This refers to the article, “Fervent nationalist, pragmatist” (April 20) by Anirban Ganguly. On being asked about his views on Hindi being the common language of India, Sri Aurobindo said, “English will be all right and even necessary if India is to be an international state. In that case, English has to be the medium of expression, especially as English is now replacing French as a world language. But the national spirit won’t allow it and also it is a foreign language. At the same time, Hindi can’t replace English in universities nor the provincial languages.”
If we paid heed to the pragmatic views of Sri Aurobindo, India could have taken a big step forward towards national unity. The need of the hour is to review our language policy.