HINDEEEEEEEEEEE

Thanks Mr. Raj, I had always though it would be cold day in hell when I thank any of our damned politicians for anything, but here I must make an exception. No, I don't thank him for the rampage, or beating up of people, that I leave to the Trauma Doctors. But I thank him profoundly for the eye-opener he recently popped -- "India does NOT have any national language."

Then what is our Rashtra Bhasha ??
If even you thought it was Hindi, you don’t need to feel miserable about it, because a majority of the Indian population is with you. Most of us are/were under the same wrong impression.

Everyone has it firmly imprinted in their minds right form school, thank God they didn't get the Rastra Pita wrong. I for one am glad to know that out education system is flawed ,makes it nice to have a scapegoat to explain why I am still a Illiterate boor.

OK, let's settle this once and for all. I'm not in the mood to write too much about this now coz there's plenty of material on it. I'll just direct you towards a couple of links.

(If you are lazy lust skip them and read on)

http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2005/01/16/stories/2005011600260300.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_languages_of_India

http://vetri-vel.blogspot.com/2006/12/india-does-not-have-national-language.html

Part XVII of the constitution:
This part 17, defines an OFFICIAL language, NOT a national language.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17.html

Article 345: This gives the State govt., power to decide its own “OFFICIAL LANGUAGE”
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17345.html

Article 343: This defines Hindi in devangari script and English to be the “OFFICIAL LANGUAGES” of union govt.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17343.html

(Boy..are you lazy..Anyways......)

The gist of it all being that Hindi is 'A' national language (along with 22 other languages mentioned under the 8^th schedule of the Indian constitution), as opposed to the common perception that Hindi is 'THE' national language.

Hindi is an official language of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the National Capital, the Territory of Delhi. Bengali is the official language of West Bengal and certain parts of the North-east. Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra. Punjabi is the official language of Punjab, Haryana. Gujarati is the official language of Gujarat. Tamil is the official language of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Malayalam is the official language of Kerala and Lakshadweep. Kannada is the official language of Karnataka. Telugu is the official language of Andhra Pradesh. Oriya is the official language of Orissa. Assamese is the official language of Assam; it's spoken widely in many of the seven northeastern states. English is the co-official language of the Indian Union, and each of the several states mentioned above may also have another co-official language.

DIFFERENCE between National and Official Language:

NATIONAL LANGUAGE: Defines the people of the nation, culture, history.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: A language that is used for official communication

While a National language by default can become the Official language, an Official language has to be APPROVED legally to become the National language.

All languages spoken in India, starting from the most populous to the least are our national languages, because all of them define the people of this nation, culture and their history collectively.

India has NO LEGALLY DEFINED NATIONAL LANGUAGES ONLY 23 OFFICIAL languages as per the constitution.

Article 345 provides constitutional recognition to "official languages" of the union to include any one or more of the languages in use in the state or Hindi language adopted by a state legislature as the official language of that state.

Now the More Democratic Minds might say --- since Hindi is the most wide spread language it should be made the National language (If we ever decide to single one out.)

According to that same logic we should also change our National Animal to the Stray Dog, or the Bandicoot and the National Animal should be the Crow. and you dont need to be told that is sheer lunacy.

But then I feel -- Is India unique in having no National Language ??

On checking out the List of Multilingual Countries and Regions on Wikipedia, it was evident that most of the multilingual countries do not have any National Language.

Isn't it great that we have so many official languages.......

What is alarming is that most of us have been under the very wrong impression that our National Language is Hindi.

Why does a majority have this imprinted in their minds? Who is responsible for this?