Opposing imposition

Context

• The announcement of the BJP-led government in Maharashtra that English and Marathi medium schools will begin teaching Hindi as a third language from Class 1, as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020, is running into significant political opposition.

• The imposition of Hindi was contested in many non-Hindi states, especially in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Violent protests broke out in southern India leading the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to introduce the ‘Official Languages Act’ in 1963, which assured the continuation of English along with Hindi as the official language of the Union of India.

Constitutional Provisions

• The Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in Devnagari Script along with English as the official language of the country on September 14, 1949, under Article 343(1).

• Article 351 gives power to the Union Government to issue a directive for the development of the Hindi language.

• The Hindi language is one of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.

Eighth Schedule

• The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution consists of the following 22 languages:

• Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi,Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.

• Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution.

• Sindhi language was added by the 21st Amendment Act of 1967.

• Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali were included by the 71st Amendment Act of 1992.

• Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali were added by the 92nd Amendment Act of 2003 which came into force in 2004.

NEP and Hindi

• NEP 2020 Policy: Requires students to learn three languages, with at least two being Indian.

• Changes from Past Policies: Unlike the NEP 1968, which mandated Hindi, English, and a regional language, NEP 2020 allows flexibility in language selection.

• Regional Flexibility: States and students can choose languages, promoting multilingualism while respecting cultural and regional diversity.