Why Indian English Loves Long Sentences

If China endured a century of humiliation, India has lived through a thousand years of it. Invasions and exploitation left it poor in wealth but rich in culture; intricate, adaptive, and resilient. That depth shows in Desi English, which often favours long, ornate sentences over plain ones.

This habit echoes Persian’s former role in the subcontinent: a prestige language whose mastery signalled rank. Even Ghalib’s vast Persian verse drew less love than his Urdu. In India, Persian was the colonial language of power; today, English plays that part.

In Iran, Persian changes fast. Slang, borrowed terms, and foreign tones reshape it so quickly that many in their forties struggle with teenage speech. My own Persian, kept alive in Kuwait and India, is closer to Shirazi and Tehrani standards than to the language my ancestors spoke. I’m self-conscious with Iranians, but with diaspora Persians, I speak freely; we share a looser, accented form of speech.

In Afghanistan, Persian survived as Dari. Later, it returned to Iran without losing its script or cultural depth. The same is true for Arabic and Hindustani: deep roots, constant use, and an unbroken script let a language absorb and reinvent.

Indian English lacks those roots. It borrows the surface complexity of older tongues without the depth beneath. Writers like Aatish Taseer and Salman Rushdie embrace this style; Vikram Seth shows you can keep depth and still be clear.

The challenge for Desi English is to keep its richness without letting sentences sink under their own weight.