Balaji,
Really loved the way you expressed your feelings (+ thoughts). I was impressed and I'm sure many others would be too. That's the beauty of communication - if it expresses well, it automatically impresses.
Now coming back to your points:
1) True - China, Japan and several European countries do work in their language. They are majorly industrialized economies, heavy on manufacturing. The problem with us is, we are no match to them in manufacturing and many believe we have actually missed the manufacturing bus. Bulk of our growth comes from services sold in global markets. You can't sell services to others if you don't speak their language.
Also, English puts us in a significantly advantageous position vis-a-vis Chinese. With the huge population base as ours and a relatively small manufacturing base, we have to follow a different strategy.
Also, learning English doesn't mean neglecting our own languages. Treat English communication like any other skill we learn - engineering, management, rocket building. If a language skill opens up the entire globe for us to work, earn and win laurels, why miss it?
Also, India is unique in having many regional languages with very rich literature and tradition. If we only learn our own language, how will a Tamil, a Telugu, a Bengali, a Punjabi and a UPite talk to each other?
2) About expressing and impressing - when we are dealing with others for business, for jobs, for free flow of ideas, one's ability to influence others becomes very important. Here, apart from the inward process of expressing, one also has to impress others. How can a job seeker get a job or a salesman close a sale if they do not impress the other guy?
However, the way these processes are connected, most of the times, if you express well, you impress others as well. Simply because most us are not able to express ourselves well.
3) I completely agree with your point of thinking in one's own language and then translating it into English. This will never make one a natural speaker in English. That is why the traditional method of translation or formal grammar teaching does not build fluency. That is why, we need a completely different approach to develop the skill of speaking effectively in English. This is the reason why we, at
BodhiSutra, created a completely different approach to training confident English communicators.