English-language education banned in high-tech Bangalore

More than 100,000 English-speaking children in Bangalore, India’s information technology capital, will soon have to switch to schools offering lessons exclusively in a regional tongue following a crackdown on more than 2,000 English-language institutions in the state of Karnataka.

The move by the pro-rural state government is believed to reflect resentment at the influx of relatively wealthy English-speaking technology workers into Bangalore.

The ban on English-language classes may in time further erode the competitiveness of a city that styles itself back office to the world, when it is already suffering from severe shortages of skilled labor, high wage inflation and overburdened infrastructure.

The move has provoked dismay among reformers, with many warning Karnataka to heed the example of West Bengal state, forced by its own rapid economic decline to abandon a similar “No English, only Bengali” policy.

This article appears in the Los Angeles Times.