Mumbai, a modern Babel, downgrades English

By Jonathan Allen

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Earlier this month, a Mumbai city official stood up to make a presentation on water meters only to be heckled and jeered into silence by his colleagues.

He had tried to make his presentation in English.

India's capital of commerce speaks in many tongues but from this month, when it comes to official communications within the municipal authority, English will no longer be one of them.

The decision to ditch English, the global language of business, in favour of Marathi, a language largely restricted to Maharashtra, has left some officials struggling to express themselves.

"I love Marathi. I am Marathi," said Ashish Shelar, an elected official. "But Mumbai city has become a global city now. The language of Mumbai city has changed."

He recalls being briefly dumbstruck when, in the middle of a Marathi speech, he wanted to urge colleagues not to "cherry-pick" his ideas.

"Converting this idea of cherry-picking into Marathi is not an easy thing," he said.

India has long grappled with the problem of Babel. Its constitution recognises 22 official languages, including English. Mumbai in particular, a cosmopolitan harbour city and a magnet for Indians across the country, is helplessly polyglot.