Features of Indian English: characteristics from a corpus of indian speakers

The language which once had been viewed as superimposed by the colonial power now became officially recognized in the Indian constitution, if only for a transition period, until 1965. The Nationalist’s imperative wanted English to continue to be used because they did not want to get rid of the English language, but they supported for the official use of an indigenous Indian language. Hindi seemed most suited to this task as it had acquired the highest number of native speakers than any other Indian language and was widely used in interethnic communication (Fasold 1984: 24). Linguistic unity was seen to be a major prerequisite for political and national unity. Following this, Hindi was classed as the language of communication between and within states, and it was to replace English within fifteen years. The plan was that Hindi would be promoted so that it might express all parts of the "composite culture of India" (Spolsky 1978: 56).
However, it was not an easy issue to select Hindi, there were many violent protests against the imposition of Hindi because Hindi was not spread throughout the country, for instance, in Tamil Nadu (in south India) it was hardly known, whereas in the northern side the knowledge of Hindi was more developed. Therefore, it was thought that the speakers of other languages would be offended by its selection, and Some Indian communities have even considered that they would be politically, professionally and socially disadvantaged. But finally in spite of these problems, Hindi was chosen as the national language in the constitution, and it was able to replace English. In 1967 a law was passed which allowed the use of both Hindi and English for all official purposes, and that situation still exists (Fasold 1984: 24).
In addition to Hindi as an official language and fourteen others as national languages, each state can choose its own regional language for use in local government affairs and in education among the languages spoken in its territory. In the educational field this formula provides that the children in an Hindi speaking states are to be taught three languages: Hindi, English and another modern Indian language. The children in non Hindi speaking states are to be taught Hindi, English, and the regional language.
In 1968 the Union Education Ministry of the Government of India, in consultation with the other states, formulated the “Three-language formula” which consists in learning three languages in school at the same time. The Three Language Formula, represents a compromise and imperfect solution between the demands of the various pressure groups; its main aim is to accommodate the interests of group identity (through mother tongues and regional languages), national pride and unity (through Hindi), and administrative efficiency and technological progress (through English) (Baldridge 1996: 12).
The India constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to communicate in their own language with any governmental agency (Bonvillain 1993: 304).