"For the generation that had successfully concluded the freedom struggle and that laid down a language policy in the Constituent Assembly, it was obvious that free India’s link language could not be the colonial language. A vote was held to choose between Hindi and Sanskrit, which Hindi won with the narrowest of margins. This meant that Hindi would replace English for all official purposes by 1965. But when 1965 came, the memory of the freedom struggle and its nationalist fervour had dimmed sufficiently, while under Nehru the English-speaking elite had gained enough self-confidence to thwart the explicit choice of the Founding Fathers. Since then, English has completely elbowed out Hindi and the other vernaculars, to the extent that schools with the vernacular as medium of instruction are shunned and have come under pressure to switch over to English. A nation with a glorious literary tradition is now voluntarily turning into an underdeveloped country dependent on the former colonial language for all grown-up purposes, where virtually the whole next generation will be schooled through English as medium. [...] In language, the first choice made by the Constituent Assembly was anti-colonial, viz. for a replacement of the colonizer’s language with a native alternative. Yet, by the due date of 26 January 1965, it was decided to overrule the Constitution and perpetuate English as lingua franca. This was a choice made by Indians, not foisted on them by British colonialism nor by other outside factors like American imperialism. This choice reduced the vast majority of Indians to second-class status."