Opinion For Dalits, English is the language of emancipation
English paved the way for my socio-economic mobility and cultural power. As a teacher, I recognise the necessity of learning Hindi to engage in the classroom effectively, but as a South Indian, I do not wish the hegemony of any language over other regional languages
The language taught in school, spoken in the family, used in the job market and in the cultural sphere. (File) 
Language, the carrier of our identities and emotions, has the power to shape sensibilities and knowledge production. Historically, lack of appropriate linguistic abilities has excluded marginalised communities like women, lower castes and tribals, and denied them access to many resources, mainly education. No wonder Jotiba Phule said that education is the “tritya ratna” or the third eye, crucial to gaining wisdom. The past two centuries have seen heated debates on the language issue in India, from the colonial trickle-down policy to the National Education Policy of 2020.
The hierarchy of language
Our unfortunate reality is that every Indian citizen is enmeshed in the hierarchy of languages: The language taught in school, spoken in the family, used in the job market and in the cultural sphere. Linguistic pride went hand in hand with nationalist aspirations, and independent India envisaged both Hindi and English as link languages. Whenever this delicate balance was sought to be shaken by imposing Hindi as a “national” language, there was widespread discontent. Why should citizens swear allegiance to one language as mandated by the state? Hindi is just another language among the 22 languages recognised by the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
The periodic moral panic over Hindi stems from the gradual acceptance of English by the public and in the job market. Is it because the access to English education has enabled the hitherto oppressed communities to climb up the social, economic and political ladder? South India, where English was taught along with the mother tongue and Hindi, has seen steady economic progress, especially in the rapidly-growing IT and service sectors. In its report (2025), NITI Aayog flagged the lack of English language skills as a deterrent for state university graduates finding employment. The average person in South India can speak or understand at least three languages, whereas in the Hindi-speaking states, the numbers are drastically low.
Language and emancipation
“Education is the milk of a lioness, the one who drinks it cannot stay without roaring.” For Dalits, these words of Ambedkar, have proved to be a powerful tool to negotiate their space in the caste-ridden society. Like many first-generation Dalits, I too received my initial education in my mother tongue along with Hindi and English as individual subjects. The turning point occurred during my graduate studies, when a teacher scolded me, asking, “Have you travelled 14 hours from your native place to this institution to continue your studies in the Telugu medium?” However, a different phase of my academic journey got me into a premier university as a teacher of Political Science. Personally, English bridged the distance not only geographically but also in terms of ideas.
Although I knew how to read and write in Hindi, having cleared the “rashtra bhasha” exam during matriculation, I also trained myself to teach in Hindi as the majority of the students hailed from the Hindi belt. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of good translations of English texts, which would help such students to excel further. Often, they lag behind their classmates due to a lack of English fluency, which is essential for the job market. Hailing from the Dalit community, English paved the way for my socio-economic mobility and cultural power. As a teacher working in a public university in Delhi, I recognise the necessity of learning Hindi to engage in the classroom effectively. However, as a South Indian, I do not wish for the hegemony of any language over other regional languages.
The steady progress of Hindi hegemony is limiting opportunities for non-Hindi speakers to access employment in major institutions. How do we explain the fact that Hindi speakers from north India easily get into central government institutions in the south but the reverse rarely happens? The Home Minister pointed out that 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight North East states and nine tribal communities of the region have converted the scripts of their dialects to Devanagari. This will gradually wipe out indigenous knowledge, cultural heritage and identities.
One nation, one language?
Hindi is now used to browbeat other identities while claiming a larger share of the nation’s resources. The RSS, which is the ideological mentor of the ruling party, consistently claims that it respects all Indian languages. When education is part of the concurrent list, and states can devise their policies, what is the rationale for stopping grants for non-implementation of the three-language policy, as has been done in Tamil Nadu? As per the 2011 Census, the Hindi-speaking population stood at 44 per cent, nearly seven percentage points more than in 1971.
Many years ago, Ambedkar had poignantly told Gandhiji that “I have no homeland”. His words proved very prescient. He also stated that “Democracy is not merely a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellow men”. The life world of the average citizen is shrinking rapidly; what languages to learn/speak, what diet to consume, which faith to follow to merely survive, whom to love, or what dress will reveal/hide your identity — everything comes with a hefty price tag. We celebrate the success of our political democracy by conveniently ignoring social democracy at our collective peril.
The writer teaches Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Delhi University
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