Language in South Asia is never neutral. It is not only a medium of instruction. It is a medium of power. That assertion runs through The Identity Reconstruction of Subaltern English Learners: Language, Liberation, and Leadership in South Asia, scheduled to be released January 2026 (Routledge).

The book draws on nearly a decade of research and collaboration with educators, organisers, and students from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, starting from an uncomfortable truth: English, once imposed as a colonial language, has become both a gatekeeper of privilege and, paradoxically, a pathway to empowerment.

I obtained an advance copy from the co-authors. Aamir Hasan in Michigan, is an educator with a Master’s in Educational Leadership from Harvard, and a PhD in Education from Western Michigan University, and the founder of the non-profit English-for-All, a Pakistan registered organization dedicated to teaching English. There are plans to expand it across Southasia and Africa. Nadeem Hussain, a policy scholar and development practitioner currently pursuing a PhD in Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, examines how linguistics divides in Southasia shape opportunity, self, and justice.

“Hardly ten percent of the people in this region have real ability in English. Yet it is often the deciding factor for social mobility, dignity, and leadership,” write the co-authors.

This framing resonates with Nadeem Hussain’s broader scholarship in public policy and economic development, through his earlier co-authored works on Sindh’s economy and Pakistan’s K-12 education as well as his leadership roles at the World Bank, The Citizens Foundation (TCF) and UNDP. He has consistently emphasized how access to quality education and English intersect with economic mobility and the distribution of opportunity in South Asia. I have had the privilege of connecting with Nadeem through my own work with The Citizens Foundation (TCF), a leading Pakistani NGO committed to providing quality education to underprivileged children.

The stark divide is visible across South Asia’s classrooms. Elite ‘English-medium’ schools open doors to higher education, global networks, and professional opportunities. Meanwhile, underfunded schools teaching in local languages, where English is poorly taught, leave millions of students struggling to access the same futures.

This divide is not merely educational. It maps directly onto existing hierarchies of caste, class, gender, and religion, reinforcing barriers that many communities already face.

Language and privilege

Hussain’s policy research background enriches this analysis, linking the linguistic divide not just to cultural hierarchies but also to measurable economic outcomes such as intergenerational mobility, employment prospects, and patterns of poverty reduction.

Having worked in both elite and public schools, the authors write from lived experience: “We are aware of the iniquitous dichotomy of South Asia’s two basic educational streams. One has English as the medium of instruction… while the latter, where the majority only learns vernacular, is dark and dreary and often ignorant and mostly a dead end.”

The vernacular, of course, refers to local languages, and their words underscore a painful reality — language is not neutral. It is a marker of belonging, shaping whose voices are heard and whose are excluded.

The book’s originality lies in its ability to link language to leadership. For marginalized learners, the authors argue, acquiring English is not just about literacy but about voice.

“When the Subaltern speaks in English, she is heard. English hugely facilitates leadership development… learning English is an exercise in leadership development itself”, the authors said. This claim echoes the work of the Marxist political theorist Antonio Gramsci, and the historian Ranajit Guha, founder of Subaltern Studies.

Both emphasized how ‘subaltern’ groups are denied recognition in dominant political systems. The term subaltern refers to groups that are socially, politically, and economically marginalized to the extent that they are excluded from dominant structures of power and denied recognition or voice. In education, ‘subaltern learners’ are students who are excluded due to class, caste, ethnicity, gender, language, or refugee/immigrant status, with limited access to learning and representation in Southasian systems.

The authors see English as not simply a skill: It is a means of claiming identity, dignity, and authority in societies that too often silence the poor.

Women’s experiences bring this argument into sharper relief. “Without fluency in English, an educated identity is a near impossibility in South Asia,” the authors observe.

The authors document how women described English as giving them dignity, courage, and the ability to be taken seriously, qualities that traditional structures had often denied them. As one learner put it, English “upgraded” her, raising her in her own eyes and in the eyes of her community.

Thus for many women, English has enabled personal freedom, choice, and recognition. “When they spoke in English, people viewed their identities as modern, sophisticated, and liberal.”

These insights build upon Hussain’s long-standing engagement with economic development, particularly his work on how gender and education together shape access to labour markets, leadership opportunities, and social capital in developing economies.

Global tongue

Some may find the framing of the book controversial. Critics of English-language dominance rightly emphasize the importance of mother tongues for cultural preservation and decolonization. The authors acknowledge this, stressing their respect for such positions. Yet they challenge what they see as the hypocrisy of elites who promote local language education for the poor while ensuring their own children study in English-medium schools.

“We take exception when the promotion of mother tongue is used as an excuse… to deny Angrazee (English) to those who need it most,” the authors note.

The point is not to abandon local languages, but to ensure that English is available as a resource rather than a barrier, as they assert

“The best example of how English empowers Subalterns to challenge class or caste hierarchies is in the way it allows them to enter elite educational institutions as well as leadership roles,” said Hasan in a phone conversation.

The urgency of this question has only grown in the post-COVID-19 world, where opportunities are increasingly mediated online. Without English, countless South Asians risk being locked out of the so-called “global village.”

The authors put it starkly: “English today serves as a kind of global-hegemonic, post-clerical Latin… For Subalterns especially, English may be more important than almost any other qualification.”

What makes the book powerful is its refusal to romanticize either side of the debate. It acknowledges that local language education, when disconnected from global opportunities, can also reproduce exclusion. But it also warns against treating English as a silver bullet, instead framing it as one tool among many for dismantling structural inequalities. The book’s central contribution is to show, through stories and analysis, how subaltern learners themselves are redefining English, not as a colonial burden but as a means of agency, solidarity, and leadership.

Overall, The Identity Reconstruction of Subaltern English Learners is about more than language. It is about who gets to dream, resist, and imagine otherwise. As the authors write, “English changes the self-view of Subalterns and infuses their identities with confidence and self-belief, empowering them to better negotiate demeaning class structures and hurdles.”

This multidimensional framing reflects Hussain’s own trajectory as a scholar of public policy and economic development, bringing an economic lens to questions of identity and showing how structural reforms — educational, linguistic, and economic — must align to create genuine pathways of mobility for marginalized communities.

For South Asia and beyond, the book makes a compelling case that the politics of language is inseparable from the politics of freedom.

The Identity Reconstruction of Subaltern English Learners
Language, Liberation, and Leadership in South Asia
By Aamir Hasan and Nadeem Hussain
Rutledge, 2026 (Pre-order starts 25 December 2025)
196 pages; 5 B/W Illustration

(The writer is a PhD student in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto. She writes on education, displacement, and decolonial struggles in South Asia. By special arrangement with Sapan)