The British came to India in order to conquer it and ‘civilise’ the natives. To this end they used the means of language. Persian, the official language of Mughal India, was replaced with English by designing language policies with ‘extra-linguistic’ motives.

A change in the usage of the indigenous languages leads to a change in the power structure. Thus the replacement of the official language in 1835 reflected the shift in power dynamics and established that the British controlled India.

English was, thus, made so solidly entrenched in education and communication among the speakers of the indigenous languages that it was (is) impossible to do without it. Despite many attempts to replace it English remains the lingua franca, not only in the British India of yore but also in today’s Pakistan and India.

English was finally made one of the languages of education in British India in 1847 after much deliberation. Consequently two different types of schools were created — English schools and vernacular schools. Admission to the English schools was restricted to people with money. This opened doors for the landed class — rajas and feudal lords. On the other hand vernacular schools were for the ordinary people. This created two types of classes — the elite rulers and the subordinate staff.

After independence in 1947, English in Pakistan has been maintained throughout its 66 years of history despite successive attempts to make Urdu the official language. During the struggle for Pakistan, Urdu was used as a symbol of Muslim unity. Urdu was described as different from Hindi even though they share the same grammar and an overwhelming lexicon. Urdu was thus made a ‘language of Islam’.

This paved the way for the right wing political parties to make it Pakistan’s only national language after independence. In search of a national unity in the widely diverse newborn Pakistan the leaders tried to use Urdu as a tool. Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan opted for an ‘Urdu-only’ policy. In his English speech to Bengalis in 1948 Jinnah said, “It is for you, the people of this province, to decide what shall be the language of your province. But let me make it very clear to you that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan.” This reinforced the resentment among Bengalis who had been advocating an equal status for Bangla during the struggle for Pakistan. East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh) was the majority province in Pakistan with Bangla as the majority language. According to the 1951 census, the population of East Pakistan was 54.6 per cent of the total population of Pakistan. The state’s denial in accepting Bangla, along with other political reasons, as one of the national languages in Pakistan later on motivated the separatist sentiments in Bengalis who finally got independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a bloodbath. Despite these wranglings over a national language the status of English could not be reversed.

In 1948, Urdu was declared as the medium of instruction at the primary level while at the higher level English was maintained as the medium of education. Similarly, in addition to Urdu-medium schools English-medium schools were maintained creating two distinct systems of education.

General Ayub Khan restricted military training to officers in English only while the cadets were not allowed to use ‘ethnic languages’. In the aftermath of the 1965 war; and the consequent increase in patriotic literature in Urdu, the Ayub government established the Sharif commission to look into the issue of ‘language in education’. The commission predicted that Urdu, in approximately 15 years, would reach the stage of development where it could be used as a medium of education at the university level. Urdu was institutionalised as the medium of instruction at the government schools with English as a compulsory subject. Yet elite English-medium schools were allowed to flourish.

In addition to maintaining English, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto tried to appease the right-wing political parties by giving Urdu an official recognition in the newly-framed constitution in 1973.

General Ziaul Haq zealously pursued the Urdu obsession. The government advised the entire English-medium school system to either shift to Urdu or to another recognised provincial language. Only one language was recognised as the ‘provincial language’ in each province denying the existence of other ethnic languages altogether. Zia also introduced Arabic as a compulsory subject in schools. However, the elite English-medium schools were allowed to operate without all this. Thus, even during the spurious Islamisation and Urduisation the British policy was kept active.

After Zia a political circus was maintained in Pakistan for over a decade where no visible change was made in the language planning in education except a few changes by Benazir Bhutto, who in her first term, gave the schools the option of adopting English or Urdu as the medium of instruction; along with making English as an additional subject right from class one.

In later years, we see no significant change in the British-like educational policy till the passing of the famous 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 2010. It was through the 18th Amendment that the concurrent list was abolished and consequently primary and secondary education went to the jurisdiction of the provinces.

Language planning in a country reflects the ‘language attitude’ of the elite. The elite favour English because of its being a language of development, science, technology, power and social prestige.

Given the successive two-language policies; and given the failure in adopting linguistic pluralism, which is, according to Juan Cobarrubias (1983) the “co-existence of different linguistic groups and their right to maintain and cultivate their languages on an equitable basis” and “that can help foster a feeling of equality among various ethnic and linguistic groups in a country” as Ahmar Matloob (2002) puts it, Pakistan has divided the nation into two distinct classes not only in terms of wealth but in respect to worldviews as well.

According to Sahiba Mansoor’s study, “There is a great discrimination between the Urdu-medium and English-medium students regarding job opportunities and the attitudes of employees display a clear bias in favour of English-medium students. Highly favourable attitudes to English speaking community are seen in responses of all [in the study]. The motivational intensity and desire to learn English borders on an obsession as English education is preferred over all languages as a compulsory subject and a medium of instruction.”

The importance of the English language in today’s world cannot be underestimated. Its significance increased with the advance of information technology and new trends in globalisation. The English-speaking elite find better job opportunities along with social prestige within their small circles while the Urdu medium educated are left toiling in the job markets. The ‘Urdu-only’ policy has been counter-productive. Urdu lovers could not make it a standard language for science, technology and research despite the importance given to it.