Constituent Assembly Debates on Language

Author(s): RAMA KANT AGNIHOTRI

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 50, No. 8 (FEBRUARY 21, 2015), pp. 47-56
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Constituent Assembly Debates on Language

RAMA KANT AGNIHOTRI

Even though India's Constituent Assembly debates were

informed by remarkable seriousness, scholarship, and (cad) of India held during 1946-50 in the context of dis
This paper examines
cussions the and
on language Constituent Assembly
language rights Debates
of minorities.
integrity, most of the linguistic decisions taken by the
I propose to make the following points in this paper:
Constituent Assembly, in many cases insightful, were (a) whatever issues regarding language and linguistic minori
located in consensual democracy and the domination ties the members of the Constituent Assembly (ca) took up,

of the elites in that body. The multilingual and their discourse, in spite of diverse shades of lobbying and
rhetoric, was informed by the same kind of gravity and schol
multicultural ethos that is constitutive of Indian society
arship as was visible in their debate on various other issues
was ignored. The focus was so much on containing the that concerned the Indian polity in the making; (b) whatever
existing political safeguards available to the religious decisions about language were finally incorporated into the

and backward minorities that the rights of linguistic Constitution were in the interest of the country, even though
they were often the result of consensual democracy and the
minorities were compromised. In trying to prepare a
domination of the elite majority in the ca; (c) the multilingual
blueprint for a liberal and secular democracy, the makers and multicultural ethos that is constitutive of Indian society
of the Constitution were forced to reconcile several was largely ignored; and, finally (d) since the focus was so
contradictions. much on containing the existing political safeguards available
to the religious and backward minorities, the rights of linguistic
minorities were largely compromised.
Volumes v to ix of the cad, in particular, reflect these con
cerns. Recent years have witnessed highly critical and insight
ful analysis of the cad (see, for example, Tejani 2007, 2013;
Bhargava 2010; Bajpai 2000,2008,2010; Jha 2002 among oth
ers). In trying to prepare a blueprint for a liberal and secular
democracy in which all citizens will be ensured of "justice, lib
erty and equality", the makers of the Constitution were forced
to reconcile several contradictions, creating the parameters
along which a future India would construct itself.

Constituent Assembly
The first meeting of the ca was held on 9 December 1946 in
Delhi, and the last on 24 January 1950. For a period of over
three years, when the Assembly was the Parliament of the
Indian subcontinent, it held 11 meetings, working for 165
days. The scholarship and seriousness with which the issue
of language was debated during the cad, and the kind of
constitutional provisions about language that the ca made
throws in sharp relief the casualness and carelessness with
which we have treated the question öf language since inde
pendence. The consensus that though India would have a
national flag and a national anthem, but not a national
language, was not arrived at without serious debate. Simi
I thank the anonymous reviewer for an extremely critical and insightful larly, the decision to have Hindi as the official (and not the
feedback. Thanks are also due to Praveen Singh.
national) language of the union, and to allow English to con
Rama Kant Agnihotri ([email protected]) retired as Professor, tinue for all official purposes for which it was being used
Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi. At present he is working hitherto for a period of 15 years, with the provision that Par
with the Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur.
liament could decide to allow it to continue in that status,

