The politics of language in India will remain paradoxical for many years. Take Gurgaon, where most geographical markers have names like, Hamilton, Regency, Ridgewood, Windsor, Princeton, etc. You cannot help feeling sympathy for those who engage in the politics of renaming. But the inhabitants of these same anglicised buildings are giving their children the most complicated Sanskritic names you can imagine. The growth in vernacular press and the burgeoning demand for English are both realities of modern India: identity and instrumentality will both have to blend. Sometimes it is all right to wonder whether we confuse the virtues of Babel with the qualities of babble. Linguistic anxiety will haunt us. But the solution is to draw the right lesson from 1956: the Indian project is not about diversity, it is about something deeper. It is about giving each one the freedom to be whoever they wish to be, in whichever language they choose.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research