Linguistic Populism in India (prelude to Alternative language principles for an Indian school)

Sanskrit can be a great language for science and administration\ua0in India: everyone uses its words, it favours no one, it\ua0embodies much of India’s civilisation, and its word-building readies\ua0it for today’s needs. Instead, Hindi was chosen as official language\ua0in a populist move favouring the largest linguistic group and disfavouring\ua0the South and Northeast of India.Each state imposes its own language. Indian governments have\ua0for 70 years given majority speakers unearned privilege but little\ua0else: all science, technology and higher studies are done in English.\ua0The politics has been only about power. In most subjects, no\ua0Indian language has been developed to a level fit for higher study.Language skills have declined across the board. People no longer\ua0learn languages neighbouring their own; they talk to people from\ua0neighbouring states using the bad Hindi they learn for Government\ua0jobs. Many call Hindi the ”national” language (it isn’t). Othering\ua0is widespread. People sing Hindi songs in ”national” competitions\ua0where their pronunciation is mocked. Hindi films get laughs by\ua0simply showing a caricatured ”South Indian”. Tarun Vijay of the\ua0BJP in 2017: ”If we (Indians) were racist, why would we ... live\ua0with South Indians? We have blacks ... all around us”.Globalisation brought high-paying jobs requiring technical skills\ua0and English; Hindi and state languages lost their status. But now\ua0even the poor want English-medium schools. Since most teachers\ua0can scarcely speak English, their schools will teach bad English\ua0and little content, exacerbating India’s education problems.One could instead teach children in their first language, giving\ua0them a strong foundation in their culture (and their often hoary\ua0literary traditions) and in English as a foreign language. Will India\ua0pause its rush to disaster and implement this or other solutions