English linguistic imperialism from below : moral aspiration and social mobility The book shows how English has been newly constituted as a dominant language in post market reform India. Political economic transitions experienced as radical social mobility fuelled intense non elite desire for English schooling. Rather than English schooling leading to social mobility new experiences of mobility necessitated English schooling Moral aspiration Development and its afterlives Temporal migrations Social lives of rote Scripted lives of communication Obsessive hope Mandated resistance Rote to interaction Conclusion: Linguistic imperialism from below.