Hindi Day

History

The Constituent Assembly of India debated the issue of national language for nearly three years. On 14 September 1949, a compromise reached during the drafting of the Constitution of India on the languages that were to have official status in the Republic of India. The compromise, usually called the Munshi-Ayyangar formula, after drafting committee members K. M. Munshi and N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, was voted by the Constituent Assembly of India after three years of debate between two opposing camps. The Hindi protagonists wanted the Hindi language in the Devanagari script to be the sole "national language" of India (replacing Hindustani and Urdu written in Perso-Arabic script); the delegates from South India preferred English to have a place in the Constitution. The Munshi-Ayyangar formula declared (i) Hindi to be the "official language" of India's federal government; (ii) English to be an associate official language for 15 years during which Hindi's formal lexicon would be developed; and (iii) the international form of the Hindu–Arabic numerals to be the official numerals. The compromise resolution became articles 343–351 of India's constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950. In 1965, when the 15 years were up, the Government of India announced that English would continue to be the "de facto formal language of India."