Abstract
India is a multicultural and multilingual country which is known for its unity in diversity. Lingual homogeneity is not possible in India; however, we see two basic classes of languages, i.e., Indo Aryan and Dravidian, which are classified as Hindi and Non-Hindi speaking peoples. Official language has been a crucial issue, as the non-Hindi speaking people were apprehensive that Hindi speaking people will have an edge over them in Constitutional Governance. This scuffle resulted in a compromise in the provisions laid down in the Indian Constitution under Article 343 to 351. Hindi was designated as the ‘official language’ but not as the only national language. However, English remained the language for legislation and judiciary. The problems of language for legal texts and judicial processes of the courts are very difficult, as law applies uniformly on a society which is multilingual and this was the reason why English took a dominant position, as, initially, only English text for legal documents was held as being authoritative. But, when Hindi-speaking states passed laws only in Hindi, judiciary held them constitutional, which was a welcome step. The idea of giving Hindi a secondary treatment was that it was not well developed in fifties. But, now it is. This is the right time when Hindi speaking states must pass laws in Hindi, and courts of such states must pass judicial processes in Hindi, and, if not possible, in Hindi translation. The author in this paper shall investigate the various dimensions of official language of legislation and find out problems and make useful suggestions.
Recommended Citation
Srivastava, Dr. Ashish Kumar
(2018)
"Unofficially Hindi,"
National Law School Journal: Vol. 14:
Iss.
1, Article 12.
Available at:
https://repository.nls.ac.in/nlsj/vol14/iss1/12