ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the underpinnings and consequences of the language-medium divide in North India. There are various ways in which the federal, state, and municipal governments play a part in differentiating schools as types. There are additional ways outside of official administrative and funding structures in which people recognise schools to belong to types. The schools run by municipal corporations can be included in the group of schools that are considered to cost very little. The intersection of language-medium schooling and board affiliation has become more complex since the mid-1990s. From the peripheral position where the English they desired was provided by some in more cosmopolitan locales, Varanasi and other small cities across North India have moved to a place where they are offering coaching and tutorial services to students from their neighbouring towns and villages.
