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The state has reported cases, with Kanpur district accounting for since the first case was reported on October Ready for tomorrow Fast, insight-rich analysis of news that matters to you long-reads that outlive the news cycle. Now Reading: 70 years on, India is still fighting over a national language.
Small Medium Large. The origins of the debate Before Independence, English was obviously the sole official language for all administrative, legislative and judicial purposes.
But as the freedom struggle picked up pace, the concept of a national language to bind together a diverse nation took root. He was one of the many leaders promoting Hindi or Hindustani for this role. The idea was to give a distinct identity to the nation, so they felt the most popular language in the country would be the best fit.
But those from the southern states were staunchly against this — Chennai, in particular, has borne the brunt of several violent anti-Hindi agitations over the years — while other leaders pushed for other languages like Sanskrit and Bengali.
Two languages are sure to divide people. What is the difference between official and national language? The two terms cannot be used interchangeably. In other words, it is seen as a symbol of national unity. The solution, co-authored by parliamentarians N Gopalaswami Ayyangar and KM Munshi called for letting English continue as the official language along with Hindi for a period of 15 years, with an option of an extension granted to Parliament.
It was hoped that by January , Hindi would emerge as the sole official language of the country. But in , the government enacted the Official Languages Act, which provided an extension to the continued use of English as an additional official language.
In an attempt to quell violent anti-Hindi agitations in South India then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru further gave an assurance that English would not be substituted by Hindi until the non-Hindi speaking people desired a change. This assurance was honoured by an amendment to the above Act after his death in The Indira Gandhi government also introduced the National Policy on Education in , which first formulated the three-language formula.
Where does the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution fit in? Recognising that India is ultimately a multilingual country, the framers of the Constitution also allowed states to adopt one or more regional languages — or the language used in the state — apart from Hindi as the language for official purposes.
For instance, Asomiya is the official language of Assam while Uttar Pradesh lists Hindi as its official language. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, hailed as the most important language policy statement in India, identifies certain vernacular languages as scheduled languages.
At the time of independence, there were 14 scheduled languages, which today has expanded to However, India does not have a national language. There is a difference between a national language and an official language. This post shall enlighten you with the national language of India. Our Consitution did not give the status of national language to any one language. Hindi was definitely declared as the national language.
So, this would be a problem for the rest of the majority of the population as everybody would be required to learn Hindi and this is not possible at all. The Constitution of India has stipulated the usage of Hindi and English to be the two official languages of communication for the national government.
Additionally, it contains a list of 22 official languages including Hindi and English. Additionally, the critics cite India's diversity to state that there is no single language spoken by the majority in India, then how can one language be the uniting factor. It should be noted however, that such remarks were made in passing, without a formal binding declaration and hence, are not binding. In fact, in Amrutlal's case, the Court categorically rejected a petition, where a party had argued that Hindi was the national language of India.
The lack of a conclusive Supreme Court decision on the issue might raise questions, however, the decision in Amrutlal seems to be the most pertinent decision on the issue currently. Furthermore, the decisions against Hindi, are well reasoned and undertake a detailed discussion on the issue, giving them a higher persuasive value than the others. Therefore, in my opinion Hindi is merely an official language and not a national language.
If Hindi is declared as the national language, every citizen of the country would be required to learn the same. Such a situation would definitely benefit a north Indian as Hindi is the most prominent language in the region over citizens from the other regions, as the latter would be expected to learn a language from scratch.
In effect, members of northern India would be placed at an advantage over the others, which is wrong. This concern of disadvantage is addressed with the use of English, as the same is a neutral language not attached to any region. Additionally, given the relevance of the language globally, its use benefits a developing country like India. The governments continue to push for Hindi aggressively, a recent example of which is the controversial three language formula where the Union mandated teaching of Hindi in all government schools.
Nehru had rightly said that Hindi should not be imposed till the non-Hindi speaking states agreed. However, despite their disagreement, the central governments have forcefully imposed Hindi on them.
Justice Dhavan in Jayakant Mishra's case had very aptly addressed this trend. He opined,. A person who does not speak Hindi is no less a nationalist than any other citizen who comes from a Hindi speaking State. That Hindi may be encouraged so that it becomes a standardised link language is another aspect. But, such an effort should not be pushed so far as to offend the sensibilities of other people of India who speak their languages and are equally proud of them. The Constitution of India balances with a sense of sensitivity and equality amongst the people to give due respect to ethnic identity of the peoples, their language and their culture.
The Constitution of India speaks of a composite culture of the nation. It has been rightly said that India is like a beautiful carpet woven in a design that has a language of diverse cultural representations woven by knots tightly holding the entire fabric of the nation.
The beauty of this carpet is besmirched if one culture or language is given more importance than the other. Instead, all languages should be treated with equal respect and promoted. A step towards it has been taken by the Supreme Court recently , where it made its judgments available not only in Hindi but also in other regional languages. I hope that the government realises that the unique quality of India is its diversity.
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