First, by quibbling in this fashion at a time when India was focused on the big picture, Mulayam and Karunanidhi misread the popular mood. Two, every politician's idea of regionalism and cultural space seems to begin and end with his state. Karunanidhi doesn't address the Tamil Nadu Assembly in English. In any case, with simultaneous translation available, nobody in Parliament's Central Hall that day was left unaware of what Vajpayee, or for that matter Clinton, said. The issue here is not language, it is the Indian politician's self-deluding capacity that yesterday's passions can be evoked endlessly and almost automatically to win cheap publicity.
Language helps shape a people's identity.
Yet, well before that, it is a facilitator of communication.