INDIA’S INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT TO UNITE NATIONS

STUDY GUIDE
COMMITTEE: ALL INDIA POLITICAL PARTIES MEET
AGENDA: QUESTION OF NATIONAL LANGUAGE
 MANDATE

The All India Political Parties Meet is a convocation of the various political parties of India, who
come together to reach a consensus on topics of national interest, usually before parliamentary
sessions. The AIPPM acts as a supporting body to the Parliament and allows unconstrained
political debate. It allows the members to express their perspectives and helps in shining light
upon the underlying layers of the problem at hand that requires solving.

With around 2,000 registered political parties in India, the All India Political Parties
Meet(AIPPM) was established as a forum to freely discuss political issues before national
parliamentary sessions. Due to the lack of time constraints, the AIPPM was ideated to be an open
forum for productive discussion. It was essential to be established due to how vast the country’s
socio-political disputes can be.

INTRODUCTION

The national language of a country or a state represents the means of simple communication within
the country among the citizens. National language can or cannot exist in spite of a country having
multiple languages spoken within the citizens which are referred to as regional languages.
National Language in India

India is one of the countries which is known for the vast amount of languages being spoken within
the territory. There are 121 languages in India. These languages existed as India is known for its
centuries-old culture and traditions and this varies from land to land within India, this created the
difference between the culture within the people and hence it created a communication barrier.
Indian constitution specifies in article 3431 the official language of the Republic of India as Hindi, in
Devanagari script.

At the time of framing of Indian constitution, the chaos was of the provision of the national language
for the country as there are many languages and cultures, the national language could create
discriminatory decisions among the people and would lead to riots. Taking this into consideration the
higher officials back then came to one decision which is declaring Hindi as official but not the
national language in India as 40 percent of Indians speak Hindi in different forms. The Indian
government had also given the official languages2 according to the states -
1. Assamese
2. Bengali
3. Gujarati
4. Hindi
5. Kannada
6. Kashmiri
7. Konkani
8. Malayalam
9. Manipuri
10. Marathi
11. Nepali
12. Oriya
13. Punjabi

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 14. Sanskrit
15. Sindhi
16. Tamil
17. Telugu
18. Urdu
19. Bodo
20. Santhali
21. Maithili
22. Dogri.

According to the constitution the parliament can use the scripts and official ways of addressing and
communication in Hindi and English. This applies to the state government as well as per their
legislation. Although, states can use their official regional language as their means of communication
among officials and to the citizens as well. The language used for communication between state and
central government will have to be English and Hindi respectively.

The other transcript which is important for foreign identity of India and the Indian constitution is the
transcript in passport. Passport script defines the citizenship proof (one of the proofs).
As in India most of the citizens understand Hindi as India’s national language, this myth still exists.
Hindi is the official union language and can be used for official parliament communication. Hence
the states have the freedom to use their own regional language for the official addresses.

HISTORY

The pre-independence where the British ruled India in general, used English as official language
and this resulted in the dissatisfaction of the citizens as the local culture and the atmosphere
which the Indians were brought up in was not familiar to what Britishers were implementing.
The official languages during British India were not only English but Urdu and Hindi as well but
the main way of addressing the nation was done in English. There were many communication
and professional skill provision barriers among the officials and citizens. The post-independence
era was one of the crucial stages for the Indian constitution for the next several centuries due to
the decision of national language inclusion in the constitution.

The people who were drafting the constitution analysed the situation of the language in newly
independent India. They came up with a decision to include Hindi as the official language for
Independent India.

One of the members of the drafting committee introduced Hindi as the official language stating
that it was discussed in the committee with the analysis of higher commanders that Hindi should
be put up as a national language and English should be used also on the other hand for at least 15
years of the term. This statement was of one of the core members who were part of the drafting
committee.

The situation in the drafting committee was a bit confusing for the officials as the opposition for
this particular statement rose up. The officials opposed implementing the two official languages
as this would affect the culture of the country. India is known for its ancient centuries-old culture
and setting up two languages in the constitution would only create chaos and differentiation
among the citizens and this would also affect the culture of India. The opposition individuals
demanded the committee implement one language and one script. The argument got into
communal arguments where the inclusion of Urdu was demanded in the constitution as Urdu was
also born in ancient India and the inclusion of it in the Indian constitution would make sense.

This concluded with many arguments and opposition to the statement of inclusion of Hindi and
English both as official languages in Independent India. One of the main statements made by the
first prime minister was promoting the use of English in the parliament and this would affect the
International relations of India as a country.

