CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS
3.1 The language problem had been exercising the minds of our national leaders even before Independence. The framers of our Constitution were, therefore, broadly aware of the aspirations and expectations of the people. Having regard to the multilingual character of our society, they had, on the one hand, to provide for the official, language at the Centre and in the States and, on the other, to assure the linguistic minorities of necessary constitutional protection. Accordingly, a comprehensive scheme of safeguards was written into the Constitution.
3.2 The need for the Organisation of States more or less on a linguistic basis, having been recognised, the future pattern had to be so designed that the change-over should cause no hardship to those whose mother tongue did not happen to be the official language. The first problem that arose after Independence related to the satisfaction of the educational needs of the smaller language groups in the States and Union Territories. In August 1949, the Provincial Education Ministers' Conference addressed itself to the educational problems pertaining both to the primary and secondary stages of education and spelt out the details of the educational safeguards for the linguistic minorities on the lines set out in the Resolution adopted by the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress on August 5, 1949 (Appendix I).
Fundamental Rights 3.3 The scheme of safeguards provided by the Constitution of India, which the nation gave unto itself on January 26, 1950, was more elaborate and comprehensive. The basic concepts are enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution and the chapter on the Fundamental Rights. Our Constitution lays great emphasis on the fundamental unity and equality of the people of India. The Union of India (of which the States form an integral part) recognises only one common citizenship for the entire population, and guarantees equality of rights and opportunities to all its citizens. The Constitution makes adequate provision for stimulating the personality of the individual and ensures equal treatment and full opportunities to linguistic minorities. These rights are accompanied by specific safeguards in respect of language, culture, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and equality of opportunities in securing employment, and in trade and commerce.
3.4 The basic provisions relating to the Fundamental Rights of the, linguistic minorities are contained in Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution. These are
29. (1) "Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part there of having distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.
(2) "No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.
30, (1) "All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
(2) "The State shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language".
3.5 Certain other provisions of the Constitution, which are applicable to all citizens, are also equally relevant. For example, Article 14 (equality before the law), Article 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste etc.) and Article 16 (equality in matters relating to employment oprortunities under the States) protect the interests of linguistic minorities in matters of vital importance. These articles are quoted below
Article 14 "The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
Article 15 (1) "The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
Article 16(1) "There shall be equality of opportunities for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State.
(2) "No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against, in respect of any employment or office under the State.
(3) "Nothing in this Article shall prevent Parliament from making any law prescribing, In regard to a class or classes of employment or appointment to an office under the Government of, or any local or other authority within, a State or Union Territory, any requirement as to residence within that State or Union territory prior to such employment or appointment.
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(4) "Nothing in this Article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class or citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State.
(5) "Nothing in this Article shall affect the operation of any law which provides that the incumbent of an office in connection with the affairs of any religious or denomination institution or any member of the governing body thereof shall be a person professing a particular religion or belonging to a particular denomination."
3.6 In regard to Fundamental Rights, it would be appropriate to reproduce the following extract from a speech by Dr. Ambedkar, Chairman, Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, to emphasise that Vie Fundamentat Rights were enforceable from the Union down to the Panchayat level :
"The object of the Fundamental Rights is two-fold. First, that every citizen must be in a position to claim these rights. Secondly, they must be binding upon every authority.. which has got either the power to make laws or the power to have discretion vested in it. Therefore, it is quite clear, that if the Fundamental Rights are to be clear, then they must be binding not only upon the Provincial and Central Governments, but they must also be binding upon districts, local boards, municipalities, even village panchayats and taluka boards, in fact, every authority which has been created by law and which has got certain power to make laws, to make rules are make bye-laws".
3.7 Elucidating the word 'minority' occurring in the relevant Draft Article corresponding to the present Articles 29 and 30, Dr. Ambedkar pointed out in the Constituent Assembly
"The word is used not merely to indicate the minority in the technical sense of the word (as we have been accustomed to use it for the purpose of certain political safeguards, such as representation in the Legislature, representation in the Services and so on), it is also used to cover minorities which are not minorities in the technical sense, but which are nonetheless minorities in the cultural and linguistic sense. For instance, if a certain number of people from Madras came and settled in Bombay for certain purposes, they would, be, although not a minority in the technical sense, cultural and linguistic minorities. Similarly, if a certain number of Maharashtrians went from Maharashtra and settled in Bengal, although they may not be minorities in the technical sense, they would be cultural and linguistic minorities in Bengal. The Article intends to give protection in the matter of culture, language and script not only to a minority technically, but also to a minority in the wider sense of the term as I have explained just now.It was felt that this protection was necessary for the simple reason that people who go from one province to another and settle there, do not settle there permanently. They do not uproot themselves from the province from which they have migrated,but they keep their connections. They go back to their province for the purpose of marriage. They go back to their province for various other purposes, and if this protection was not given to them when they were subject to the local Legislature and the local Legislature were to deny them the opportunity of conserving their culture, it would be very difficult for these cultural minorities to go back to their province and to get themselves assimilated to the original population to which they belonged. In order to meet the situation of migration from one province to another, we felt it was desirable that such a provision should be incorporated in the Constitution".
