English Is Embedded in the Constitution — Should any Citizen Feel Ashamed to Follow its Provisions?
Home Minister Amit Shah’s June 19 remark reignites India’s language debate, but the law tells a very different story.
Karan Bir Singh Sidhu, IAS (Retd.)
Former Special Chief Secretary, Punjab. Nearly four decades in public service; lifelong advocate of national integration, communal harmony, cooperative federalism and constitutional supremacy.
English Is Embedded in the Constitution
1. The Spark: “English Speakers Will Soon Feel Ashamed”
On 19 June 2025 Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared at a Delhi book-launch:
“In this country, those who speak English will soon feel ashamed … Our languages are the jewels of our culture; without them we cease to be truly Indian.”
The sentence ricocheted through newsrooms and legislatures, energising India’s oldest cultural fault-line. Supporters heard a call to cherish Indian tongues; critics detected a push for Hindi dominance. Either way, the comment obliges us to examine the place English already occupies in India’s constitutional architecture.
2. What the Constitution Actually Provides
Hindi first, but not alone – Article 343(1) designates Hindi in the Devanagari script as “the official language of the Union.”
English safeguarded – Article 343(2) keeps English for all Union purposes for fifteen years after 26 January 1950; Article 343(3) empowers Parliament to prolong that window.
Judicial and legislative uses – Articles 348, 120 and 210 mandate or permit English in the Supreme Court, High Courts, Parliament and State Assemblies.
Pluralism guaranteed – Articles 350 and 350A secure linguistic redress and mother-tongue schooling, while the Eighth Schedule lists 22 scheduled languages; none is styled “national.”
In summary, the Founders created a bilingual Centre inside a multilingual Republic.
3. From Grace Period to Statutory Guarantee: 1963 and 1967
1963 stop-gap – The Official Languages Act let English continue “in addition to Hindi” even after the fifteen-year deadline, acknowledging the impracticality of a hard cut-off.
1967 safety-lock – Anti-Hindi agitations spurred Parliament to amend that Act. Section 3 now compels the Union to use English (or Hindi + English) in all dealings with any State that has not adopted Hindi—and keeps that rule until all such States and both Houses of Parliament jointly vote to end it. No government has ever attempted to meet that bar.
English therefore endures not by colonial inertia but by deliberate statute.
4. Why English Co-exists Alongside Hindi
A neutral bridge across dozens of scripts and regions.
Judicial uniformity in a common-law system.
Global leverage for education, technology and diplomacy.
A statutory veto for non-Hindi States that renders repeal virtually impossible.
5. Voices of Dissent and Defence
Rahul Gandhi: “English is a bridge, not a dam … hindering the poor from learning it limits opportunity.”
Kanimozhi (DMK): “Shame lies in eroding India’s pluralism.”
Kerala ministers, TMC and NPF leaders echoed the worry that linguistic pride could become linguistic imposition.
Across parties the refrain was clear: celebrate every language, but don’t stigmatise English.
6. A Punjabi Post-script: Silence Where Speech Was Once Loud
In a recent Hindustan Times column we revisited Punjab’s own statute—the Punjab Official Language Act 1967, amended up to date, and the Punjab Learning of Punjabi and Other Languages Act, 2008, which together make Punjabi in Gurmukhi compulsory in schools and obligatory in official files. The script survived monarchs, Mughals and Mahatma alike; yet today the Shiromani Akali Dal, champion of the Punjabi Suba agitation that created a Punjabi-speaking State on 1 November 1966, is oddly mute. Many suspect realpolitik: the party hopes not to irk the Union Home Minister, whose nod could seal a future BJP–Akali alliance for the February 2027 Lok Sabha election, especially after the BJP’s stronger-than-expected showing in the recent Ludhiana West by-poll, and SAD’s continued lackadaisical performance. The irony is that custodians of Punjabi identity now risk appearing tongue-tied when the language debate resurfaces nationwide.
7. Government Efforts to Nurture Indian Languages
Even as English stays, the Centre has vigorously promoted Hindi and sister tongues:
528 Town Official Language Committees monitor Hindi use at home and in missions abroad.
Digital tools such as Kanthastha translation and the e-Mahashabdkosh dictionary app embed Hindi in e-governance.
Annual Rajbhasha Kirti and Gaurav awards honour ministries and PSUs for exemplary Hindi work.
The nationwide Hindi Pakhwada each September rallies officials through essays, debates and training.
These measures prove that supporting Indian languages does not require belittling English; multilingualism is additive, never subtractive.
8. Heritage, Opportunity and the Rule of Law
Cultural pride thrives in Tamil epics, Bengali poetry, Marathi theatre, Punjabi ballads and Hindi literature alike.
Economic mobility often rides on English fluency, opening doors from Bengaluru to Berkeley.
Constitutional fidelity means using English in courts or ministries is exercising a right forged by Indian legislatures, not clinging to a foreign relic.
No citizen, therefore, need apologise for English, just as none should disparage Hindi or any Indian language.
9. Beyond the Cacophony: A Pragmatic Finish
Debate has flared anew just as the National Education Policy revives the three-language formula, the CBSE nudges some regional tongues into an after-hours niche, and prominent RSS voices hail Sanskrit as the cradle of every speech. Left unchecked, such skirmishes could devour the public square. Yet the legal answer was quietly settled back in 1967: Hindi anchors national identity, English underwrites cohesion and global exchange, and every mother-tongue enriches the mosaic. Until every non-Hindi State and both Houses of Parliament together decide otherwise, English remains an official language—by deliberate, democratic choice.
India’s far greater imperative is to keep its economic engine roaring so that prosperity flows to all 1.4 billion citizens. Linguistic pride, yes; linguistic polemics, no. After all, there is one idiom the whole planet understands without translation—the language of money—and India will speak it most powerfully when her people are educated, employed and empowered in whatever script they choose.