The drafting committee concluded the decision of the official language as Hindi in Devanagari
script and this official language will also include English. This decision was made after analysing
the situation in India. India has a 40% Hindi-speaking population and this made the drafting
committee more clear regarding the decision of Hindi being the official language of India.
Indian leaders selected Hindi as India’s legitimate language hoping it might facilitate nearby
communique and foster countrywide unity. They had been privy to most of the demanding
situations concerned with adopting one tongue withinside multilingual India, consequently for
this reason they set out a particular timetable for adopting Hindi and phasing out English.

CURRENT SCENARIO

The question of the national language is still present in the current time as the arguments have
driven up for setting up Hindi as one national language in India. The ruling party had put up a
point in front of the citizens as Hindi is one of the core languages and the most used one in the
nation to preserve the culture of India. And hence, should be declared as the national language of
India. Not only the ruling party but also the opposition has supported the ideology of setting up
Hindi as a national language.

The question of the national language of India or the fight for the language is not yet solved even
after years of independence. The new era after the BJP government came into power and that
was mainly Hindutva and the political leaders of the ruling party had pointed out the statement
over making Hindi as an official language. This created more chaos over the citizens as the
ideology followers had created a new argument over the fair rule for this particular topic which is
the national language.

The citizens now believe that in order to make the nation Hindu Rashtra, Hindi should be the
national language of the citizens. As India is known for its culture and languages the division of
states had taken place based upon the individual language and culture mainly focusing on the
language. The differences in regard to the language have taken place in recent times as the
challenges for the communication barrier for two individuals from two different public have
come into figure and issues like this will take place in near future.
One of the issues that had reached people in recent times was an unparliamentary talk between a
corporate food delivery company zomato and a customer that ended up in unpleasant comments
regarding the regional language that the employee had made towards the customer. This incident
had flared up the people and the activists.

The importance of regional or official language is present in citizens,in recent times this scenario
has come across as the state government’s decision where the regional language had the least
preference besides Hindi having the first to fulfil the political agenda and this incident was
offended by opposition parties and the citizens as well.

However, parties argue against the diversity of India, and how only 40% of its citizens speak
Hindi. Hence, there has been no official national language in the country. Even though there is no
national language, 22 languages have been granted the status of scheduled languages. They are:

[Link]. Language Area Year of Recognition

1. Assamese Assam 1950
2. Bengali West Bengal 1950
3. Gujarati Gujarat 1950
4. Hindi North India 1950
5. Kannada Karnataka 1950
6. Kashmiri Jammu and Kashmir 1950
7. Konkani Goa 1992
8. Malayalam Kerala 1950
9. Manipuri Manipur 1992
10. Marathi Maharashtra 1950
11. Nepali Sikkim, Assam, and Arunachal 1992
Pradesh
12. Odia Odisha 1950
13. Punjabi Punjab 1950
14. Sanskrit Karnataka (Shivamogga 1950
 District)
15. Sindhi Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya 1967
Pradesh
16. Tamil Tamil Nadu 1950
17. Telugu Andhra Pradesh, Telangana 1950
18. Urdu Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana 1950
and Uttar Pradesh
19. Bodo Assam and Meghalaya 2004
20. Santhali West Bengal, Jharkhand and 2004
Odisha
21. Maithili Bihar and Jharkhand 2004
22. Dogri Jammu and Himachal Pradesh 2004

Out of these languages, 14 were originally included in the Indian constitution. The Sindhi
language was added in 1967. In 1992, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepa;i were added. Finally, Bodo,
Dogri, Maithili and Santhili were added in 2004. Currently, there are demands for 38 more
languages wanting to be included in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. They are as
follows:
(1) Angika
(2) Banjara
(3) Bazika
(4) Bhojpuri
(5) Bhoti
(6) Bhotia
(7) Bundelkhandi
(8) Chhattisgarhi
(9) Dhatki
(10) English
(11) Garhwali (Pahari),
(12) Gondi
(13) Gujjar/Gujjari
(14) Ho
(15) Kachachhi
(16) Kamtapuri
(17) Karbi
(18) Khasi
(19) Kodava (Coorg)
(20) Kok Barak
(21) Kumaoni (Pahari)
(22) Kurak
(23) Kurmali
(24) Lepcha
(25) Limbu
(26) Mizo (Lushai)
(27) Magahi
(28) Mundari
(29) Nagpuri
(30) Nicobarese
(31) Pahari (Himachali)
(32) Pali
(33) Rajasthani
(34) Sambalpuri/Kosali
(35) Shauraseni (Prakrit)
(36) Saraiki
(37) Tenyidie
(38) Tulu

