OFFICIAL LANGUAGE COMMITTEE

1. Context

2. Official Language Committee

• The Committee of parliament on Official Languages was set up in 1976 under section 4 of the Official Languages Act, of 1963.
• Section 4 of the Act says "there shall be constituted a committee on Official language, on a resolution to that effect being moved in either House of Parliament with the previous sanction of the president and passed by the both Houses."
• Under the provision of the 1963 Act, the panel submits its report to the president, who "shall (then) cause the report to be laid before each House of Parliament, and sent to all the state Governments."
• The Committee is chaired by the Union Home Minister, and has, by the provisions of the 1963 Act, 30 members- 20 MPs from Lok sabha and 10 MPs from Rajya sabha. The mandate of the committee is to review the progress made in the use of Hindi for official purposes and to make recommendations to increase the use of Hindi in official communications. The first Report of the committee was submitted in 1987.

3. Committee Recommendations

• The committee has recommended replacing English as a medium of instruction in all technical and non-technical institutions with Hindi.
• While IITs, IIMs, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences are considered technical institutions, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalaya fall under the other category.
• Also, the committee has recommended the removal of English as one of the languages in examinations held for recruitment to the central services.
• It has been stated that the requisite knowledge of Hindi among candidates should also be ensured.
• These recommendations have made many states claim that it is an attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking people.

4. Fall out in Non-Hindi states

• India has two major groups of languages-the Indo-European language group and the Dravidian language group. Hindi belongs to the former and Tamil (More ancient than Sanskrit) belongs to the latter. All the prominent languages in the Dravidian group, i.e., Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada, have rich literature. However, it was English that brought the northern and southern regions together.
• The idea of the official language for the Union is a product of the freedom struggle which promoted Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Later, when the constitution was framed, the idea of Hindustani was given up and Hindi in the Devanagari script was adopted as the sole official language.
• Candidates from the non-Hindi states, the south, in particular, will face a great disadvantage when compared to those whose mother tongue is Hindi. The result would be a gradual elimination of candidates from the all-India services. The Constitution makers anticipated this problem, which is why the Constitution provides in Article 344(3) that the commission on official language shall have "due regard to the just claims and interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to public services".

5. A changing world requires English

• The overwhelming public opinion in the south is that English should continue as one of the official languages.
• Today, the union has Hindi and English as two official languages and Canada has English and French as its official languages.
• The policymakers should seriously think of making the provision constitutionally that Hindi and English should be the official languages of the Union.
• Therefore, all efforts should be made to ensure their natural development so as to be able to meet the requirements of modern science and technology. At the same time, we need English to better understand science and the world around us and beyond.

6. The alternative suggested to the proposal

For Prelims & Mains