Local Languages and Coloniality in Indian Higher Education System

Abstract

The cornerstone of developing research and giving nations their best and most necessary cadre for success and competition in a world that is changing quickly is higher education. Some national languages, mostly colonial ones, are increasingly and alarmingly taking over as the primary means of instruction and/or communication among their native speakers. Without a doubt, that represents a significant loss in terms of heritage, identity, and culture as well as communication. Since colonial education systems were designed to "sub-serve in various ways the political, economic, and cultural aims of the colonial governments," they were crucial in helping to establish the coloniser's language in its dominant position. However, descriptions and comparisons of colonial educational systems make it abundantly clear that even within the same colonial empire, partially different practises were implemented and that different European colonial powers in the 19th and 20th centuries did not always pursue the same policies with regard to the medium of instruction. This is due to the fact that writing about language policies in India, Malaysia, and Hong Kong does not assume a simple relationship between colonial language practises and colonial governance. Despite regional variations, the metropolitan language model and the vernacular model of colonial language policies can be distinguished. It is being an intuitional factor for author to conduct the present study with the primary motive to highlight about the coloniality over local language in Indian Higher Education System.