ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a brief overview of the fascinating journey of the English language in India. It highlights the establishment in India of the first school teaching the English language; the sociocultural conditions leading to the growing demand for the English language in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the role of the colonial government contributing to the spread of the English language and the policies adopted by the national government of India regarding the English language in the postcolonial period, and finally the possibility of the emergence of the English language as a language of the common man rather than the language of the elite.
