English reached only 2-4 percent of Indians and Hindi links the subcontinent

Evidence

The only national literary intelligentsia that exists in India today - an intelligentsia constituted as a distinct social stratum and dispersed in all parts of the country, which brings to bear upon its vocation and its work a shared body of knowledge, shared presumptions and a shared language of mutual exchangeis the one that is fairly well grounded in English; and the only literature that is taught through the length and breadth of the country is English literature - and that coo not in the shape mainly of what gets written in India but of what comes from elsewhere. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1211 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Comparing Hindi and Urdu to French and English distorts Indian literary relations — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 490; Roughly 35 million Indians speak and write some form of English — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 966; Colonial rule’s languages of command failed against India’s regional language masses — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1167 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• India’s only unified literary intelligentsia works in English, not Indian languages #complicates (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1211