As a layman on such things, I thought that their adopting English so thoroughly was one of the great, little discussed genius decisions by any nation, in a very long time.
It seemed so brilliant and committed, and effective, that it was almost threatening.
Although this Hindu nationalist won a clear majority, he won’t retain it if he forces 60% of the population whose native language is not Hindi to use it to work. Really stupid to reject a language which enables them to engage in commerce throughout the world.
All of the region that made up India was a polyglot of many mutually unintelligible languages, of which was only one, Hindi, was spoken at most by only some regions.
Adoption of English as the official language solved a lot of problems, but it also papered over a lot of basic tribal and regional differences, principally between the Muslims and everybody else in India. Pakistan and Bangladesh were divided off from the main part of India just over this religious difference. All the Muslims were supposed to go to what was then “East” and “West” Pakistan, but it didn’t quite happen that way.