The Constitution of India designates a bilingual approach for official language of the Government
of India employing usage of Hindi written in the Devanagari script, as well as English.
Hindi and English find everyday use for important official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings,
judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government.
States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s)
through legislation and therefore there are more than 20 officially recognized languages
in India, including English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati,
Punjabi, Marathi etc.
The number of native Hindi speakers range between 14.5 to 24.5% in total Indian population,
however, other dialects of Hindi termed as Hindi languages are spoken by nearly 45% percent
of Indians, mostly accounted from the states falling under the Hindi belt.
In comparison to Hindi, other Indian languages are not far behind and are spoken by around
10% or less of the population.
English continues to be used for some official purposes, by the Government of India in conjunction
with Hindi, the number of English speakers within India has grown significantly in India—to
nearly 20%.
States specify their own official language(s) through legislation.
The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages therefore includes
detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes
of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes
of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for
communication between the union and the states inter se.
During the British Raj, English was used for purposes at the federal level.
The Indian constitution adopted in 1950 envisaged that Hindi would be gradually phased in to
replace English over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law,
provide for the continued use of English even thereafter.
Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic met with resistance in some
parts of the country.
Hindi continues to be used today, in combination with other State official languages at the
state level.
The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently includes the
Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, Official Languages Rules, 1976, and
various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states.
Official languages of the Union The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared
Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union.
Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease
15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965.
The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas
of India, especially Dravidian-speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi
at all.
As a result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided for the
continued use of Hindi for official purposes along with English, even after 1965.
In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use of English,
but it was met with protests from states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal,
Karnataka, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh.
Some of these protests also turned violent.
As a result, the proposal was dropped, and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide
that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed
by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language,
and by each house of the Indian Parliament.
The current position is thus that the Union government continues to use English in addition
to Hindi for its official purposes as a "subsidiary official language," but is also required to
prepare and execute a programme to progressively increase its use of Hindi.
The exact extent to which, and the areas in which, the Union government uses Hindi and
English, respectively, is determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official
Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made
by the Department of Official Language under these laws.
Parliamentary proceedings and laws The Indian constitution draws a distinction
between the language to be used in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws
are to be made.
Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either Hindi or English.
The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be phased out at the end of fifteen
years unless Parliament chose to extend its use, which Parliament did through the Official
Languages Act, 1963.
In addition, the constitution permits a person who is unable to express himself in either
Hindi or English to, with the permission of the Speaker of the relevant House, address
the House in his mother tongue.
In contrast, the constitution requires the authoritative text of all laws, including
Parliamentary enactments and statutory instruments, to be in English, until Parliament decides
otherwise.
Parliament has not exercised its power to so decide, instead merely requiring that all
such laws and instruments, and all bills brought before it, also be translated into Hindi,
though the English text remains authoritative.
Judiciary The constitution provides that all proceedings
in the Supreme Court of India, the country's highest court and the High Courts, shall be
in English.
Parliament has the power to alter this by law, but has not done so.
Administration The Union government is required by law to
progressively increase the use of Hindi in its official work, which it has sought to
do through "persuasion, incentive and goodwill."
The Official Language Act provides that the Union government shall use both Hindi and
English in most administrative documents that are intended for the public.
The Official Languages Rules, in contrast, provide for a higher degree of use of Hindi
in communications between offices of the central government.
Communications between different departments within the central government may be in either
Hindi or English, although a translation into the other language must be provided if required.
Communications within offices of the same department, however, must be in Hindi if the
offices are in Hindi-speaking states, and in either Hindi or English otherwise with
Hindi being used in proportion to the percentage of staff in the receiving office who have
a working knowledge of Hindi.
Notes and memos in files may be in either Hindi or English, with the Government having
a duty to provide a translation into the other language if required.
In addition, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to a government
officer or authority has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in
India.
Implementation Various steps have been taken by the Indian
government to implement the use and familiarisation of Hindi extensively.
Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha headquartered at Chennai was formed to spread Hindi in South
Indian states.
Regional Hindi implementation offices at Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati,
Bhopal, Delhi and Ghaziabad have been established to monitor the implementation of Hindi in
Central government offices and PSUs.
Annual targets are set by the Department of Official Language regarding the amount of
correspondence being carried out in Hindi.
A Parliament Committee on Official Language constituted in 1976 periodically reviews the
progress in the use of Hindi and submits a report to the President.
The governmental body which makes policy decisions and established guidelines for promotion of
Hindi is the Kendriya Hindi Samiti.
In every city that has more than ten central Government offices, a Town Official Language
Implementation Committee is established and cash awards are given to government employees
who write books in Hindi.
All Central government offices and PSUs are to establish Hindi Cells for implementation
of Hindi in their offices.
State level
The Indian constitution does not specify the official languages to be used by the states
for the conduct of their official functions, and leaves each state free to, through its
legislature, adopt Hindi or any language used in its territory as its official language
or languages.
