Abstract

The role of English in Indian society has been one of profound paradoxes and contradictions. For the historically marginalized Dalit communities who were denied access to sacred knowledge education and intellectual spaces for centuries English emerged as a symbolic rupture and a possible language of liberation. Yet its introduction under colonial rule and later its consolidation under neoliberal globalization transformed it into both a site of opportunity and a new form of exclusion. This paper revisits Ambedkarite perspectives on English as an emancipatory tool and situates them within the larger framework of globalization linguistic capital and caste stratification. By drawing upon Ambedkar’s writings Gramsci’s theory of hegemony Bourdieu’s conceptualization of linguistic capital and field narratives from Dalit students in Delhi NCR the study demonstrates how English has been appropriated as a language of dignity and mobility while simultaneously being mediated by structural inequali