I later came to find that this is actually quite common in India. And I understand English is still widely taught there, as a legacy of British colonialism, and so many (most?) Indian people - especially in urban areas - do speak English to some extent.

"English is still widely taught here" is an understatement. Upper- and middle-upper-class children usually go to "English medium" schools, where all classes are taught in English (except for the local language class, eg the Hindi class is taught in Hindi), and you're expected to speak only English when talking to other kids and teachers as long as you're on school grounds.

And yes, the only common language you can expect to find when talking to someone who could be from any other part of India is English. If you were talking to shopkeepers, laborers, etc, you'd likely need to use the local language, though they'll have a bare understanding of English words for things like the items they sell.

Even when speaking to people who do understand the local language, most people will speak in a blend of English and the local language, eg Hinglish (English + Hindi) where many nouns will be from English and connecting words will be from Hindi. People who speak in pure Hindi tend to be of the "old-fashioned" stereotype - Sanskrit / Hindi teachers or religious teachers / saints or nationalist extremists.

Wow. I didn't realize that English was that deeply embedded into Indian society. Fascinating how these things play out over time.

He had to speak English to everyone and would have had the same communication challenges that I had. His skin colour was also quite a bit lighter so even though he did not stand out quite as much as me, he was still quite recognisable as an outsider.

Now this sounds quite obvious if you have ever read up about India and its languages/cultures/ethnicities, but even though I technically knew this I was still baffled that you could be such an outsider in your own country.

Those three things took the area that comprised British India, from a bunch of loosely connected nation-states, each with their own cultures, languages, and religions - while still having much in common, but not something that was easily unifiable, to something much more cohesive, to something that could be united.

Then leaders came along who were educated in Britain, filled with British democratic ideals who learned how to subvert to colonial system from within. Who then did so, they wrestled what was considered the crown jewel of the empire from the British, with the tools the British gave them. It's still a brilliant feat, because it used colonialism to subvert and ultimately defeat colonialism.

None of this should be construed as a defense of the Raj, or to imply that India could not have unified itself without those tools, but it turned an impossibly gargantuan task into a merely very hard one, because those tools allowed (at least temporarily) for people to overcome sectarian differences, and work together as one people towards a common goal with a common understanding.

I wish people knew more about partition however, partition is the greatest humanitarian crisis the world knows nearly nothing about, it rivals even the holocaust in size, and it didn't have to happen, but for a lack of trust between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. I believe that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be stronger today if it was one nation rather than three.

There are many culteral differences and even different languages that are not mutually intelligible between different states and provinces. Europe is a union, but not a single country. Perhaps India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other nations in South Asia could be part of a union, but I don't really think that it would work out as a single country.

In fact, present day Myanmar/Burma was also governed by the British prior to World War II, but it didn't become part of India (mainly due to the British separating it from India in the late 1930s).

Would Nepal want to be part of the single country, given that it was never colonized by the British?

It isn't. According to 2011 census, 11% people in India can speak English (I suspect that the actual number is much lower). Hindi on the other hand is spoken by 57%.

English is the language of elitism in India.

English is lingua franca regardless of social or economic status.

Every child gets to learn 3 languages : one local language, One regional elective (or Hindi), and English.

English is now pervasive enough that transliterated words are common in all languages and are being used natively. People use English words and idioms without even realizing they are speaking English. You will find even in remotest corners someone who will understand and converse in rudimentary English (especially the youngsters).

Absolute nonsense. Only 11% of Indians spoke English according to 2011 census. The ability to speak fluent English is the biggest marker of social and economic status after caste in India.

This is not really some deep insight. Everybody in India knows this, especially the 89% who don't speak English. There are even bollywood movies even based on the concept (see Hindi Medium, English Vinglish).

>Every child gets to learn 3 languages

The quality of teaching of English in government schools especially state boards is abysmal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_KVFZPofQU [Govt school teachers fail to identify nouns in a sentence]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42xxu5HdJzc [Govt school teacher fails to read a primary school textbook]

I also technically got to "learn" Sanskrit as my 3rd language in school. How many sentences of Sanskrit do you think I can utter now?

edit: s/Indian state/Republic of India

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_status...

because if they know English, they can get higher paying jobs