The language need not be one of those listed in the Eighth Schedule, and several states
have adopted official languages which are not so listed.
Examples include Kokborok in Tripura; Mizo in Mizoram; Khasi and Garo in Meghalaya; French
in Puducherry.
Legislature and administration The constitutional provisions in relation
to use of the official language in legislation at the State level largely mirror those relating
to the official language at the central level, with minor variations.
State legislatures may conduct their business in their official language, Hindi or English,
and members who cannot use any of these have the same rights to their mother tongue with
the Speaker's permission.
The authoritative text of all laws must be in English, unless Parliament passes a law
permitting a state to use another language, and if the original text of a law is in a
different language, an authoritative English translation of all laws must be prepared.
The state has the right to regulate the use of its official language in public administration,
and in general, neither the constitution nor any central enactment imposes any restriction
on this right.
However, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to an officer
or authority of the state government has a constitutional right to submit it in any language
used in that state, regardless of its official status.
In addition, the constitution grants the central government, acting through the President,
the power to issue certain directives to the government of a state in relation to the use
of minority languages for official purposes.
The President may direct a State to officially recognise a language spoken in its territory
for specified purposes and in specified regions, if its speakers demand it and satisfy him
that a substantial proportion of the State's population desire its use.
Similarly, States and local authorities are required to endeavour to provide primary education
in the mother tongue for all linguistic minorities, regardless of whether their language is official
in that State, and the President has the power to issue directions he deems necessary to
ensure that they are provided these facilities.
State judiciary States have significantly less freedom in
relation to determine the language in which judicial proceedings in their respective High
Courts will be conducted.
The constitution gives the power to authorise the use of Hindi, or the state's official
language in proceedings of the High Court to the Governor, rather than the state legislature,
and requires the Governor to obtain the consent of the President of India, who in these matters
acts on the advice of the Government of India.
The Official Languages Act gives the Governor a similar power, subject to similar conditions,
in relation to the language in which the High Court's judgments will be delivered.
Four states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan- have been granted the
right to conduct proceedings in their High Courts in their official language, which,
for all of them, was Hindi.
However, the only non-Hindi state to seek a similar power - Tamil Nadu, which sought
the right to conduct proceedings in Tamil in its High Court - had its application rejected
by the central government earlier, which said it was advised to do so by the Supreme Court.
In 2006, the law ministry said that it would not object to Tamil Nadu state's desire to
conduct Madras High Court proceedings in Tamil.
In 2010, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court allowed lawyers to argue cases in Tamil.
Indian states and union territories States
Union Territories Eighth Schedule to the Constitution
The Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages.
At the time the constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language
was entitled to representation on the Official Languages Commission, and that the language
would be one of the bases that would be drawn upon to enrich Hindi, the official language
of the Union.
The list has since, however, acquired further significance.
The Government of India is now under an obligation to take measures for the development of these
languages, such that "they grow rapidly in richness and become effective means of communicating
modern knowledge."
In addition, a candidate appearing in an examination conducted for public service at a higher level
is entitled to use any of these languages as the medium in which he or she answers the
paper.
Via the 92nd Constitutional amendment 2003, 4 new languages – Bodo, Maithili, Dogri,
and Santali – were added to the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The table below lists the 22 languages set out in the eighth schedule as of May 2008,
together with the regions where they are used.
Even though English language is not included in Eighth Schedule, it is one of the official
languages of Union of India.
Of the twenty two official languages, fifteen are Indo-Aryan, four are Dravidian, two are
Tibeto-Burman, and one is Munda.
Since 2003, a government committee has been looking into the feasibility of treating all
languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution as "Official Languages of the Union".
Union-State and interstate communication The language in which communications between
different states, or from the union government to a state or a person in a state, shall be
sent is regulated by the Official Languages Act and, for states other than Tamil Nadu,
by the Official Languages Rules.
Communication between states who use Hindi as their official language is required to
be in Hindi, whereas communication between a state whose official language is Hindi and
one whose is not is required to be in English, or in Hindi with an accompanying English translation.
Communication between the union and states which use Hindi as their official language,
and with persons who live in those states, is generally in Hindi, except in certain cases.
Communication with a second category of states "Region B", which do not use Hindi as their
official language but have elected to communicate with the union in Hindi is usually in Hindi,
whilst communications sent to an individual in those states may be in either Hindi or
English.
Communication with all other states "Region C", and with people living in them, is in
English.
See also Languages of India
List of Indian languages by number of native speakers
Names of the Indian Constitution in the official languages of India
References
"Managing Hindi" in The Caravan, April 2012.
External links Department of Official Language – Official
webpage explains the chronological events related to Official Languages Act and amendments
Central Institute of Indian Languages – A comprehensive federal government site that
offers complete info on Indian Languages Reconciling Linguistic Diversity: The History
and the Future of Language Policy in India by Jason Baldridge
Ethnologue – Ethnologue report on the languages of India
Multi-lingualism and language policy in India Words and phrases in more than 30 Indian languages