Not sure if you are being serious, or what point you're trying to make. English is the language spoken by the people who ruled India as a colony for 200 years (the East India Company for the first hundred; the British state directly for the next).
The East India Company was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, so John Company was in India for even longer than that: originally not as 'rulers' as such, but traders with trading posts (called 'factories' at the time). But traders with warehouses holding precious goods ended up needing security, which turned into private armies, and so on.
The word "baggage" has negative connotations (to burdens and impediments); so my question really is by speaking English, as an Indian-born national, what burden or impediment does the speaker experience?
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Responding inline due to lame moderation caps.
> I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment
But that's exactly what the word means! :-P
bag·gage
/ˈbaɡij/
past experiences or long-held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments.
"the emotional baggage I'm hauling around"
> but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.
And why would they hesitate if not due to feeling the burdens and impediments of their country's history?
I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment for individual speakers, but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.
