Mind your language.

Do you think a lack of English speaking skills is something to feel bad about? We belong to a country where we have myriad(close to) languages most with their own scripts.Is someone who is literate along with being able to fluently speak in one's mother tongue any lesser than a 'English' educated person? If I were asked this question, I would unthinkingly say, "No, it does not matter.Knowledge of one language is good enough.If you can write and read it along with speaking it, all the better for you.There's no need to feel slighted just because you cant speak English well, or perhaps not even understand it"
What opposes that is, I have seen hundreds of times where the lack of this 'skill' makes people feel like they are lesser beings.
On my trip back to India, in the airport, I saw lots of aged people (who were probably parents of Indians settled in the US) struggling to understand the officials.There seems to be a whole lot of fear in them and a lack of confidence . These very people have raised families, worked all their lives and are probably important people in their society.Suddenly, they become nobody-s.There were lots of smiles and snickers from the so-called English speaking people.How infuriating do you think that is?
Granted, our medium of education is English.That gives us a common language to talk to the other people in India who probably speak different languages than what we do at home.But why are we thought to think that knowing English puts us one step above the others? Granted again, that it does give us an edge.There are a lot of places where usage of English is compulsory.We can't expect foreigners who give us business to learn our tongue.We are still in the process of trying to please them.We need them, not really the other way round, right?It even gives us an edge against cheaper labour from China. That is occupation driven, any other reason? We seem to value all things foreign more than what we already have.I have seen people ooh and aah when someone says "I can speak French" , Sanskrit definitely doesn't get the same reaction.(Off I go on a tangent again)
Getting back.
I know of an auto-driver who became one because he did not learn English, even though he's a degree holder with a 90% average from a Kannada medium.
I know of people who are scared to travel to other countries alone for fear of being ridiculed.
We do have a penchant for picking up more than one language ourselves, but why does that have to mean belittlement of those who don't know the 'foreign' language.
And the irony of this all is, I wouldn't be able to express all this, this fluently, in any language but English.There must be someone out there looking at me and laughing about me not being able to write in an Indian language,isn't it?