When we take into consideration the long history of the growth of this national language you will see that it is not on this ground alone that I am going to oppose that the official language of the country should not continue for fifteen years. I feel that the lease of another fifteen years will not be in the national interest. My friends ask me, “What will you do if English is not adopted as the official language ?” I will most calmly and with folded hands request you to consider the position, and I will say that you do not know the heart of the country. English language is not the language of the brave people. It is not the language of scientists at all. ‘I here is no word of science that the English language can calm to be its own-neither can it claim its own numerals. You say, let this. English language remain as the official language in this country for another fifteen years. I shudder at the very idea of it at the very idea that our universities and our schools and our colleges. colleges and our scientists, that all of them should, even after the attainment of Swaraj, have to continue to work in the English language. What will other people say ? What will the host of Lord Mecaulay say ? He will certainly laugh at us and say, “Old Johnnie Walker is still going strong” and he will say, “The Indians are so enamoured of the English language that they are going to keep it for another fifteen years.” And some here say, it will remain for twenty years. and some say, for fifty years and there are still others who say, they not know for how long it should remain as our official language.
