A language policy document on English teaching claimed that in India, “the colonial origins [of English are] now forgotten or irrelevant” (NCERT 2006: 1). Employing data acquired in the course of a longitudinal ethnographic exploration into the language and literacy practices of young multilingual boys living at an anathashram (orphanage) in suburban New Delhi, India, this paper contests NCERT’s (2006) ideological framing. This inquiry, using the theoretical viewpoint of language ideology, shows how the colonial encounter, in fact, continues to frame, inform, and regulate concepts about the English language in India. Furthermore, this inquiry elucidates how the reductive ideological arc of language educational policy documents—like the one articulated in NCERT (2006)—can compel and determine a homogenizing gaze that glosses over ideological pluralities. The broader ambition of this examination is to explore how and why such ideological normativization is coerced in language educational policy discourse, as well as to ponder its implications for educational equity.