Our Vice President recently expressed disapproval of English as a medium of education while inaugurating an institute in Haridwar articulating a widely held view among India's saffron political class.
The problem is that it frames the issue in a false binary, there is no case of English vs Indian languages and both are indispensable. English thrives because of its utilitarian value and facilitates the path to a rapidly expanding universe of knowledge whose production is global in nature.
Given the reach of Hindi in the hinterlands India is uniquely placed to be multilingual which has positive cognitive effects. Education reforms require clear headed and logical reasoning and not romanticism woven around the local dialect of the language which helped us stand in good stead across the world.
Almost all of our ministers' children have immensely benefited from being educated in western universities.
Naidu certainly didn't receive his degree in law from a Hindi medium college, neither have his children been educated in vernacular schools.
Why do we want to drive wedges in everything which is of benefit to India, let's not take Hindi-English down the Hindu-Muslim path.
