The Importance of English in India

When people make a great fuss over the merits and demerits of a language they overlook an important point that a language is not merely a means of communicating thoughts but also a way of getting civilized.

Since, the date of India's independence, there has been running many claims and counter-claims regarding the use and importance of English in India. Some speak in favour while some others oppose the idea of retaining English as a subject, in our school or college curriculum.

The British rules introduced English in Indian schools with a hope that the troubles in administration due to linguistic barrier would disappear.

So some Indian nationalists claim that English should be removed from this country when the British rule in India has come to the end. For them, English language carries a disgraceful memory of India's subjugation. In their opinion, Hindi should replace English for all purposes.

But the rival section of people judge English from academic point of view. They argue that English is a window language. It is the most widely spoken language in the world. Through this language, India can establish her contacts with the developed nations of the world.

Although Hindi has been pronounced as the national language in India, some non-Hindi speaking states have not yet accepted it in practice. Thus it is practically impossible to achieve inter-provincial communication through Hindi.

The world is developing in the field of science and technology. Scientific inventions in Germany, France and Russia cannot reach India through any language other than English India must keep up with the progress of the world in field of science. Therefore, English is inevitable for our country.

Some people argue that importance scientific inventions by the German or the Russian or the French Scientists may be translated into any Indian language and thus the necessity of learning English can be avoided. But it is a tough task.

It involves multiple translations for example from German or Russian to English and then from English to an Indian language. Scientific inventions get out-dated very quickly. A scientific invention in Germany or Russia will have become out-dated and old by the time the same invention reaches the Indian scientists through translation.