When Subhash Chandra Garg, the then Finance Secretary of India, quietly decided to resign from the Indian Administrative Service, it wasn’t because of a scandal or political fallout. It was because a file moved in the Ministry of Finance—not through honest dialogue, but through quiet coercion.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has urged all levels of government—central and state—to embrace local Indian languages in day-to-day administration. Speaking at the golden jubilee celebration of the Department of Official Language, Shah linked the use of Indian languages to a broader mission of decolonising governance and reconnecting with India’s cultural foundations.