Re: Questions for indians
couple of things - if a country needs to artificially uniformize linguistically and culturally to stay as one, it isn't really one country; it an oppressive imperialistic structure.
secondly, it is not just south indian languages which are ignored vis-a-vis hindi - it its every other language spoken in india. other north-indians(punjabis, marathis, gujaratis, etc) don't notice because their native tongues are similar to hindi. but the north-east and south have distinct lingustics and cultures, and the degradation in language capabilities/quality and culture from cow-belt influence is very visible with the passage of time.
as for kids in the west, its highly unlikely that desi kids growing up in the US are going to learn a language they don't use on a daily basis to any decent level of competency.