Economie & Political weekly K8B53 February 21, 2015 vol l no 8 47

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

were carefully formulated in Article 343 of the Constitution among people of diverse linguistic, cultural, and religious
of India. persuasions. In spite of such voices of sanity as those of
Even on 26 November 1949, Algu Rai Shastri of the United M K Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the discussions would
Provinces was still referring to Hindi as the national language often get coloured by myths, prejudices, and stereotypes,
of India and asked the President of the ça, Rajendra Prasad, to These decisions were informed by monolithic and homo
have the Constitution passed in Hindi. He said: geneous views about language in which the voices of minorities
This language (English) is not the language of the people, it is not the and the underprivileged had to be pushed under the rug.
language of the common man. I, therefore, request you in the name of The beginnings of contemporary perspectives on language,
Indian nationalism and in the name of Indian people to make a defi- where "language faculty" is regarded as- innate and universal
nite announcement in this respect (cad xi: 984). (Chomsky i957, 1959,1965) and where variability is regarded
Unfortunately, we still do not have an authorised version of as an inherent property of language (Labov 1966), would ap
the Constitution in Hindi or in other major languages pear on the scene only during the late 1950s and 1960s, but the
of India. dominant structural paradigm was well established by the
Consensual politics, particularly when certain myths and 1940s or so. The foundations of modern structural linguistics,
prejudices are widely shared, can often lead to unhealthy deci- known since Panini, had been laid by Ferdinand de Saussure
sions. It also often suppresses the voices of minorities. For (1857-13) in the early 20th century, when during 1911-13 he
example, whenever some members raised questions about the gave lectures on general linguistics at the University of Geneva,
suitability of Hindi being the official or national language, or published later as Cours de linguistique générale (Course in
pointed out the pointlessness of the move from Hindustani to General Linguistics) in 1916 (Saussure 1916/1974). Linguists such
Hindi and Urdu on the basis of script and a few lexical items, as Edward Sapir (1921), Otto Jespersen (1924) and Leonard
their voices were ignored and silenced. People refused to Bloomfield (1925,1928,1933,1935), among others, had shown
appreciate that the Hindi-Urdu divide would involve major that all languages, be it English, French or German, or the
social, political, cultural, literary, and linguistic loss for the remotest tribal languages like Menomini (spoken by the native
country. Similarly, when members raised issues about the American tribe of Wisconsin), were, linguistically speaking,
medium of instruction in education in the case of minorities, equal, i e, they had equally complex and rich phonological,
migrants, or metropolitan cities such as Delhi, their voices did lexical, and grammatical structures. According to Sapir (1921:
not receive the attention they deserved. The pleas to include 234), "when it comes to linguistic form, Plato walks with the
languages such as Mundari, Gondi, and Oraon in the Schedule Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting
of Languages were not entertained. savage of Assam".
Any language, given suitable opportunities and support, has
Perspectives on Language the potential to perform all those functions we normally asso
Even though they could not be aware of the recent explora- ciate with such well-established languages as English, French,
tions in the study of the nature, acquisition, and structure of Greek, Sanskrit, or Tamil. In the cad, there is no reflection of
language, and its relationship to mind and society, the mem- this awareness, particularly when it comes to the rights of lan
bers of the ca brought a high level of seriousness and integrity guages of the underprivileged. If the makers of the Constitu
te the debate regarding whatever issues they did take up. Their tion had recognised the multilingual character of the polity,
debates focused so much on the issues of national/official equality of all languages therein, and had made special provi
language, language of judiciary and education, languages to sions for the recognition and growth of the languages of the
be recognised by the Constitution in the Eighth Schedule, etc, underprivileged, particularly in the domain of education, we
they hardly could appreciate that what essentially constituted may have had a different kind of India today,
the essence of India was a multilinguality at the individual and In fact, the issue of language has an impact on the polity in
societal levels; that each area was so intensely multicultural very complex ways. Most people unwittingly regard language
and multilingual, characterised by fluidity rather than homo- as just a means of communication; it is much more. Language
geneity; and, that it was essentially futile to entertain the idea is rooted firmly in both, our minds and society. It constructs
of creating states on the basis of language, implicitly suggesting our human and natural world for us in our minds, and structures
that each area may have only a single medium of instruction. it in a way that it is always accessible to us irrespective of place
The constitutional decisions over a period of time, restated and time at a speed and sequence that puts the most sophisti
consistently through judicial and social platforms, policy- cated machine to shame. The network of relations among our
makers, and academics, acquire a kind of sanctity which state, locality, family, kinship, and friends is always mediated
makes it difficult to even initiate any changes, howsoever ra- through language in more ways than just talking to each other,
tional they may sound. This is true, even though the makers of It is not just that most of our knowledge is coded in lan
the Indian Constitution stated several times in the cad that guage, but that it is transmitted and reconstructed through
generations to come will rectify these decisions if need be, language. In fact, all new knowledge inevitably needs old and
particularly in the case of language. Most of the issues were, at new language. It encodes our history and heritage and
the end of the day, decided not so much on merit, as on the becomes a foundation of our identity. Finally, along with land
civilised platform of consensus building and convenience and water, language is a major factor responsible for power

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 SPECIAL ARTICLE

configurations in society (Kress and Hodge 1979; Lee 1992; 2003; Makoni and Pennycook 2012; Jessner 2006; Singleton et al
Fairclough 1989,1992). Thus, languages which children bring 2013; Stroud 2001; Stroud and Heugh 2011).
to school are an important part of their identity and knowl- The works of Cummins (1979, 1984) and J Cummins and
edge base. The ca discussions about language rarely show an M Swain (1986) clearly demonstrates the positive correlation
awareness of such perspectives on language. between multilingualism, and cognitive growth and academic
achievement. The ca discussions make it clear that decisions
Debating with Dignity taken in a consensual democracy framework without due con
If we examine the debate between Hindi enthusiast R V Dhulekar cern for the nature and structure of language and multiplicity
and the President of the ca about the Hindi translation of the of voices in multilingual societies could lead to disastrous lin
Constitution (cad xi: 984-85), we begin to appreciate the dig- guistic and cultural consequences. As G Austin (1966/2000:
nity and restraint with which most ca debates were conducted, xv) says, "The language issue will move toward solution only
In his opening remarks, the President did take note of the with time, providing the Indian people with perhaps the great
seriousness of the language issue, among other things: est test of their maturity."
One of the problems which the Constituent Assembly took consider
able time in solving relates to the language for official purposes of the Language Issues

country... we have been able to adopt Hindi which is the language that what were the major linguistic issues in front of the ca? One
is understood by the largest number of people in the country as our of- .. ...... ..
ficial language. I look upon this as a decision of very great importance of the maJor lssues was lndeed the linguistic division of India,
when we consider that in a small country like Switzerland they have a demand the Congress had never earlier fully rejected. There
no less than three official languages and in South Africa two official were also the questions of national and/or official language,
languages. It shows a spirit of accommodation and a determination to its script> form of numerals t0 be used, role of mother tongues,
organize the country as one nation that those whose language is not , , , . , . , , . . .
Hindi have voluntarily accepted it as the official language (Cheers). There ^guages to be used in education, courts and administration,
is no question of imposition now... and let me hope that it will develop issues concerning linguistic minorities, the role of English and
into a national language... The use of English during the period of tran- how long it should continue to be used, the place of Hindi and
sition was considered inevitable for practical reasons (cad xi: 992). the kind of efforts that must be made to ensure its standardisa

