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against linguistic parochialism

by opposing the Karnataka government's

move to make

a compulsory medium

of instruction from Classes I to IV.

it has upheld the importance of

learning English in a world dominated by

this supposedly 'foreign' language

although it is recognised as one of

India's 17 national languages.

The court has also advised

the state government to leave the matter to the parents,

One of the reasons

given by the apex court in favour of English

is that inadequate command over it

will prevent the students

from getting

It is this lesson that persuaded

the West Bengal government

to overturn its earlier decision to focus

on the mother tongue up to Class VI

as it found that Bengalis could not secure

Yet, such is the attraction of playing

the provincial card that

wants a ban on English

while the Senas of both

Bal and Raj Thackeray are known

to have beaten up people in Mumbai

too, is clearly in favour of such

narrow-minded sub-nationalist ploys.

there have also been instances

where cinema halls have been attacked

for not screening Kannada films often enough

and

a railway recruitment centre was recently targeted,

Even as politicians try to derive mileage

by a display of their professed love for the mother tongue

the students themselves are capable of

learning more than one language at an early age.

Nor is it true that their

depends only on learning the mother tongue

in their formative years,

as the Karnataka government's counsel has argued,

because it is mainly the environment at home and at school

No one will call the rampaging

cultured despite their fluency in Marathi.

While it should be left to the parents and the

schools to decide on the medium of instruction,

it is the three-language formula

— mother tongue,English and another language —