Why is English language used in Government Works in India?

Question

More than 95% Indian Population can not understand English.
More than 98% can't do converstion in English.
More than 90% can't read it.

Only 2% Indian Population works in English and
rest are treated as Fools.

46% People in India do not even know about how to sign!
They use Thumb Impression.

(My statistics are true, try to answer my question. Dont raise doubts, okay.)

Answer 1

This is sad. Why can't Hindi be used instead? It would be more natural to the Indian tongue.

Answer 2

I wish you would state where you got your facts from. I know many people from India and they seem to speak and write english better than I do sometimes. When Britian over took India english was put into effect. In India all states have there own language so only english and hindi are the nation wide common langauges to my knowledge. This is my own knowledge but if you go to the web site i list in my know your source you will see the following facts:

English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language

age 15 and over can read and write

Answer 3

Not sure where your statistics are coming from. My company has two offices in India. One in Northern India and one in Southern India. All the employees in both offices are Indian by birth. They all speak English. I was told that most Indians speak English because they can use it as a common dialect. Each state in India uses it's own twist on the Hindi language. Meaning, the employees in our Southern India office would not be able to understand the employees in the Northern India office if they spoke their native language. However, by using English, they can communicate. That inability to communicate between states would make for a reasonable answer to why the government speaks in English.

Answer 4

Most of what there is to say has been said. English has long been a language of the country's elite and educated. The government did attempt to introduce Hindi as the national language, but guess what? They didn't, by demand of their very own people. Language is a focal point of pride in the country, and people saw the forceful use of Hindi as a way of surpressing their own minority cultures. English had a neutral status, which is why it was chosen. Your average proud Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Assamese or Punjabi person would rather have everyone bound by English than Hindi.

Answer 5

My classmates from India, a lot of them, don't have a common language. It seems they have around 600 spoken languages. English being a common factor is used in Government works. I was also informed that, if the Prime minister addresses in Hindi only 28% of people understand and are concentrated in North India. Well rest probably it’s the Indian Government who can answer.

Answer 6

Hello white peacock dude,

First get your statistics right.

it is not just 2% who speak English. It is nearly 65% in urban areas and 25% in rural areas. The population in urban areas account for 40% of the population of india.

The reason for english usage.
1. Of course after effects of British rule

2. Do you know there are 25 main languages and 800 dialects( more than 100,000people speaking each dialect) in India, so Govt. of india after independance found it difficult to switch over to national language Hindi which is in fact a regional language of the north. As many southerners and east indians found it objectionable.

3. Govt. of India came with a plan of action to gradually introduce hindi as official language over the years. But, english stayed on.

4. Now in many government offices of north india Hindi is the official language but transactions are also carried in English.

5. In all 4 southern states the official language is their own language(Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and tamil) and at the same time english is also used.

6. But private corporations, companies and Multinational corporations do in English as they deal locally and internationally. People from western world who deal with indian companies are mostly private. Companies, organisations dealing with government agencies aware about the use of other languages.

Hope this will clarify .

Answer 7

Because English is the lingua franca for a huge country with hundreds of languages spoken. Adopting Hindi would be insulting to other languages having a huge culture on their background, like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Konkani and especially for t7he Urdu-speaking Muslims. Litteracy is not hampered by the use of English;it is urgent for India to educate its huge population and to do that it needs to cease thinking in terms of caste. Instead, it seems the political class thinks about anti-conversion laws. Which is just as stupid as doing away with English, BTW...

Answer 8

Perhaps the English language is a holdover from colonialism. But it also serves to unify India as no one ethnic group can dominate the others.

India's mastery of English is part of their advantages vs the rest of the developing world.

Indian scholars, engineers, doctors and scientists are revered and respected worldwide for their erudition and their ability ot communicate.

The world will be a better place when everyone can communicate effectively.

Wea re communicating right now in English.

Air traffic, commerce and science are all conducted in English.

Why step backwards? We should encourage all to be able to speak to all.

Answer 9

To start with your finding abt the percentage of 95% of indian population cannot understand english is wrong , and as we have been ruled and as we are part of mordern world its essential that our goverment procedures are open and clear and understandable to ppl from outside, in all staes every law making body and goverment institution uses both the local language, hindi and english when they make laws or and paperworks, even though hindi is considered as our national language most of the south and eastern states are not well versed in hindi, and its english which becoming a comon language of communication and in this fast growing competetive world of global economy there is nothing wrong in using english as it enables our industries and common man to be wel vesred ,,, with english and if we compare to european countries or any south asian country our country is developing so fast only because we can communicate and most of the goverment legistation i sopen and clear to any foreign investerors,,,,,

Answer 10

India was once under British rule,so the populars had to learn English and now a day they work and do business with English speaking nation

Answer 11

The population is huge, the dialects of Hindi vary so widely that they've found that English is just easier as that is what they used to work with. Also they have so many MNCs it's probably better for their economy to operate in such a widely used language.