India had, at its independence, temporarily allowed English to remain a “subsidiary official” language, with the understanding that the government would switch entirely to Hindi in 1965. But not only did English persist, it grew. Today, advertisements are in English, higher education is in English, and Bollywood movies feature generous helpings of English. The language remains in official use and is heard in parliamentary debates at roughly the same frequency as Hindi. The “bitter truth,” reported The New York Times recently, is that “English is the de facto national language of India.”
