Make English even more successful in India

[LawyersGunsMoney]

Today, English is spoken by around 10% of India's population, and as best I can tell, it's the language of higher ed, corporate business, the bureaucracy, judiciary and maybe the national media. What would it take to make English spoken by 2/3 of the population (what it appears to be in Ghana)? I'm not suggesting eliminating any native language - just make English more of a lingua franca in India and make India by far the largest English speaking country in the world. I'd prefer to change as little as possible beyond that - keep India independent, etc.

 

[RPW@Cy]

Education. It wasn't until 1980 that more than half of all Indian teenagers received some schooling and until 2009 that education for all children up to 14 was made both free and compulsory. The problem goes back to the Raj as the British focussed on establishing a number of (very good) universities to train people for the job of administering an empire while neglecting primary education, but this trend was if anything reinforced after independence as India continued to focus on the universities to produce the scientists and engineers the economy needed. Have primary education start much earlier - especially under the Raj, which would pretty much guarantee it being bilingual - with English as a mandatory subject and you will get much higher numbers of English speakers.

 

[jerseyguy]

Today, English is spoken by around 10% of India's population, and as best I can tell, it's the language of higher ed, corporate business, the bureaucracy, judiciary and maybe the national media. What would it take to make English spoken by 2/3 of the population (what it appears to be in Ghana)? I'm not suggesting eliminating any native language - just make English more of a lingua franca in India and make India by far the largest English speaking country in the world. I'd prefer to change as little as possible beyond that - keep India independent, etc.

This might have more of a chance in an undivided India where a larger Bengali and Punjabi population team up with South India to avoid to being dominated by the Hindi speaking region in the North. South Sudan is trying to change its foreign language education from Arabic to English right now. Arabic is associated with domination by Sudan, but Juba's elite sees English as a "neutral" compromise language that doesn't favor any of S. Sudan's ethnic groups. Greater English education would serve a similar "neutral" role to put all the country's different groups on a neutral playing field.

If India is closer to the United States for some reason in the immediate post-Independence period, English might be less associated with the Raj. If India's leaders take a more export-oriented development strategy instead of the License Raj, New Delhi may see English as a good way to integrate India into the world economy.

I think that India OTL definitely has a comparative advantage thanks to its large English speaking population. Millions of bilingual speakers of English and an Indian language (Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, etc.) has made it easier for US pop culture to enter India, but there's also more of a two way street with India's massive diaspora and cultural exports. There are successful Bollywood films like Chennai Express, Slumdog Millionaire, and Bhangra singers like Daler Mendi who have had some success in the US.

I can't recall a Mandarin language film or Mandarin-speaking pop musician ever reaching comparable popularity in the US. China probably has a comparable or larger diaspora than India, but it seems much more closed off culturally.