3.8 It will be recalled that while this Draft Article was being debated in the Constituent Assembly, a number of sneakers had pointed out that there would be 'islands' of linguistic minorities in different parts of the country and that the Article should be deemed to give a clear direction to the majority in those parts to look after the interests of such minorities in respect of their language and culture.
3.9 We do not propose to go into the details of the 'Directive Principles of Stale Policy and its relevance to the problem of languages. But we shall currently examine in detail the various express provisions of the Constitution having a direct bearing on the issue.
Language and Constitution 3.10 In this context, it would be useful to take a special note of Articles 343 to 351 of the Constitution.' Articles' 343 'and 344 deal with the official language of the Union. Articles 345 to 347 deal with regional languages while Articles 348 and 349 deal with the language of the Supreme Court, High Courts, etc. In these restricted spheres also, there are aspects in which linguistic minorities have a valied interest. Article343(i) of the Constitution declared Hindi in Devnagari script as the official language of the Union. In the matter of numerals, the international form of Indian numerals was adopted. Clause (2) of the Article, however, provided for the continued use of the English language for a period of 15 years for all official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of the Constitution. The Article gave the President the power to authorize,by order,the use of Hindi in addition to English and of the Devnagari form of numerals in addition to international form of numerals, during the said period for any of the official purposes of the Union. The Parliament was authorized to provide, by law, for the use of English language or of the Devnagari form of numerals beyond 15 years also. Accordingly, an enabling Act was passed in 1965. The Act was subsequently amended in 1967, to provide for English being used for official purposes along with Hindi, till such time as all Legislatures of the non-Hindi speaking States recommend, by resolution, the discontinuance
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of English. The over-riding consideration has always been to make the transition smooth, and to eliminate difficulties of such groups as were likely to be affected by the change.
3.11 Under Article 344, there was a provision for the appointment of an Official Language Commission to recommend on the progressive use of Hindi for official purposes, restriction on the use of English, the language to be used for any of the purposes mentioned in Article 348, the form of numerals, etc. Again, the Commission was required to have due regard to "the industrial, cultural and scientific advancement of India, and the just claims and the interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services."
3.12 The other three Constitutional provisions in Articles 345, 346 and 347, dealing with the regional language, proceeded with equal caution. We have dealt with these articles in detail later in view of their significance for the linguistic minorities.
3.13 The picture will not be complete without reference to Articles 120 and 210, which deal with the language of the Parliament and of the State Legislatures respectively. The importance of these Articles lies in the provision for permission by the Chairman and Speakers to Members who cannot adequately express themselves in the official languages at the Centre and the States, to address the House in their mother tongue.
3.14 The directive for development of Hindi is contained in Article 351, which says
"It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the English Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages."
3.15 The Eighth Schedule, to which a reference has been made here, lists the following fifteen languages as regional languages of India :
1. Assamese 2. Bengali 3. Gujarati
4. Hindi 5. Kannada 6. Kashmiri
7. Malayalam 8. Marathi 9. Oriya
10. Punjabi 11. Sanskrit 12. Sindhi*
13. Tamil 14. Telugu 15. Urdu
Hindustani 3.16 The reference to Hindustani in Article 351 need not cause any surprise. Although Hindustani does not find a place among the languages of the Eighth Schedule, it has always been understood that the forms, styles and expressions imbibed and practised by the users of both Hindi and Urdu constitute Hindustani.
3.17 Hindi and Urdu have the same verbs and infinitives, their basic vocabulary is virtually identical and their idiom is largely common. The two languages, as spoken, have not much difference, apart from regional and other variations. In the early twenties, when Mahatma Gandhi preached the concept of Hindustani, he had in mind a judicious blend of Hindi and Urdu languages written in both the Devnagari and Urdu scripts. In a letter to Srinivasa Shastri dated March 18, 1920, he had, inter alia, indicated "definite acceptance of Hindustani- resultant of Hindi and Urdu-as a national language of intercourse in the immediate future". For quarter of a century, thereafter, he advocated these views with characteristic clarity and consistency. Twenty two years later, he wrote in the 'Harijan'.
