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Tongue-Tied Students. Even Nehru was not satisfied with some of the commission's proposals, all of them subject to parliamentary debate. In many other states, the proposed new boundaries will fall short of perfectly sorting out language groups, thus emphasizing India's need for one unifying national language. Hindi (related to Urdu and Sanskrit in the Hindustani group) is spoken by 40% of Indians and understood by many more, but it is little known in South India, and, like all native Indian languages, lacks the precision and flexibilities needed in the law and the sciences. The British, first unifiers of India since the 3rd century B.C., gave their language to educated Indians, but more and more English is regarded as an unpleasant reminder of foreign influence, and there has been a steady decline in the study of English. "Students." complained Nehru, "do not know what language they should learn and so become ignorant of every language." English-and Hindi-speaking Nehru's solution: make Hindi the national language of education, with each school teaching a local language and English on the side.