Hindi not our National language

     Since childhood, we have been hearing that Hindi is our National Language. It is only recently that I came to know that it was a myth, thanks to the Internet. Let us clear the confusion right away.

     Article 343 of the Constitution declares Hindi in Devanāgari script as the official language of the Union of India (Central Government). English remains the additional official language. It is the authoritative, legislative and judicial language. In fact, one could say that English is the official language of India for all practical purposes.

     Then what is the difference between national and official language? The national language defines the people of the nation, culture and history. The official language is used for official communication. While the national language can become the official language by default, an official language has to be approved by law in order to become the national language. Official language is a language standard used only in (Central) Government documents. By no means is it an indication to external world that “India speaks Hindi”. Since there is no single language that can be used everywhere in our country, there is no legally-defined national language. Calling Hindi as our national language is like calling India a “Hindu nation”. In fact the number of Hindi speakers is far less than the number of Hindus. As of now India has 22 official languages according to the Constitution. These 22 languages were chosen considering the population and region of the concerned communities.

     As the Constitution of India came into existence on January 26, 1950, it stated that Hindi and English would be the "official languages" of the Central government of India till 1965 (for a period of 15 years). Subsequently, Hindi was expected to become the sole "national and official language" of India. This applied to Central as well as State governments. Hindi and English became the "official languages" in every department controlled by the Central government.

     As January 26, 1965 neared, some communities in the non-Hindi regions, particularly the Tamils, started voicing their apprehensions openly. The idea of making Hindi the sole national language was blasphemous to the students as it involved the simultaneous and complete withdrawal of English, even as a medium for competitive examinations for jobs and education! This meant that the northern region would bag government jobs and dominate the field of education, given the proficiency in Hindi of the people of the region. Since government jobs were the most sought after in the pre-liberalisation era, the measure was seen as an indirect attempt to deny jobs to the English-educated South Indians. The non-Hindi-speaking people from South India feared that they would be discriminated against in government employment and in other possible ways. Between 1948 and 1961, on an average, every year, close to 24% of Central government officials had been selected from the State of Madras (the present-day Tamilnadu). Uttar Pradesh came second best, accounting for about 16%.

     The 1940s, 1950s and the first half of the 1960s witnessed many anti-Hindi pro-tests in the form of public meetings, marches, hunger strikes and demonstrations before schools and Central government offices; black flag demonstrations greeted Central government ministers. Most of these were organized either by the local political parties and the general public supported them fully. There were hundreds of such protests from Tamilnadu and thousands were jailed. Several hundreds were injured when police used lathi-charge to disperse the peaceful protesters. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then PM, even though supportive of the pro-Hindi group, came up with a set of compromises that denied Hindi the "sole national language" status, realising the seriousness of the issue.

     Now, when somebody hails Hindi for being the "National Language" you may kindly enlighten that person with some facts.