There is a strange irony playing out in full public view, yet many refuse to see it. While the sons and daughters of our political leaders board flights to London, Boston, Singapore and Sydney, to study, the message sent to our local youth standing in dusty classrooms back home is very different. You do not need English, they say. You do not need to look beyond our borders. Everything outside is colonial poison.
You are already the greatest!
That, dear young India, is the most dangerous lie of all.
Progress has never come from shutting windows and drawing curtains. It has always come from learning, questioning, comparing and improving. English is not a betrayal of culture. It is a bridge. A bridge to science, medicine, technology, diplomacy and global conversation. Refusing to cross that bridge does not make you patriotic. It makes you isolated.
The world does not wait for slogans. It rewards skill. It rewards clarity of thought. It rewards those who can speak, write, negotiate and innovate across borders. While you are told to take pride in ancient glory alone, the children of those hypocrites preaching this pride are quietly acquiring global degrees, global exposure and global confidence.
They are being prepared to rule a world you are being discouraged from entering.
There is also another reason dear parents that ignorance is celebrated so loudly. An informed child asks questions. An educated youth demands evidence. A globally exposed citizen does not swallow myths easily.
Superstition thrives best where curiosity is discouraged.
Myths flourish where learning is mocked. And obedience is easiest where ambition has been clipped.
Being proud of one’s roots does not require blindness. Loving your country does not mean refusing to learn from others. Our ancestors were great because they were seekers, not because they were satisfied. They observed the stars, debated philosophy and absorbed ideas from traders and travellers.
When you are told you do not need to better yourself, ask who benefits from that advice.
When you are told English is unnecessary, notice who speaks it fluently behind closed doors. When you are told the world has nothing to teach you, see a defence minister, a finance minister and many, many others quietly sending their children into that very world.
Education is not submission. Exposure is not betrayal. They are your birthright. Learn languages. Travel if you can. Read widely. Question respectfully but firmly. Measure the extravagant claims of the last ten years against facts. Do not let anyone shrink your horizon in the name of pride.
Because the world will not judge you by slogans. It will judge you by competence.
And if you are trained to clap while others learn, you will wake up one day applauding from the back row of history.
Choose learning over noise. Curiosity over comfort. Truth over flattery. Otherwise dear youngsters, the future will arrive speaking a language you were told you never needed to learn…!
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
Learning english is never discouraged in our country on the contrary the number of english medium school established especially in rural area is exhorbitent.What is happening, local languages are neglected not being properly given attention to.One need not consider himsef to be inferior if he does not learn english.
Haven’t you heard our Home Minister shout from the rooftops dissuading speaking English because he and his son don’t speak the language, not fluently at least.
English is a universal language and people can move around the globe with ease. Today, illiterate leaders have turned literate people into illiterate by saying only the local language and made communication difficult for people traveling to neighboring states. Worse, the accepted language in Supreme Court of India, and High Courts, is English which has made life of common people miserable, if they don’t know English. To get justice in India is not easy but the language problem has complicated the process.
The secret of freedom is to educate people, the secret of tyranny is keeping them ignorant… Roberspierre. While the argument is that English is not necessary they can learn in their mother tongue, we have to understand that we have 18 languages recognised by the Indian constitution and more than 100 mainstream languages. 28 states and 8 union territories where one state does not understand the language of another. English is the only bridge language and the only internationally recognised language, Hindi is not. More than a dozen international companies have Indian CEOs who have learnt in English Medium schools. We have seen for ourselves in Mumbai (Bombay then) how the blossoming of English medium schools in the early 80s led to jobs and subsequent decrease in crime and development of the city. The last few years have seen an effort to change the education system, devalue English and close existing municipal schools who do teach in the state language (mother tongue). The govt wants the English medium schools to teach children in their mother tongue. So a school in Mumbai will have to have at least 18 different teachers to teach the subjects? Brilliant
Haven’t you heard our Home Minister shout from the rooftops dissuading speaking English because he and his son don’t speak the language, not fluently at least.
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When our netas tell ordinary Indians to shun English and “foreign degrees”, it clearly isn’t advice they follow at home.
The Finance Minister’s own daughter has studied at LSE and Northwestern, the External Affairs Minister’s son is a Georgetown graduate, and the Defence Minister’s son went to Leeds in the UK. Other Union ministers’ children quietly collect degrees from Harvard, Oxford, Tufts and more, even as the same leaders mock English and glorify only “Indian” education for everyone else.
What a paradox that English and world‑class universities are fine for their families—just not for yours.
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