[drop 50 and fire for effect]

This is actually a big deal, Hindi is not a majority language, though it is a plurality. There are 23 official language, and while officially Hindi was going to be the national language by 1965, that never happened.

Too many people didn’t speak Hindi nor knew its alphabet. English, a non-native language was a natural compromise as its every group’s second language. Using it didn’t put one ethnicity above the rest.

Modi is playing with fire, if this is a trial balloon to make Hindi the national language.

[dfwgator]

English, a non-native language was a natural compromise as its every group’s second language. Using it didn’t put one ethnicity above the rest.

It's India's saving grace.

[Reno89519]

Will this break up India?

[Jyotishi]

List of languages by number of native speakers

Ordered by number of speakers as first language.

More than one million speakers

The 2011 census recorded 31 individual languages as having more than 1 million native speakers (0.1% of total population). The languages in bold are scheduled languages (the only scheduled language with less than 1 million native speakers is Sanskrit). The first table is restricted to only speaking populations for scheduled languages.

First language speakers

Second language
speakers[12]
Third language
speakers[12]
Total speakers

Language
Figure[12]
% of total
population

Figure[13][12]
% of total
population

Hindi [note 2]
528,347,193
43.63%
139,207,180
24,160,696
691,347,193
57.09%

Bengali
97,237,669
8.03%
9,037,222
1,008,088
107,237,669
8.85%

Telugu
81,127,740
6.70%
11,946,414
1,001,498
94,127,740
7.77%

Marathi
83,026,680
6.86%
12,923,626
2,966,019
99,026,680
8.18%

Tamil
69,026,881
5.70%
6,992,253
956,335
77,026,881
6.36%

Gujarati
55,492,554
4.58%
4,035,489
1,007,912
60,492,554
4.99%

Urdu [note 3]
50,772,631
4.19%
11,055,287
1,096,428
62,772,631
5.18%

Kannada
43,706,512
3.61%
14,076,355
993,989
58,706,512
4.84%

Odia
37,521,324
3.10%
4,972,151
31,525
42,551,324
3.51%

Malayalam
34,838,819
2.88%
499,188
195,885
35,538,819
2.93%
Punjabi
33,124,726
2.74%
2,300,000
720,000
36,074,726
2.97%

Assamese
15,311,351
1.26%
7,488,153
740,402
23,539,906
1.94%

English
259,678
0.02%
83,125,221
45,993,066
129,259,678
10.67%

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India