The question often arises: what should be India’s national language. The problem does not end merely by deciding what shall be our national language. More than a national language what we require is a comprehensive language policy. We have many languages widely used in our country, but what shall be the appropriate role of each? What language shall be used for inter-state communication? What language shall be used by the central government for official purpose? What language shall be most appropriate as medium of instruction in schools? Should we have a different medium of instruction for higher education? How many languages should a student learn in school and at what stage? These are some of the questions a language policy is expected to answer.

It has now come to be accepted that the medium of instruction in schools should be the regional language. Thus, the medium of instruction shall be Malayalam in Kerala, Telugu in Telengana, Hindi in UP and Haryana, Bengali in West Bengal and so on. In most cases, this does not create any difficulty as for instance when the regional language and the mother tongue of the student happen to coincide. But, this is not always the case. Take the case of a Hindi-speaking family settled in the state of Tamil Nadu. The local schools shall have adopted Tamil as the medium of instruction. The problem is not very difficult when the concerned North-Indian family has decided to settle down permanently in Tamil Nadu. In this case, they may reconcile to the idea of sending their children to Tamil medium schools. But the problem will be much more acute for a family which has to shift to different parts of the country, e.g. a family which gets transferred from Haryana to Tamil Nadu and then to Telengana and from there to West Bengal. It would be too much to expect a child to change his medium of instruction three times during the course of his school education. This brings us to the need for having schools in different parts of the country providing education other than in the language of the region.

What should be the medium of instruction in higher education? The problem here is different from what it is in schools. The difference arises from the fact that inter-state mobility is much more in higher education than in school education. If universities in each state adopt the regional language as their medium of instruction, it will severely restrict inter-state mobility of students and teachers. The problem is more acute in the case of institutes of national importance. Take the case of IITs, which are the pioneering centers of technological education in India. What language shall these institutes adopt as medium of instruction? Should IIT, Chennai adopt Tamil, IIT, Kharagpur Bengali, IIT, Kanpur Hindi and so on or all these institutes adopt a common medium of instruction? If a common medium of instruction is adopted, what shall this medium be?

The language problem is not solved by deciding the medium of instruction in educational institutions. The problem of communication between state governments still remains. At present, each state government is in the process of adopting the regional language as the medium for administrative purposes. If this becomes so, then the need for a suitable language for inter-state communication creeps up. Moreover, the central government shall have to adopt a particular language for its own official work.

There is still the problem of communication between people of different regions and problem of communication between states and center and people all over the country. What language, for instance, shall the central government use for communication with a person living in West Bengal? What language shall the Tamil Nadu government use for communication with a business firm established in Kanpur. What language shall be used as a medium in inter-state trade and commerce? What language shall a tourist from West Bengal use while he is on tour to Kerala? What language shall a student from Karnataka use for local communication in Kolkata? An appropriate language policy shall have to give suitable answers to each of these problems.

We have elaborated the issues that arise in framing a Language Policy. At present, most of these problems do not arise since English is used as the medium for inter-regional and inter-governmental communication and as medium of instruction in higher education. But problems shall arise if we try to remove English from its pre-eminent position.

The most important disqualification of English is that it is a foreign language. On the other hand the merits of having English as the link language are many. It is already playing the role of a national link language. Secondly, it is neutral between different regions in the country as no state shall be in an advantageous position when English is used as the link language. Thirdly, English is a highly developed language and very rich in science, social science, and general literature. Fourthly, the bulk of academic research done in India has been published in English and availability of text books is also the maximum in English language.

The merit of having Hindi as the national link language is that it is an Indian language and also the most popular Indian language. But it has been argued to the disadvantage of Hindi that the scientific and general literature available in this language is quite inferior in comparison to what is available in English. By far, the most important disqualification of Hindi in becoming the national link language is that it is not neutral as between regions. If Hindi becomes the official link language it can be to the disadvantage of non-Hindi speaking states. If Hindi is widely used in central government, the employees hailing from the Hindi-speaking regions shall always enjoy an advantage over the rest of India – both at the time of recruitment and after they enter the job. This shall always remain a cause of tension and inter-regional rivalry in India as long as Hindi continues to play the role of national link language. Thus the greatest danger in having Hindi as the national link language is that it will always keep ablaze the flames of inter-state rivalry and disintegrating tendencies.

