ABSTRACT
The new geography of India also had a new cultural dimension, in particular there now existed a new lingua franca that enabled educated people to communicate with one another from furthest north to the deepest south. It is possible to exaggerate the importance of this – it is said that in the 1930s less than half a percent spoke English. But equally one should not underestimate the significance of that half percent, the new intelligentsia and middle class, nor forget that it was the language of the courts, of much of business and commerce, and it was also the most important access to the new institutions of higher learning. And in addition, the railways and the posts conveyed the speakers and the pamphlets, newspapers and private messages from one region to another.
