Sunday, January 31, 2010

What is our "national language"?

Recently the Gujarat High Court ruled that Hindi is NOT India's national language. This came as a rude shock to a majority of people, both Hindi speakers and non-Hindi speakers. Everyone assumes that Hindi is the official "national language" of India. However, the founding fathers of our nation had a good understanding of diversity of this nation and hence stopped short of declaring Hindi as the national language. Hence our constitution does not say this either. What it does however is it recognizes Hindi is the official language of the Union Government and a number of other central Government bodies. The Eighth Schedule of the Consitution recognizes a number of regional languages as 'official' languages.

Our country is unique in so many ways, the biggest of all is it's diversity. We don't have many things that are common across the country and we don't really have a "national language" either. We still stick together as a country and that is great. Would having a common language across the country improve our unity? I am not sure.

5 comments:

  1. Saar,
    As a country, we are united neither by a language, nor by religion, but if there is anything that unites us, it's the culture which has it's roots in the concept of Dharma.

    Languages, religions are nothing but different pearls that are strung together. The thread which binds them is what matters.

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  3. Language alone can never unite a country! Sripathi! Asking for or providing something for a Nation to unite is like asking for a liter of Petrol today or a gas cylinder....posting this during those dooms days of June 2011! Jaipal Reddy said, "Nothing can be done!" I say, "Nation can not be united, either!"

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