"What is Hindustani? There is no such language apart from Urdu and Hindi. Urdu had sometimes been called Hindustani. It means a scientific blend extant. But it is the common speech of the unlettered millions of Hindus and Muslims living in Northern India. Not being written, it is imperfect, and the written language has taken two different turns tending to widen the difference by each running away from the other. Therefore, the word Hindustani means Hindi and Urdu".**
3.18 After Independence also Mahatma Gandhi reiterated his views and elaborated his ideas thus
"...The national language of India could be none but the one that was spoken in the north by the Hindus and Muslims and was written in the Nagri and Urdu scripts. It was the language of Tulsidas. The poet saint had not disdained to use Arabic and Persian words even in his time. That language which had undergone the evolution was the interprovincial speech written in two scripts... Hindustani was a happy blend of the two (Hindi and Urdu) with the grammatical structure unaffected by Arabic and Persian..."(December 18, 1947)
* Added by the Constitution (21st Amendment) Act, 1967,
*** Harijan', February 1, 1942.
Delhi Diary by M. K. Gandhi, p. 266.
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3.19 In the years immediately after independence, there was considerable development of Hindi in various directions. The coining of technical terms, the translations from international languages into Hindi and the progressive use of the language by a number of State Governments as also by the Centre, led to considerable diversification of the uses of Hindi. The desire to forge ahead speedily in the use and development of Hindi is fully understandable, but in working at speed and in haste, the form, style and even the genius of the language often undergo many changes. These changes take time to get assimilated in the main stream, as laid down in Article 351 of the Constitution which envisages the assimilation "of the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in other languages of India". If sufficient attention is not paid to this directive, the two sister languages, Urdu and Hindi, might drift further apart at the literary level and away from the genius of Hindustani. For all lovers of Hindustani this poses a challenge : Can we still attempt to reclaim at least a part of the heritage and halt this drift ?
3.20 One finds an echo of these thoughts recorded in the report of the Official Language Commission, presided over by B.G. Kher, a close associate of Gandhiji. In keeping with the spirit of Article 351, he called upon' "those concerned with the policy aspect of the matter" to avoid the high-flowns stuff on both i.e. Persianised Urdu and Sanskritised Hindi. He felt that after excluding the high flown part, "the remainder of the vocables needed for common use would not present a great number of such difficult points. To the small extent to which such a difficulty would occur, even within such vocabulary, it may be solved by using both words optionally.*
3.21 This aspecl of the, problem has not yet attracted the attention it deserves but the Committee was glad to notice a keenness on the part of a number of well known writers of Urdu , who appeared before us, to preserve and develop the common heritage. The witnesses, without exception, emphasized the importance of learning Hindi and the regional languages, which alone could provide a common linguistic medium in administration and allied spheres. They were clear in their minds that the development of Hindi and Urdu in the spirit of Hindustani would help the development of both languages and receive greater acceptability.
States Reorganisation Commission 3.22 The States Reorganisation Commission was appointed in December 1953 with a view to recommending reorganisation of States on a linguistic basis, having due regard to the preservation and strengthening of the unity and security of India, as also to financial, economic and administrative considerations. It foresaw clearly that the redrawn map of the States will have a number of linguistic minorities, who will need comprehensive safeguards based on the provisions of the Constitution. The Commission found that even if "the linguistic principles were applied rigidly, the problem of linguistic minorities will, by no means, be solved." It referred to the complaints of the linguistic minorities, in particular to the enforcement of language tests for recruitment to State Services in some States. In recommending safeguards in Part IV of its report, the Commission rightly emphasized the principle that the safeguards evolved to protect the educational, cultural and other interests of linguistic minorities should not so operate as to perpetuate separatism or to impede the process of natural assimilation.
3.23 Regarding the use of minority languages for official purposes, it spelt out that where one language group constituted about 70 percent or more of its entire population,the State would be considered unilinguial and where a linguistic minority constituted 30 per cent of the population, the State would be bilingual.
3.24 The States Reorganization Commission had envisaged the application of the principles enunciated by it in respect of the safeguards not only at the State level but also at the district level. In fact, it went much beyond and considered even the smaller units. It recommended : "It will also be of advantage if, in bilingual districts, municipal areas or other smaller units, such as taluks, where there are minorities constituting 15 to 20 per cent of the population, documents which are used by the people at large, such as Government notices, electoral rolls, ration cards, etc., are printed in both the languages. It should also be permissible to file documents in the courts etc., in the minority language. Likewise, where the candidates seeking elections to any local bodies are required to have a working knowledge of a language, the knowledge of a language of such minor language groups would be given recognition's It pleaded for the adoption, in consultation with the State Governments, "of a clear code to govern the use of different languages at different levels of a State administration" and called for "effective steps to be taken to ensure that this code is followed."
3.25 The Chief Minister's Conference in August 1961 recommended that where at least 60 per cent of the population of a district spoke or used a particular language, that language should be recognised as an official language in the particular district in addition to the State's official language. Recognition for this purpose is to be given ordinarily only to the major languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. Exceptions could be made in regard to the hill districts of the erstwhile composite State of Assam, and the district of Darjeeling in West Bengal, where languages other than those mentioned in the Eighth Schedule have claims to similar safeguards.