It has sometimes been argued that the national link language should be a language of the masses. It was this stand which persuaded many nationalists to decide in favour of Hindi. But the argument that the national link language should be a common man’s language stands on flimsy grounds. The requirement for a nationally accepted link language is more for the intellectuals and scholars than for the masses. For intellectuals and scholars in a nation there should be a common language to exchange their ideas. The important research work done all over the country should be accessible in one selected language. Moreover, when intellectuals, scholars, academicians, writers, politicians, bureaucrats and journalists meet each other anywhere in the country there should be common language they could all understand. This is the requirement of learned people and no language is better suited for the purpose than English.

The requirement for the common man is different. For the common man it is always essential and unavoidable to learn the local language wherever he settles down. When a labourer from Tamil Nadu settles down in Bengal he has to learn Bengali. If he settles down in Gujarat he has to learn Gujarati. He cannot achieve his task with English. The labour class cannot function with a link language. Their requirement will always be to learn the local language. This phenomenon is very much in operation today when English plays the role of link language. English is today the link language of only the educated class. A semi-literate person from Tamil Nadu when he settles down in Delhi communicates more in Hindi than in English. Similarly if he settles down in Kerala he will use more of Malayalam and so also if he settles down in Karnataka, Kannada will be a better companion to him than English. On the other hand, a university professor from Delhi wherever he chooses to go in India will always find that English is his best friend.

Thus the requirement of a link language is different for the common man and for the educated person. A universally accepted link language is basically the requirement of the educated class. For the common man the requirement is always to learn the local language whatever it may be.

As regards usage of languages, our prescription would be as follows: English should be the medium of instruction in higher education and the medium for official work in central government. English should also remain the medium for inter-governmental communication and inter-regional communication among individuals. English should continue as the medium for inter-state trade and commerce. But the medium of official work in state governments can be the local language and so also the medium of instruction in most of the schools.

Care should be taken to see that language learning should not become much of a burden on students. At present we have accepted the three language formula in schools and a student is required to learn three languages over which he has no choice. He learns the local language, English and Hindi and all three languages have been pre-determined. This is the type of situation presently faced by a student from non-Hindi-speaking states. The student is learning three languages; but if he has an inclination to learn a specific language he has to study a fourth language. This illustrates the burden of language study in schools. A student from Kerala may have an inherent inclination to learn Bengali or Urdu or Tamil or Sanskrit or Japanese or Chinese or Russian or Arabic or German. But if he wants to learn any of these languages it is now not possible to do so in school, since under the three language formula, the three languages he has to learn are already predetermined. If he has to learn a language of his choice he will be learning a fourth language. Is this not a heavy burden on the young student?

The three language policy imposes a severe burden on students as far as language learning is concerned. When we are yet to achieve the goal of universal literacy it is utopian to experiment with a three language policy. Instead we should adopt a language policy where English and one Indian language are taught as compulsory subjects. In addition the student should be given the option to learn a third language of his choice which could be any one of the Indian languages or a foreign language. The student should be freed from the burden of learning three compulsory languages.

The agitation that is going on by civil service aspirants in the country today is based on two issues. The agitators believe that non-English speaking aspirants are discriminated against and the bulk of candidates selected into civil service are from engineering or management background. There is a need to make the Civil Service Exam language neutral. There is no need to have a special paper or section of certain papers devoted to any specific language whether it be English, Hindi or any other except for the literature optional papers. If a candidate is able to handle general knowledge, science and humanities in the language opted by him he should be considered as having the necessary linguistic skills required of a civil servant.

In India today the most intelligent students go for medicine, engineering, management etc. after plus two stage. Of these, those who go for medicine seldom opt for civil services. The most intelligent students in the country thus become professionals. So it is natural that when a competition is held to select civil servants these professionally qualified candidates secure the top seats. Nothing much can be done about this.