The Uneven Playing Field: English Learning Disparities in India

Abstract

This article examines how English functions as a gatekeeping language in India, producing an “uneven playing field” across caste, class, gender, region, and school type. Drawing on recent scholarship on English-medium instruction (EMI), language policy debates after NEP 2020, and postcolonial discussions of linguistic hierarchy, the study argues that unequal access to quality English learning is not merely a pedagogic problem but a literary-cultural one: English mediates who is heard, published, and deemed “educated,” while devaluing multilingual repertoires and vernacular knowledge systems. The paper synthesizes findings from contemporary policy analyses and classroom-based studies to map three linked disparities: (1) material inequality (teacher availability, infrastructure, digital access, school funding); (2) symbolic inequality (accent prejudice, “good English” as respectability and employability); and (3) curricular inequality (canon selection, textbook ideology, assessment regimes, and monolingual classroom norms). It then traces how these disparities travel into higher education and labour markets, shaping confidence, participation, and the production of cultural capital. In addition, the article reads literary and cultural texts campus narratives, fiction of aspiration, and Dalit life writing to interpret how learners experience shame, desire, mobility, and resistance around English. The theoretical frame combines Bourdieu’s linguistic capital, postcolonial critiques of colonial language legacies, and translanguaging perspectives that treat mixed language practices as resources rather than deficits. The article concludes that equity requires additive multilingual pathways: strong foundational literacy in home languages, high-quality English taught as a subject (not a premature medium), and assessment models that recognize multilingual meaning-making while expanding access to academic English.