With hindsight, today we can examine whether having one, tion and propagation, the Hindustani-Hindi-Urdu conflict, the
rather than several official languages, is in the larger interest role of Sanskrit in a new India, the role and function of major
of society. The fact that Switzerland has four (German, French, Indian regional languages, etc. The fact that, in spite of their
Italian and Romansh; the first three having equal official sta- dedicated efforts, members of the ca left the resolution of
tus) national languages and the free South Africa decided to most of these issues to future generations only shows their dif
have li national languages may have served larger sociopolitical ficult and complex nature. In some cases, they took tentative
interests; it may also have major educational and pedagogical decisions, which for a variety of reasons have more or less
implications. Has Hindi united us as a nation? Or, is it the mul- become permanent in nature now.
tiplicity of languages and variability in our linguistic behaviour • It was only a few months before partition that the ca was
which has been our saving grace (Pandit 1972)? Is it possible created. But, at that time, the partition of the Indian subconti
that a space for a pedagogy rooted in multilinguality could nent was not a reality. There was overwhelming support for
have been created in the Constitution itself (Agnihotri 1995, Hindustani. But, it soon disappeared as the partition became a
2007; Stroud 2001; Stroud and Heugh 2004, 2011; Heugh reality, even though the processes of separating Hindustani
2013a, 2013b; Singleton et al 2013; Makoni 2003; Makoni and into Hindi and Urdu had started several years before Partition
Pennycook 2012)? Some members did point out that several (Agnihotri 2002). The pro-Hindi faction in the cad was led by
mother tongues may be represented in the same region. P D Tandon, Seth Govind Das, Sampurnanand, Ravi Shankar
Neither the Constitution, nor the educational policies con- Shukla, K M Munshi, R V Dhulekar, among others. As Gupta
ceptualised and implemented in its framework since take into (1970:131-32) points out,
account the multilingual fabric of the Indian society where lin- They also represented the leading Hindi associations in the country,
guistic variability facilitates and does not obstruct communi- The first four were actively involved in Hindi politics from the very
, , , . 0 nn, inception of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan movement and all four came
cation (Pandit 1969, 1972, 1988; Khubchandani 1983, 1988). f \r. ,. . , ' _ , . ,n ,
from Hindi areas. It was left to Tandon and Govind Das, however, to
The multilingual repertoire of a speech community constitutes jead tjie Hindi bloc in the Assembly with an aggressive zeal character
a marker of its identity and its callous and sustained dilution istic of'true believers',
can only result in immense individual, social, linguistic and
cultural loss. Research today has extensively demonstrated (a) Hindi Nationalism and Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani
the advantages of treating multilinguality as a resource as it Debate: Traces of strong Hindi chauvinism were clearly visible
correlates strongly with cognitive flexibility, scholastic in early interventions in the cad. On 10 December 1946,
achievement, metalinguistic awareness, language proficiency, R V Dhulekar made the following statement:

and social tolerance (Agnihotri 1995, 2009, 2010, 2012; Agni- People who do not know Hindustani have no right to stay in India,
hotri and Mangla 2012, Edwards 1998, Edwards and Walker People who are present in this House to fashion out a Constitution for
1995; Mangla and Agnihotri 2011; Crawhall 1992; Agnihotri India and do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members of
and McCormick 2010; Heugh 2010, 2013a, 2013b; Makoni this Assembly. They had better leave (cadi: 26-27).

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Dhulekar (declared "out of order" that day) was convinced a language which is in a very rudimentary condition in this respect
that in the race of all the major Indian languages, Hindi had (CAD Ix: t33i)
won the battle and is worthy of not only being the official, but Ahmad was particularly concerned with the voices of the
also the national language of India. Against all linguistic evi- people from areas which were "compendiously described as
dence, Sanskrit, he believed, was an international language, the non-Hindi areas". He said (cad ix: 1330):
the mother of all languages, and would soon be the language The suitability of the language for all India purposes forever should not
of the world. On 13 September 1949, he said: be a matter left to be decided without a mandate from the electorate,
Some say that it is a concession to Hindi language I say 'no'. It is a by 315 members'If is easyt0 be led away by curtesies and generosi
consummation of historic process... I may say that Swami Ramdas ties. It is not a question of a marriage ceremony or a dinner party where
„ . ... ,. _ - . ,t" j. ii_ i. j r • . we can afford to be generous. This is a matter which should be a matter
wrote in Hindi, Tulsi Das wrote in Hindi, then again the modern Samt, . , 0 , , , ,, , , .. ,
, . y,* j * TT , , . of voluntary acceptance by the people.../have also heard it said that if
Swami Dayanand wrote in Hindi. He was a Gujarati but he wrote in . .. , , .. ...
we do not accept Hindi now, the chances of Hindi would be gone forever. If
Hindi. Why did he write in Hindi? Because Hindi was the national lan
that is so, Hindi has no case for immediate acceptance (emphasis mine).
guage of this country. Then again I may say that our Father of the
Nation Mahatma Gandhi also, when he came into the Congress, im- After Partition became a reality, a small group of people
mediately did away with English and he spoke in Hindi ... Hindi has made all possible efforts to push their point of view, and the
become the universal language of this country and has taken the field number of members' who felt "overawed" and "threatened"

