Question

How the language controversy was solved in the Constituent Assembly?

Answer 1

Constituent Assembly was constituted by the British Government in 1946 to solve the political problems and to draft a Constitution for India. From the very beginning of the Assembly, the language question became very controversial. Some members of the Assembly were in favour of Hindi while some others were in favour of Hindustani. But there were some members who were in favour of English.

However, most of the members of the Assembly were of the opinion that there should be an Indian language through which emotional and National integration can be achieved, and it should replace English for the official work of the inter-state and the Union

During many sessions of the Assembly there were many heated discussions on the question of Hindi and Hindustani, for Congress had adopted Hindustani language at the instance of Mahatma Gandhi. Acharya

J.P. Kripalani, Mr. R.V. Bulekar and Mr. Ran Nath Gbnkar wanted that the proceedings of the Assembly should be in Hindustani, and the Constitution should be drafted in it and it should be authoritative one.

But political conditions of the country changed as India got freedom. Moreover, on 30th January, 3.9 48 Mahatma Gandhi also died. Under these circumstances Hindustani lost its status and was eliminated even from the Vlllth schedule of the Constitution.

Thus in the Constituent Assembly the question of national language and the official language for the centre and the state were discussed. As there were differences of opinion on the national language and official language and on Hindi and Hindustani in the same way there was a difference of opinion on the numerals also.

The issue of adopting a form of numerals arose after Hindi was accepted as the official language. , This issue was raised by the members who were in favour of Hindi, they were in favour of Hindi numerals.

The non-Hindi leaders viz. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, P attabhi Sitaramayya, H.G. Ranga signed on the statement which was read by Seth Govind Das stating that if Hindi has been accepted as the official language then Hindi numerals should also be accepted. On the other hand Dr. P. Subbarayan, Mr. B.M. Gupta, Mr. Mohammad Ismail and Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru etc. were among the leaders who favoured the international numerals. Dr. Rajendra Prasad said that as the South Indian have accepted Hindi in Devanagari script, North India should also accept the international numerals.

At last the Constitutional Assembly accepted Hindi written in Devanagari script as the official language of the union and as regards numerals, international (Roman} numerals were accepted. Thus a long-standing issue of official language was ultimately resolved and the integration of the country was saved. With this decision the other main languages of the country also got due justice as they were listed in the VIII Schedule so that any one of them and/or Hindi may be recognised by different states as their official language.