"In India, ambitious intellectuals have likewise wished to learn a foreign tongue to advance their..."
In India, ambitious intellectuals have likewise wished to learn a foreign tongue to advance their scholarship and their career. This has almost always been English—once the language of the colonial rulers, now the language of the global marketplace. The spread of English among the intelligentsia has been extremely rapid, so much so that many Indian writers and professors are now more comfortable in that language than in their own mother tongue. Even so, bilingualism and multilingualism are ubiquitous in India—particularly in towns and cities. Telugu and Tamil speakers are a large presence in Bangalore, in theory the capital of a Kannada-speaking state. Gujarati and Hindi speakers each number in their millions in Mumbai. Most Indians are entirely adjusted to, and comfortable with, their fellow citizens speaking, reading, or writing Indian languages other than their own.
For all the homogenising impulses generated by globalisation, this still seems to be a genuine point of difference between China and India. In theory and more so in practice, we remain a linguistically plural society and state.
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A Nehruvian in China by Ramachandra Guha
Completely fascinating article about diversity and pluralism - diversity is a social condition, pluralism is a political programme. China and India are both diverse, but China is not a plural society. A sociological perspective on confluences and contrasts between these two vast Asian states - and a good reminder that pluralism is not something that just happens, but the result of constant efforts by individuals and organisations that must be maintained and tended.