(cad ix. 1347-48). was not smaji at an Even though several members following
Was the Ramcharitmanas written in Hindi? If we decon- Gandhi wanted Hindustani to be the language of the Indian
struct the discourse of the 1949 cad, it becomes clear how a Union, the Hindi faction in the ca tried to erase such voices,
consensus was built around "Pure Hindi", persistently co- as, for example, S V Krishnamoorthy Rao (cad ix: 1335):
opting "our friends" among the Muslims, and from south India today Hindi is only a regional language and a provjndal language and
or other non-Hindi areas. In the name of democracy, the ma- just because it is being spoken by about ten crores of people out of
jority opinion prevailed and the minorities and speakers of thirty-two crores, we are raising it to the level of a common language,
other languages were forced to accept monolithic and mono- 1 would cal1 ah languages spoken in India as our national languages
lingual solutions to a multilingual and multicultural situation. ~ Tamil> Tèlugu'Kannada> Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati and all the
The, kind
• j c . _i_ _ u • . _ ... other languages are national languages. But for the purpose of the
of western equation that obtains between nation- ,, . 06 6 , v ,
Union, we want a common language and we are prepared to accept
nationality-religion-language was beginning to be seen .as an Hindi as our common language But Hindi has t0 become such a ,an_
ideal even in India. Thus, if we could have Germany German guage that its effect would be seen in all the ramifications of national
Christians — German, why not Hindustan — Hindus — Hindu life, and for this it should develop very much. My submission is that
religion — Hindi? Seth Govind Das, who insisted on speaking today Hindi has not yet developed to that stage. In fact I can quote

1949
. • .jmeeting, said:
more developed thanvHindi.
in Hindi in spite of protests to the contrary in the 12 September from some of our South Indian knguages to show that they are far

on the opening day of this August Assembly...I had raised the ques- Rao then goes on to discuss some technical terms from sci
tion of National language. Thereafter, I have been raising this ques- ence and technology, showing how for words like hydrogen,
tion here from time to time, which I feel may have caused annoyance bromine) nitrogen, iodine, oxygen, carbon, etc, Kannada,
to several of my Friends in the House. I have had too often to approach a • i j i it., , , _ _ .
Members of this House with regard to this matter and it may not be an Unllke Hlndl> already has Standardised vocabulary. He also
exaggeration to say that I must have covered miles upon miles in this shows how, for example, for constitutional expressions such as
House in doing so. I have visited them at their local residences; I have "President of India", "compensation", "citizen", "republic", etc,
visited them in their home towns in connection with this question. I Kannada has standard words understood by common people.
have
. „ .been
vI uamearnestly
uu trying tothe
uj- Whereas, persuadeofthem tosuch
agree with our view . . , , ,, ,
point... very happy thatinagreement
case has Hindi, distinguished
been reached...m respect . ; scholars of
of about 95 per cent...on the questions on which differences still exist, that tune as Sunder Lai, Rahul Sankrityayan and Kaka
we should reach decisions in an amicable spirit. But if our differences Kalelkar provide completely different Hindi translations for
are not resolved.. .no bitterness should be allowed to come in. We have similar terms. Mohammed Hifzur Rahman of the United Prov
accepted Democracy and democracy can only function when majority jnœs sai(j ^CAD IX- 1339)
opinion is honoured.. .1 express my gratitude to my friends from South
India and other non-Hindi regions for having accepted at least one Today I am confused and confounded because till yesterday, the whole
thing - that is Hindi in Devanagari Script alone can be the language Congress was unanimous regarding the solution of the language prob
of the Union, whether we call it the National language or the State lem. There was no dissenting voice. All said with one voice, 'Hindus
language (cad ix: 1324-25) (emphasis mine). tani shall be the national language of our country, which shall be writ
In such an atmosphere of persistent lobbying and majoritar- ten in both the scripts'namelyHindi and Urdu'
ianism, alternative voices could hardly be heard. Naziruddin Rahman stiys that it was with great enthusiasm and hope
Ahmad argued very strongly for the continuance of English till that Gandhi became a member of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan,
such time an Indian language was ready to take over the However, when he noticed that it was trying to Sanskritise
responsibility of the national or state language. "The suitability Hindi at a fast pace, delinking it from the common people, he
of a language requires", he said, lost no time in resigning. It is only today that some people real
a large number of things. It requires great writers, great thinkers, ise the disastrous consequences of the move that took the
great men, scientists, politicians, philosophers, littérateurs, drama- country away from Hindustani to Hindi and Urdu. To continue
tists and others. I believe, without giving any offence, that Hindi is with Rahman's proposed amendment:

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 SPECIAL ARTICLE

But today here and now Hindustani is being replaced by Hindi and ob- 'Absolutely there is no sacrifice on your part. You have to accept. You
viously steps are being taken against Gandhian ideology and against must'... Sir, the National language of India should not be and cannot
the thirty years' history of the Congress. Formerly Hindi was not con- be any other than Hindustani which is Hindi plus Urdu. For the sake
sidered to be outside the pale of Hindustani. But when the voice was of satisfying the sentiments of our friends we have accepted Hindi in
raised that Hindi should be the language of the Union, then I realized Devanagari script. It is no less sacrifice for us to have had to depart
the difference between Hindi and Hindustani. I learnt that by Hindi from a principle, which we have all along fought for and lived for.
they mean that language which shall be Sanskritized and the words of This departure means a very serious inconvenience to us and it is not
Persian, Arabic and Urdu origins shall be excluded and they shall be without a pang that we have agreed tQ tWs departure from the toler.
substituted by new words (cad ix: 1340). ant Gandhian ideok)gy {he GandWan philosophy and the Gandhian
Rahman argued that Urdu was not an alien language and proposition, namely, that the official language of India should be only
was actually the product and symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity; that which is commonly understood and easily spoken and learnt. Sir,
"Muslims did not bring the language from Persia, Spain, or this is the sacrifke that we have made'
Arabia" (cad ix: 1341). He could not understand why it was On 5 November 1948, T- T Krishnamachari of Madras put
suddenly being looked down upon with contempt. He said: "in forward the feelings against what he called the "Hindi Imperi
this world languages do not develop by putting limitations; on alism" most powerfully:
the contrary, they develop by expansion and by borrowing [i]f we are going to be compelled to learn Hindi... I would, Sir, convey
words from every language. They are not imposed on people" a warning on behalf of people of the South for the reason that there
(CAD IX" 1343) are already elements in South India who want separation ... and my
_,or, , _ ^ it t . fr t .. 1 », • w i- ■> honourable friends in up do not help us in any way by flogging their
On 8 December 1948, Z H Lan (United Provinces, Muslim), ., , , . S o- ■ ■
idea [of] Hindi Imperialism to the maximum extent possible. Sir, it is
had already warned the ca of the declining importance of up t0 my frjends jn UP j0 have a whole-India; it is up to them to have a
Urdu (as compared to Hindi) in the United Provinces (cad vii). Hindi-India. The choice is theirs (cad vii: 235).
The consequences of adopting Hindi and artificially Sanskri
tising it has not been very rewarding (Agnihotri 1977). The (b) Sanskrit as a National Language: Another proposal put
Hindi that we see today could never become the language of forward in the cad was to adopt Sanskrit as the national lan
the masses. The kind of lingua franca Hindustani built across guage. For many distinguished ca members, Sanskrit was like
the country, particularly during the struggle for freedom, was a goddess, pure, eternal and unchanging, predating humanity,
completely lost. It was rooted in variability and materialised as They did not realise that societies create languages and not
a language continuum. The fate of Urdu in India has indeed vice versa. Lakshmi Kanta Maitra, who believed that Sanskrit
become pathetic. Though it receives sustained lip service from was the mother of all languages in the world, made a long
political leaders, particularly during the elections, the state speech in favour of Sanskrit (cad ix: 1354-55):
has tried to strike at its very roots by almost eliminating it 1 make absolutely no apology for asking you seriously to accept San
from the mainstream educational system. English, on the skrit... If today India has got an opportunity after thousand years to
other hand, has become the most sought-after language. The shape her own destiny, I ask in all seriousness if she is going to feel
gates of employment, social mobility and power are open to ashamed t0 reC08nfthe fanskrit lanSuaSe - the revered grandmoth
... . „ , 11.^,., , er of languages of the world... Sir, we are proud of the great provincial
those who are proficient in English, or both in English and languages of thls country _ Bengall> Marathl> Gujarati; Hindi, Tamil,
their regional language. Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and others. They constitute a variety of
One is not saying that Hindustani, written as it was both in wealth of Indian culture and civilisation. This is not a province's prop
the Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts, would not have erty- h's a" our national property. But all these languages derive their
changed in time and space and across social hierarchies if it origin from Sanskrit.
had been adopted as the official or national language. One is The advocates of Sanskrit felt that Sanskrit was by defini
only suggesting that it would have become a modern language tion more scientific than other languages, the most developed
in due course, developing as all major languages of the world one. They also wrongly believed that Sanskrit was the mother
have, a language of science and technology, of mathematics of all Indian languages. Some, in fact, believed that it was the
and philosophy. Modern Hindi or Urdu has not achieved any- mother of all languages of the world. Given that India has over
thing of that sort. They have not become languages of serious 1,652 languages belonging to five different language families
social and academic discourse. Several studies have examined — namely, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman
this trajectory of Hindustani, noting the grammatical similari- and Assamese, and Nicobarese (the last family brought to our
ties and rather minor sound and word level differences be- notice by Abbi 2006) — it was indeed preposterous to suggest
tween Hindi and Urdu (Kelkar 1968; Rai 1984; Agnihotri that Sanskrit was the mother of all Indian languages, even
2002). G Durgabai of Madras was most vocal in her protest though there is no exaggeration in saying that many Indian
(cad ix: 1426): languages have borrowed words from Sanskrit. The sad out
Mr President, the question of national language for India which was come of this exclusive emphasis on Hindi, English, Sanskrit
an almost agreed proposition until recently has suddenly become a and some major Indian languages was that minor languages
highly controversial issue. Whether rightly or wrongly, the people of belonging t0 the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman families
non-Hindi speaking areas have been made to feel that this fight or , . . , , . . c . .
,. . , , : , . ... ,. .. . f e got completely neglected, and we are paying the price of that
this attitude on behalf of the Hindi speaking areas is a fight for ef- ° " . ... ,, , ,
fectively preventing the natural influence of other powerful languages neglect till date. Millions of children who speak these languages
of India on the composite culture of this nation... Some friends said: such as Angami, Santhali, Ao, Saura or Bodo are forced to

