When India gained independence, English, though a colonial inheritance, was strategically retained as a neutral tool for political cohesion. Today, most people no longer experience English as a foreign imposition but as an ordinary, even essential, part of their interaction with the modern world. It now embodies the promise of a successful future, opening doors to education, employment, and social mobility. The statistics speak for themselves: more than 26% of Indian children study in English-medium schools, second only to Hindi, while vernacular-medium classrooms are witnessing a drop in demand.
Even as the new National Education Policy (NEP 2020) emphasizes mother-tongue instruction and some states introduce bilingual models, English remains unchallenged in its dominance. Its power, in a rapidly globalizing world, extends into the professional sphere where it is both the medium and marker of employability. Job postings routinely list English proficiency as a prerequisite, regardless of whether the role demands it. Fluency in English makes candidates more likely to be hired, and helps ascend the career ladder faster. Linguistic capital thus grants entry to elite universities, job markets, and digital and cultural spaces, offering the possibility of overcoming structural barriers. For the public at large, then, English is not only a practical necessity, but a ticket to a better life.
A pertinent issue regarding English is the inequitable access to it. For the upper and middle classes, English is an inherited advantage that comes from the ability to afford quality schools, tutors, and urban exposure. Today, even as parents enroll their children in private schools, the soaring cost of education, driven by unplanned annual fee hikes exceeding 50%, hidden costs, and private coaching, has taken a toll on household budgets, pushing some families to resort to unsustainable cycles of debt. Many are then forced to join government schools which lack the resources to make genuine language acquisition possible. Meanwhile, private English-medium institutions market fluency, effectively commodifying language. Quality education translates to advantages in employment and subsequently, capital ownership; the fact that owners and the higher and lower educated workers together constitute less than 20% of the total population reflects the ramifications of a system dominated by the privileged few.
When we then look at caste, the chasm widens further. Historically excluded Dalit and Adivasi communities, classified under the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) or Other Backward Classes (OBCs), face systemic barriers that limit their access to quality education. The higher the level of education, the wider is the gap in representation, with marginalized castes constituting a disproportionate percentage of dropouts. In certain STEM disciplines, for example, the ratio of forward castes to SC students is as skewed as 11:1. Even when students from such backgrounds manage to enter exclusionary spaces, discrimination and lack of support hinder their progress, as their peers benefit from endogamous networks granting advantages that transcend academia, workplaces, media and social circles. Within this already unequal landscape, limited English proficiency resulting from a poor educational experience marred by both subtle and overt bias, stifles many, perpetuating intergenerational cycles of segregation and immobility.
While class and caste determine who can access English, geography determines where such access is even possible. English-medium schools are majorly located in urban areas, leaving rural students ill-equipped to cater to job market demands. Rural areas are faced with inadequate funding, poor infrastructure and shortage of trained teachers. Teachers are underpaid and overworked, making it difficult to attract talent to rural schools. The poor quality of teaching is compounded by the fact that textbooks and other such resources are conceived with the urban milieu in mind, further hampering student performance. The linguistic gap between English and local mother tongues also presents a significant barrier. Rote memorization replaces comprehension. Students struggle not because they lack intelligence, but because they are taught in a language they do not understand.
Today, English operates as a status symbol that sustains deeply entrenched hierarchies.Those who command it inherit social legitimacy, while others, are perceived as less competent, regardless of actual skill or intellect. Even within the domain of English itself, biases thrive: how one speaks the language becomes a new site of judgement. So-called neutral or Westernized accents, a product of quality schooling and exposure, are valued, while regional dialects and “Indianized” accents are dismissed as unpolished. What ensues is glottophobia, or discrimination based on the use of language, leaving already marginalized groups trapped in a cycle of linguistic, and consequently economic exclusion. Proficiency signifies privilege, and the promise of upward mobility is gatekept by the elite.
In India, English embodies a paradox. It serves as a tool of empowerment for those very communities for whom it is most prohibitively expensive and structurally inaccessible. By opening up spaces historically denied to them, it offers liberation from inherited disadvantage. Even as it actively stifles native languages, causing cultural alienation and eventually, language attrition, it lends a voice to marginalized groups. As the same elites, who would not enroll their children in vernacular-medium schools, decry the loss of culture caused by the linguistic neo-imperialism of English, the lowest social strata are disproportionately burdened with the responsibility of preserving cultural authenticity. English, paradoxically, presents a chance to change this status quo.
As the de facto lingua franca, English is a critical determinant of participation in educational and professional networks, and of engagement with the global economy. Under the weight of structural inequality, however, the ideal of a neutral pathway of progress collapses, separating India’s privileged few from its disadvantaged many. The challenge lies, therefore, in reconciling global competitiveness with local inclusion. Policies that emphasize mother-tongue education, though well-intentioned, risk alienating students from a ubiquitous language, and may exacerbate existing divides.
Measures to democratize access to English, accompanied by systemic reforms to stimulate and preserve our linguistic diversity, are a must. Most importantly, there is a pressing need to restructure the value system that conflates English proficiency with sophistication and competence. Only then will social mobility not be contingent upon mimicry of elite norms. Ultimately, the question is not whether English should dominate, but why our institutions make it impossible to succeed without it. Until that issue is addressed, English will continue to embody both our aspirations and the inequalities that stand in the way of realizing them.
Siya Gaitonde
