The original plan was, of course, to phase out English as a national language. This never happened, I suppose partially because while 'Hindustani' (as was) made sense as a symbol of unity during the time leading up to Independence, afterwards, especially as 'Hindi', it was seen more as a regional language (even if the region involved is large) and so not necessarily more deserving of official nation-level status than Bengali or Tamil. English ends up being more neutral in many ways (though, of course, not without its own (post-colonial) baggage).
> I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.
Besides the fact that in states like Kerala, for example, where you have nearly 92 percent literacy, declaring Hindi as official language will result in nearly 0 percent literacy. I think just like Charkha, and village-based self-sufficient economies, the idea of Hindi as a national language should be discarded as an idea whose time has gone.
I always thought India would have functioned better if it had confederated under a Swiss style cantonment system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland). They maybe could have even avoided partition this way too. And whatever paroxysms of violence from internal migration might have been mitigated against if it was all being overseen by a single government and army instead of the three-way clusterfuck of the actual partition.
There would have needed to be some system for maintaining a rough level of parity/equality of representation of various minority groups at the high level. Scheduled castes and tribes would probably not have been as well protected under such a system, for example, but it's probably something than could have been worked out with effort.
> I always thought India would have functioned better if it had confederated under a Swiss style cantonment system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantons_of_Switzerland). They maybe could have even avoided partition this way too.
In what way? Having even more autonomy than they have as states?
At one point, English could be seen as a foreign language 'imposed' upon India. A language of invaders, etc.
At this point in time, however, English has been present in India for several centuries, and prominently present for at least a century and a half, and has become indigenised (Indian English has its own structure) so it's not really a 'foreign' language anymore.
That said, there are always socio-political dimensions to speaking a particular language variety (think also about dialects, accents etc.). Nothing is ever just a language people speak.
Not sure if you are being serious, or what point you're trying to make. English is the language spoken by the people who ruled India as a colony for 200 years (the East India Company for the first hundred; the British state directly for the next).
The East India Company was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, so John Company was in India for even longer than that: originally not as 'rulers' as such, but traders with trading posts (called 'factories' at the time). But traders with warehouses holding precious goods ended up needing security, which turned into private armies, and so on.
The word "baggage" has negative connotations (to burdens and impediments); so my question really is by speaking English, as an Indian-born national, what burden or impediment does the speaker experience?
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Responding inline due to lame moderation caps.
> I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment
But that's exactly what the word means! :-P
bag·gage
/ˈbaɡij/
past experiences or long-held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments.
"the emotional baggage I'm hauling around"
> but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.
And why would they hesitate if not due to feeling the burdens and impediments of their country's history?
I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment for individual speakers, but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.
> I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.
Ah, yes, of course, 'the Indian language'. :)