India is currently home to one of the world's largest English-speaking communities, in a context where the language is increasingly seen as a gateway to the world. Given the plurality of the country's social and linguistic landscape, however, a significant amount of the population does not speak or have access to the language. The impact of colonization has traditionally made Standard British English the model to be followed in the educational context, although it does not reflect the local culture. This paper advocates the use of Indian English as the national model, due to a set of unique lexical, grammatical, phonological and discourse features that would allow it to act as both a lingua franca within the country and on the international stage