Consolidation of English in the Educational Set-up of India: A Historical Overview

Abstract

English first came to the Indian Sub-Continent through trade. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth-I granted a charter to some London merchants giving them a monopoly of trade with India and the East. The East India Company gradually gained control over most of India. During this time English was first introduced to Indians through Christian Missionary Schools and its fast spread in India has been the insistence on English education all over the country. The famous Macaulayan Minute of 1835 envisioned the creation of a class of Indians that could effectively act as a buffer between the British ruling class and its subjects in the Indian sub-Continent. It is for this purpose that various Schools, Colleges and Universities were set up in India to boost the designs of imperialism in the country. However, India has nativised this language that was primarily an imperialist imposition. There is an emerging consensus in India today that English is no more a question of choice but a question of necessity because it got consolidated as the link language between the different states of India and because it has become a language of information and knowledge due to the rapid influx of Computers and IT in education and subsequent globalization of English. It has also long been the preferred medium of instruction in higher education and research areas. It was accepted as the ‘Associate Language’ in the Constitution of India (1950) as Hindi seemed to be an imposition by non-Hindi speaking states and regions. Today, in the domain of education in independent India, English is the most dominant language used as the medium of instruction in a vast number of schools, colleges and universities.