mother tongues. Private initiatives once bolstered this ecosystem: in Bengal, Meghnad Saha and S.N. Bose championed scientific publishing in Bengali through the Bengal Science Society. Textbooks in Bengali electrical engineering by S.R. Chakraborty circulated widely for decades. Such efforts testify to what is possible when intellectuals commit to vernacular education.

Today, such enterprises are scarce. The market alone cannot be expected to revive them. Governments must lead. That means investing in school infrastructure, developing higher education curricula in Hindi and regional languages, and training teachers. It also means publishing quality textbooks, encouraging academic research in Indian languages, and ensuring that students educated in vernacular mediums face no discrimination in admissions or recruitment. Unless such steps are taken, families will continue to vote with their feet for English-medium schooling.

Identity Questions

At stake is more than pedagogy. Language is a pillar of cultural identity. Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and others form the backbone of literature, cinema, and daily life. But languages confined to homes and festivals, rather than used in universities and offices, risk withering over time. If India wishes to preserve its linguistic heritage, it must extend it beyond rhetoric. That requires less political chest-thumping and more practical investment. Leaders who rail against English while sending their own children to English-medium schools only deepen public cynicism. To strengthen Indian languages, governments must make them useful in real life, particularly in higher education and professional fields.

For now, the three-language formula persists as a political balancing act. It placates interest groups but leaves students overburdened and underprepared. Until India musters the will to modernise its vernacular education, English will remain the default winner. Hindi and regional languages will jostle for symbolic space, while hapless students carry the load of all three. India’s linguistic mosaic, one of its richest inheritances, risks becoming a liability rather than an asset. Without reform, the young will continue to be lost in translation.

(The author is a senior journalist based in Navi Mumbai. Views personal.)