An Indian described the challenges they face, and the most basic was the idea of a nation itself. He described how India should be viewed more as a continent of many peoples rather than a country of one people; there are so many different cultures and languages that unity is practically impossible. When English has to be used as the unifying language because the country is split between so many (primarily Hindi in the north and Tamil in the south, joined by many others), you realize that there are huge obstacles for a massive country that is still so young.
When Franco emerged victorious from the Spanish Civil War, he quickly arranged for Castilian Spanish to be used as the official language of the country. Gallego, Basque, and Catalan languages weren’t banned outright; they just wouldn’t be used in official capacities or taught in schools. He saw no other way to eliminate the regional mindsets that had contributed to the war itself; Gallego and Castilian portions had primarily supported the military uprising, while Basque and Catalan sections supported the communist government.
For decades, the Indian independence movement and its Congress Party papered over those differences through corruption and patronage, but the contrivance ultimately failed because it was incapable of producing the sound policies and sense of national identity required for a modern nation-state.
Not only Spain, but virtually every European country had a long and often bloody history before a solid national identity was achieved. And just as national and cultural identities helped pull apart the Soviet Union and its universal ideology, so also is resurgent nationalism tearing at the seams of the EU.
As opposed to California where voter guides and ballots are offered in about a dozen languages