The most outstanding characteristic of language in education policy for South Asia (SA) is its multilingualism. All through recorded history the seven countries that constitute SA have been multilingual. For at least the first two decades of their existence as sovereign states the large nation states of SA failed to take into account this extraordinarily rich linguistic diversity and its immense political potential. The result was the adoption of a language-in-education policy that was modeled on the one that prevailed in the monolingual world of the colonial power. The policy was shortsighted, showing a disregard for the sociocultural contexts of the languages in use and also for the forces that contributed to language maintenance and shift--and therefore, it failed to gain acceptance. This article examines the policy decisions and the events that followed them, and highlights the need for language policies and educational programs that are informed by the distinctive linguistic realities of the region. The article demonstrates that there is a need for appropriate designs for language curricula, courses and methodologies based on a studied understanding of the differences of SA's multilingual classrooms and the socio-culturally conditioned learning environment within which they are placed. Language education in SA may be the world's largest and richest laboratory for the study of languages in contact.