Sumita R. Dias Mr. Frank Anthony, M.P., in his speech on October 20, 1985, at New Delhi, during the Indian National Congress Centenary celebrations, said, “That it was on his resolution in Parliament, in 1959, that when what came to be known as the Nehru formula was announced, namely, that English shall be the alternate/official language for as long as the non-Hindi speaking people so desire. Today, English is perhaps the de facto link language especially between the North and the South and in higher education. English was India’s window on the world’s progress in science and technology. In a case argued by him in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court affirmed that, constitutionally, English was as much an Indian language as any one of the languages in the VIII Schedule, because it was the recognized mother tongue of a recognized Indian community, the Anglo-Indians.” Our late Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, while addressing his last meeting in Goa, having in his mind the political unr...