The Ministry of Home Affairs has responded to the inclusion of the languages in the Eighth
Schedule of the Indian Constitution. They said:

“As the evolution of dialects and languages is dynamic, influenced by socio eco-political
developments, it is difficult to fix any criterion for languages, whether to distinguish them
from dialects, or for inclusion in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India. Thus,
both attempts, through the Pahwa (1996) and Sitakant Mohapatra (2003) Committees to
evolve such fixed criteria have not borne fruit. The Government is conscious of the
sentiments and requirements for inclusion of other languages in the Eighth Schedule and
will examine the requests keeping in mind these sentiments, and other considerations such
as the evolution of dialects into language, widespread use of a language etc."

Hindi Diwas3

The ignorance of the culture of India during the British raj in India resulted in it to be a very
disappointing era for the citizens of India as people started seeing the culture of the nation fade
away from its origin. The main reason behind the celebration of this event is promoting hindi as
an official language and preventing the use of any foreign language in India.

Hindi diwas is celebrated as the occasion of identifying Hindi as official language for India in the
constitution on September 14, 1949. The significance of Hindi Diwas is to promote the use of
Hindi as an official language. Many events are organised as well every year in order to promote
Hindi and this awareness would be delivered in high quality to the citizens.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Article 343 in the Indian Constitution has been implemented to deal with official and national
languages. Clause 1 of the article states the official language used in the Union shall be Hindi and
Devanagari script. As the official article states as follows:
‘The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be
used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals’

The second clause in Article 343 states that English shall still be used as an official language for all
documents of the Union of India. The article is as follows:

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“Notwithstanding anything mentioned in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from the
commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the
official purposes of the Union of India for which it was being used immediately before such
commencement:

The President may, during the said period, by order authorise the use of the Hindi language in
addition to the English language and of the Devanagari form of numerals in addition to the
international form of Indian numerals for any of the official purposes of the Union.”

The third clause of the article permits the Parliament to use any form of numerals. It states:

“Notwithstanding anything in this article, Parliament may by law provide for the use, after the said
period of fifteen years, of—
(a) the English language,
or
(b) the Devanagari form of numerals, for such purposes as may be specified in the law. ”

The official languages act is another solution imposed by the government. It was put in the
constitution in 1963. The act allows for the English language to be used alongside Hindi until any
legislation is passed to change it.

BLOC POSITIONS

Union Minister Amit Shah said in September 2019 that Hindi should be made the national language.
He emphasised on the fact that Hindi was used majorly in the freedom struggle, and wanted to make
Hindi the most widely spoken language in the world.

“Unity and diversity is the strength of our nation but a national language is needed so that
foreign languages do not overpower our own.” -Amit Shah
-
This statement drew several reactions. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)
Chief MK Stalin said, “It’s shocking. It will surely affect India’s unity. On behalf of DMK, I
would urge him(Amit Shah) to take back that view of his.”

Congress said the three-language formula should not be changed and controversies must not be
stirred up on “emotive” issues settled by Constitution-makers.

Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder S Ramadoss tweeted:

“Shah’s views on Hindia to be India’s single language are wrong. Hindi can’t be forced on
people speaking other languages.”

Trinamool Congress (TMZ) leader Mamata Banerjee tweeted:

“We may learn many languages, but we should not forget our mother language. ”

SUGGESTED MODERATED CAUCUS TOPICS

1. Discussing the British Influence in creating the barrier of communication.

2. Role of drafting commission for the national language crisis back in 1949
3. Question of communal violence during the question of national or official language
4. Analysing the Hindi speaking audience in India and defining their ideology
5. Discussing the importance of the national language for the country
6. Discussing the role of British rulers in the development of the new way of
communication
7. Challenges faced when drafting the constitution in regard to regional language
8. Discussing the arguments pointed out at the time of recognizing Hindi as an official
language
9. Discussing ancient Indian culture and its significance
10. Current status of communal arguments over national language
 RESEARCH LINKS

Note: Delegates, some of the links are only meant for light reading and thus are not highlighted,
only refer to the highlighted sources as valid proof as others may or may not be accepted as a
source of proof in the Council. The decision of the Presiding Officer in regards to the acceptable
sources is final and Binding.

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