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

study through languages that are completely unknown to He was also clear that English must increasingly become a
them and when they cannot understand the content of science part of our multilingual repertoire, though the work of the
or social sciences because of linguistic difficulty, they are nation must increasingly be carried out in Indian languages,
dubbed as dull and incompetent. He insisted that India cannot afford to have a small English
The roots of the proposal for replacing Hindustani by "sani- knowing elite separated from the masses, and that all children
tised Hindi" should also be seen in this "love and respect" for should learn English (cad ix: 1414).
Sanskrit. It was born out of some kind of misplaced patriotism
and ignorance about language development. Most protago- (c) Numerals: The Hindi protagonists wondered why the peo
nists of Hindi felt that language development consisted of pie who were willing to accept the Devanagari script would
purging language of words of "foreign" origin, without realis- object to Nagari numerals which for them formed an integral
ing that it is only those languages that borrow freely from other part of the Devanagari writing system. For those advocating
languages that prosper and become acceptable to the masses, the modern Arabic International numerals, it was equally
There were many like Maitra in the ca who could not appreci- shocking that distinguished scholars should support such a
ate the fact that all languages are equally scientific and that reactionary move. They argued that the modern numerals had
given an opportunity any one would meet the demands of a actually been exported from India and that both in the interest
modern society. They also did not appreciate the fact that lan- of reclaiming our past and keeping up with modern know
guages of the South belonged to the Dravidian and not Indo- ledge, we should adopt modern numerals. Finally, the wish of
Aryan family, and that languages of the North East and the the south Indians who argued for modern numerals prevailed,
tribal belts of India had nothing to do with Sanskrit. In any
case, it would have been impossible to ensure any administra- (d) Minority Languages and Linguistic Imperialism: The
tive, judicial, executive and educational continuity in Sanskrit, focus of the cad was so much on the religious minorities and
a concern which was at the heart of the cad. Scheduled Castes (ses) and Scheduled Tribes (sts) that the is
Most of all, for most members of the ca, the existence of "a sue of linguistic and cultural minorities received minimal at
language", almost as an autonomous object, was a given. It tention. In the name of building a secular state, no community
was difficult for them to appreciate the fact that language is rights, in terms of either religion or caste, could be recognised;
essentially a constantly changing phenomenon and its rules, the secular Constitution must celebrate the individual. The
except for the ones that are a part of the universal grammar, religious minorities could simply be allowed to have the free
are born out of the negotiated dialogue people enter into. They dom to follow their respective religions and run educational
come to mean not so much because of their histories or exist
ing grammars and dictionaries, nor even because of the inten
tions of individual speakers, but because of the grammars that Economic&PoliticalwEEKLY
emerge out of the shared discourse of people (Hall 2002).

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aware of other societies" (cad ix: 1409). He was equally aware
that any language that loses contact with the masses will die. EKÄ. • And
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of other
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He knew that though we must have English, we will become a features on www.epw.in
very sad nation if English remains in the hands of a select few.
Still trying to hold the fort for Hindustani, he (cad ix: 1415) said:
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 SPECIAL ARTICLE

institutions. They could not be allowed to have any political He felt that the state should make adequate provisions for
safeguards. The ses and sts were allowed certain reservations imparting public instruction in primary schools to the children
in Parliament and in jobs, but reluctantly for a period of 10 of members of minorities through the medium of their own
years only in a compensatory spirit for years of deprivation. As language and in such script as is in vogue among them.
Bajpai (2008: 355) explains, the retraction of political safe- According to Bajpai (2008: 379), the process of Constitution
guards for religious minorities was not just because of the par- making saw the formation of a "shared normative vocabulary,
tition of India, but because "there was a normative deficit in comprising secularism, democracy, equality and justice, na
the case of group representation as such, and this enables us to tional unity, and development". As this vocabulary got legiti
understand better the retraction of legislative quotas for reli- mised, even the word "minority" was to be replaced by "cer
gious minorities during Constitution-making." tain classes". There would be affirmative action for the back
A historical day in the making of our Constitution, 14 Sep- ward classes, but for the rest only equality and justice was to
tember 1949 must be remembered as the day Jaipal Singh be assured. One of the major problems that the makers of the
(Bihar, General) raised the issue of tribal languages (cad ix). Constitution faced was in defining and separating different
He requested that Mundari, Gondi and Oraon be included in kinds of minorities; they could be based on religion, caste, lan
Schedule vu a (now Schedule vm) of our Constitution since guage, culture or tribe. The minority was often not seen in
lakhs of people speak these languages. He chose these three numerical terms. It was the backwardness and denial of vari
out of the 176 mentioned in the then Census of India. He ous social privileges that identified minorities,
argued that by accepting these we would be "encouraging the According to Tejani (2013:209), "Indian secularism emerged
cause of unearthing ancient history" (cad ix: 1440). He also at the nexus of nationalism and democracy, with caste, cru
argued strongly against the puritanical fanaticism involved in daily, at its centre". Tejani (2007) also argued that it was only
Sanskritising Hindi. He said that just as Adivasis (tribal when caste was separated from religious minorities around
peoples) learn Hindi and other regional languages, majority the reservation issue that a meaning for secularism was crys
language speakers should also make an attempt to learn their tallised in the cad. What was not appreciated in the cad was
languages. He said: that each one of these minority sub-groups — caste, religious
....[Adivasis]
They .. .... , „...are. obilingual
or tribal
or — will alsoInhave
trilingual. Westdistinct
Bengal, languages
the San- . associated with
thals speak Bengali as well as their mother tongue. Wherever you them an<i that the State should make special provisions for
go you find that the Adibasi has accepted the language of the area in their use in education and public life,
addition to his mother tongue.
There is not a single Member here from Bihar who has had to learn The Constitutional Provisions
an Adibasi language... I think there should be some reciprocity.... the t, ,, . . „„„„,„1 _j:
„v. .that
provinces , ... ,. , „ , Hindi
speak y / , should
Following
make theitcad, several
a point provisions
to learn another regarding
lan- 0 ' rlanguage
0 000
guage. That is the spirit that should be shown by us... We know very lit- were made in the Indian Constitution. Articles 343"35i 2nd the
tie of ancient India and there is only one way of learning about ancient 8th Schedule deal with issues of languages of the country. Hindi

