English is a very funny language. But Rajnath Singh is too serious to laugh

I can walk English, I can talk English, I can laugh English because English is a very funny language.~ Amitabh Bachchan, Namak Halal

Everybody speaks English after 8 pm. The joke alludes to both time and a whiskey brand and illustrates how three pegs down, English becomes the lingua franca, when people are 'frank' and 'drank'.

Rajnath Singh is on his way to the Big Apple. The US of A. Where people roll their R's and he hates it, because his name begins with one. Jokes apart, the Bharatiya Janata Party president dropped the traditional culture bomb to get the chattering classes chattering. But if you think the wily politician did it for effect, you are wrong. He and others of his ilk genuinely believe English is evil. Because learning a new language broadens the horizons and shrinks vote banks.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, politically quite diametrically opposite to Rajnath Singh, believed that and implemented that in UP. Kids don't get to learn the English alphabet till they are in the sixth standard. Mulayam Singh also believed computers are evil. His English-speaking chief minister son is distributing free laptops to students. Rajnath Singh's son speaks fluent English as he defends the indefensible on news TV debates. Yes, there is a pattern to it.

Some people who know English do have a superiority complex, but it is far less virulent than the anti-English propaganda borne out of the inferiority complex of those who believe it threatens their status. English is seen as the great equaliser. It may not be a conspiracy, but there are far too many dolts who wage a war on English, want to deny the masses access to the language yet send their own to English-medium schools with a vengeance of the jilted.

Language politics is not new to the country. The whole Tamil politics, at a point, revolved around the opposition to Hindi. Urdu has come to be perceived as a language of one community, thanks to the narrow-minded politics around it. The state patronage has damaged it while claiming to save it. All attempts to save Sanskrit hasn't saved the classical language. English flourished because politicians have rarely tried to patronise it. Languages don't need protection. Languages evolve. Those who do not understand this do not understand the purpose of language. Hindi couldn't reach Madras when it was being pushed. It has more acceptability today even as Madras has changed to Chennai, because words spread. As English words have creeped into every language without us noticing. When Biharis say narbhasana, they rarely care about the word nervous. The song Upsetao nahin Moora in Gangs of Wasseypur was a tribute to that.

Rajnath Singh and those of his mind don't tire of giving examples of Japan, China, Germany and Russia. They forget that all these countries have a lingua franca. Japanese is the language that Japanese do business in, in their country. Not knowing English is no hurdle in doing business. India doesn't have one lingua franca, it has many. Lingua franca isn't an English word to begin with. Yet it's as English as shampoo, which originated from our own champi (head massage).

That's the beauty of language, any language. Languages are inclusive. The English we speak, before 8 pm or after, is not the English that the English speak. The English that the English speak is different from the Welsh English. American English, Indian English, Tamil English, Mumbai English and all. All make fun of each other and it's fun when a Bihari's Englis is pitted agnest the Malayali's. But there's a common thread that unites, as there are accents that divide. The RP is dead. English spoken with the melody of the local language will live long after Rajnath Singh, who speaks it in his own sweet melody.

India has an advantage when it comes to languages. Let us call that melting pot dividend. Scientists have discovered that children who speak more than one language are generally sharper than those who speak just one. Most Indians speak two languages. English is often the third language. And it has served us well. In return, we have given the world the Indian English.

English is as foreign as the chilli is. We are infamous the world over for our fondness for the hotness of it. It wasn't Indian to begin with, but we made it so our own that we don't even know it's not of Indian origin. So is cricket or tobacco. Tobacco made a late entry and Mughal king Jehangir fell in love with it. The guys who brought it to India used to smoke and snuff it. We chew it, we brush our teeth with it (yes, laal dantmanjan has enough tobacco to make you feel on top of the world). It's now a bigger bane here because we made it our own, created new ways to use it. Rajnath Singh doesn't smoke it, he is high on something else.