It’s no longer colonial, it’s Indian.
“Is English an Indian language?” The Supreme Court’s recent observation has revived the debate. The answer from history, data, and literature is yes.
English came with the British. But languages don’t belong to empires forever. They belong to the people who speak them. Indians took English, changed it, and made it their own.
By 1823, Raja Ram Mohan Roy was petitioning in English. By 1897, Gandhi was translating Hind Swaraj. Ambedkar debated the Constitution in it. Today, 129 million Indians use English as first, second or third language. 83 million call it their second language.
It’s now the language of our courts, science, business, and much of higher education. It’s also a literary language — from R.K. Narayan to Arundhati Roy. The Sahitya Akademi gives awards for writing in English.
This is not about replacing Hindi or Tamil. It’s about addition. India has always been multilingual. English is just the newest member of the family, and the one that connects us to the world.
To deny English a place in “Indianness” is to deny the contributions of generations of Indians who used it to fight colonialism, build institutions, and tell Indian stories.
English is no longer the language of the rulers. It’s the language of Indian aspiration. It has earned its place not by decree, but by use.