India and that is by learning the languages that existed in this country in the Devanagari script is the official language of the union
before the Indo-Aryan hordes came into this country (cad ix: 1440-41]. and seyeral spedal directives are given for the promotion of
On 8 December 1948 (cad vii: 896), K T Shah had proposed Hindi: "to promote the spread of Hindi language, to develop it
the following version of Clause (1) of Article 23 of the draft: so that it may serve as the medium of expression for all the ele
Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part ments of the composite culture of India" (Article 351). A special
thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall directive was included for the development of Hindi, which
have the right to conserve and develop the same. was t0 enriched by maintaining its essential genius and
He added the word "develop" after "conserve" because he borrowing from other Indian languages, "and drawing, when
regarded culture, subsuming language and script, as a dynam- ever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on
ic phenomenon. The addition of the word "develop" was not Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages". Unfortunately,
accepted. Damodar Swarup Seth (United Provinces, General) what really captured the imagination of the Hindi protago
was of the view that minorities based on religion should not be nists was the phrase "primarily on Sanskrit",
recognised in a secular state. He pleaded strongly for minorities According to article 343(2), the .Constitution provides for the
based on language suggesting that the linguistic minorities should use of English for all official purposes for a period of 15 years,
have the right to establish and administer educational institutions However, by 1965, widespread riots in south India and the
for the promotion of their language and literature, as well as for fears of domination of Hindi and Aryanisation made it clear
imparting education to their children at primary and pre-primary that English should not be completely demoted from its official
stages through the medium of their own languages. status. As Gupta (1970:191) points out, phrases like Arya Sa
Z H Lari (United Provinces, Muslim) said that after Clause maj, Arya Sanskriti, Arya Bhasha, and Arya Lipi, referring to
(3) of Article 23, the following new clause should be inserted: the greatness of Hindu organisation, culture, language, and
r, ... .. „ script, respectively, alienated not only the Muslims, but also
Any section of the citizens residing m the territory of India or any part . . . , . . ,
thereof having a distinct language and script shall be entitled to have the South Indlans who were PerhaPs there in Indla before the
primary education imparted to its children through the medium of Aryans came and in no way regarded their languages or cul
that language and script. tures less glorious. It took 66 deaths and two self-immolations
Economic & Political weekly DDC9 February 21, 2015 vol l no 8 53

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

in the anti-Hindi student agitation in Tamil Nadu for the gov- accrue to these languages. As Austin (1966/2000) points out,
ernment to realise that a language cannot be imposed on any the major advantage was really psychological, particularly for
people against their wishes and that repression of a student those who feared the domination of the protagonists of Hindi,
movement would automatically involve parents, teachers, and We noticed above that members like Durgabai were deeply
the whole community. English was assured the status of the worried about the status of regional languages of India and
Associate Official language in 1965. The Constitution provides must have desperately wanted to have some place for them in
that English will be the language of the High Courts, Supreme the Constitution. This simple listing was but another stroke of
Court and Acts of Parliament, etc. "raw genius"; it was an open list, more could be added to it.
The Constitution also provides for the rights of its citizens to The inclusion, on the one hand, would cost almost nothing to
make representation in any language to the state. Article 350A the state in financial or administrative terms, but would lend a
(7th Amendment Act 1956) provides for adequate facilities for distinct aura to the language to be included, on the other hand,
instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of educa- The first language to be included in the Schedule was Sindhi.
tion to children belonging to linguistic minorities. This could Though Sindhis had made important contributions in a variety
never happen as there was no idea of the number of mother of domains, they were spread all over the country and there
tongues or the variety of different mother tongues that could be was no specific geographical territory associated with them
represented in a classroom. It is easy to appreciate that the ca (there was and is one in Pakistan, however). For them it was a
that was trying to address the major issues of a nation in the matter of gaining psychological strength and identity. In spite
making could not invest time in such details. The issue of defin- of several plans that accompanied its inclusion in the 8th
ing the mother tongue was not even taken up assuming per- Schedule, nothing spectacular was done by the Sindhis for
haps that it is self-explanatory. That it is not at all so is now be- their language, reinforcing the view that inclusion in the
coming increasingly clear as people claim to have several moth- Schedule provides psychological security,
er tongues, and what seems to be of crucial importance for edu- The 1992 amendment introduced Konkani, Manipuri and
cation is the "languages of the neighbourhood" (ncert 2005a). Nepali, bringing the number of languages to 18. Manipuri was
In spite of the Central Advisory Board of Education and a a paradigm case of the prolonged neglect of the North East. It
series of high-powered commissions on education, such as the was the sustained struggle of the Manipuris and finally their
Radhakrishnan Commission (1948-1949), Mudaliar Commission importance in Parliament (the numbers started becoming
(1952-1953) and the Kothari Commission (1964-1966), and crucial as several new political parties appeared on the Indian
the National Council of Educational Research and Training
(ncert 1991,1992), the grass-roots level dynamics of multilin
guality was not appreciated until the ncert's National Curric Economic&PoliticalwEEKLY
ulum Framework 2005 (ncert 2005b), where, perhaps, for the
first time the issue of linguistic knowledge that children bring
to the classroom was raised and it was suggested that it could
be treated as a resource and used in various pedagogical strat Subscribe
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following the well-established path of consensual democracy.
That this formula (not any policy) failed miserably almost
across the country should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Wiser with hindsight today, we know that, given the complex
ity of the situation, the makers of our Constitution achieved
nothing less than a miracle (Austin 1966/2000: 265-305).
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 SPECIAL ARTICLE

