Language has been one of the most persistent and thorny challenges to India’s federalism. It split the Constituent Assembly, provoked fierce anti-Hindi agitations in the 1960s, and continues to inflame feelings today as shown by the rejection of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s three-language formula by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Far from being resolved, the language question smoulders beneath the surface of the national discourse.
https://thewire.in/law/one-nation-many-tongues-indias-unfinished-language-debate
The issue is not just about language, but about the core democratic principles of equality, federal balance and cultural freedom.
A century ago, George Abraham Grierson’s monumental Linguistic Survey of India catalogued 179 languages and 544 dialects. Today, Ethnologue, a respected global database, lists 454 living languages in India — 424 indigenous and 30 non-indigenous. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India (2010–12), directed by eminent linguist Prof. G.N. Devy, found 780 languages.
NEP 2020 treats languages as cultural pursuits, ignoring their practical value in the job market. It reveals its ideological bias by dedicating more discussion to Sanskrit – a language with limited career opportunities – than English. At a time when countries across the world are actively promoting English education to enhance global competitiveness, NEP 2020 neither recognises its pivotal role nor makes any serious effort to improve English proficiency in India. Beyond English, languages like French, German, Spanish and Mandarin offer far greater career opportunities worldwide than Hindi and Sanskrit. By limiting foreign language choices to just one (invariably English), NEP 2020 undermines the only real benefit of learning a third language, namely, better job prospects.