political scene) that made its inclusion imperative. In the case 1491). Overwhelming majority and compromise are then the
of Nepali, the West Bengal Official Language Act of 1961 had basis of all decisions. The posterity may bless the ca to the ex
already recognised Nepali as the official language of Darjeel- tent that it left many options open for the future parliaments
ing, Kalimpong and Kurseong areas; the central government to decide, as also to the extent that it decided not to have a
now felt pressurised to include Nepali as well. In the case of national language; it called the eighth schedulé only "Lan
Konkani, again, it was a question of an identity distinct from guages" (from 14, we have 22 languages in it now); it ensured
Marathi. Four more languages were added in December 2003 continuity in different domains of social, political, economic,
— Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri — bringing the total administrative and educational activity; it settled the lan
number to 22. guage of the Supreme Court and high courts; it gave great au
As in each of the foregoing cases, the politics of each is spe- tonomy to individual states to use their regional languages in
cific, but at the root of it all are questions of psychological their respective states, etc.
security, community pride and national recognition. With But it left several issues associated with Hindi and English
Manipuri, the Tibeto-Burman family had been represented in completely unresolved. It did not address the question of
the Schedule and a disturbed area of the North East had been medium of education in a multilingual context. In fact, in
at least temporarily brought under peace. In fact, more often retrospect, it seems clear that in making strong constitutional
than not, the movement for inclusion of languages into the 8th provisions for promoting Sanskritised Hindi and not at all en
Schedule started from troubled areas; the settlement of peace suring easy access to English for all, great damage was done
in such areas often involved inclusion of the language of the to the polity. English continues to dominate across the coun
community in the Constitution. try in all sectors and the underprivileged have hardly any
The inclusion of Maithili and Dogri was even more political access to it.
and more intensely identity-related. When the Census of India The ca not only neglected the multilinguality of the
in 1961 noticed that the number of Hindi speakers was declin- country, but also marginalised further the languages of the
ing and people were claiming languages such as Bhojpuri, minorities. Even in the Directive Principles of State Policy,
Awadhi, Maithili, Braj, Bundeli, etc, as their native languages, there are no specific directions concerning minority lan
they, in the 1971 Census, decided to include all of them under guages. Only in Article 46, it is proposed that the "State shall
the rubric of Hindi. To the Maithils, this was a completely un- promote with special care the educational and economic
acceptable situation. The then prime minister had promised to interests of the weaker sections of the people, in particular,
have their language included in the 8th Schedule, and he did of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes." The issue
so. The government also decided to include Dogri to win back of language in the case of persons with disability was not
the confidence of the people of Jammu region, once again a even addressed.
very sensitive area. The 8th Schedule is rather obliquely re- Notice that the processes of consensual democracy effec
ferred to in Articles 344(1) and 351 of the Constitution in the tively meant silencing the voices of the minorities or not even
context of enriching Hindi. Over a period of time, the 8th recognising their existence. A true democracy must have space
Schedule languages have acquired a special status in the for multiplicity of voices where they can function in harmony.
Indian polity in terms administration, education, films and Why did the 8th Schedule have languages only from the Indo
literary awards. Aryan and Dravidian families? For example, Sanskrit, spoken
by a few thousand, found a place in the 8th Schedule, but not
Conclusions languages like Bhili or Bodo, spoken by lakhs of people. It is
Language was indeed a challenging issue before the ca. Rajen- true that over 90% would perhaps belong to these languages,
dra Prasad, in his concluding congratulatory remarks, said But democracy, justice and peace do not reside just in num
that the posterity would bless the ca as all the proposals have bers. Which instrument would you like to eliminate from an
been accepted by a very "overwhelming majority" (cad ix: orchestra or which line from a poem?

REFERENCES (1998): "Mixed Codes and Their Acceptability" — (2oio): "Multilinguality and the Teaching of
Constituent Assembly Debates [CAD], 1946-1950, in R K Agnihotri, A L Khanna and I Sachdev English in India", The EFL Journal, 1(1): 1-14.

the official report, Delhi University Library (ed.), Social Psychological Perspectives on Sec — (2012): "Multilingualism and Monolingual
System, New Delhi; also at Indian National Ar ond Language Learning (New Delhi: Sage Pub Taxonomies and Tests" in Rama Kant Agni
chives, New Delhi; also see, http://parliamen lications), pp 215-230. hotri and Rajendra Singh (ed.), Indian English:
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Abbi, Anvita (2006): Endangered Languages of the Question of Hindi-Urdu" in S Settar and I B BlackSwan), pp 96-103.
Andaman Islands, LINCOM Studies in Asian Gupta (ed.), Pangs of Partition, Volume 2 (New Agnihotri, R K and A Mangla (2012): "Multilin
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Africa (Johannesburg: Heinemann), pp 3-7. (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan), pp 268-77. search Journal, 4(1), pp 55-81.

Economie 8t Political WEEKLY iaavi FEBRUARY 21, 2015 VOL L NO 8 • bb

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

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guistic Diversity in Ethiopia and South Africa" EPW would like to acknowledge the help of the staff of the library of the Indira Gandhi Institute
in D Singleton, J Fishman, L Aronin and
of Development Research, Mumbai, in preparing the index under a project supported by the
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New Linguistic Dispensation (Berlin: Mouton RD Tata Trust.

de Gruyter), pp 339-72.

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