Hindi Diwas is celebrated on 14 September every year. On 14 September 1949, Hindi was declared as the official language in the Constituent Assembly. After this decision, from 1953, India celebrates Hindi Diwas on September 14 every year on the request of Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti, Wardha, to broadcast Hindi in every region. Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. Majority of Indians speak and understand Hindi. Hindi is spoken and understood in the northern states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
Many programs are organized on Hindi Diwas for the promotion of Hindi. Many cultural programs are also organized on this day in schools and colleges. Tough, Hindi is not our national language, but it is a symbol of national identity and pride. Without language, no one can express their words, their feelings. Different types of culture can be known only through language. The Hindi language is very important in that.
When Hindi became the official language in India
On 6 December 1946, the Constituent Assembly was formed to prepare the constitution of independent India. Sachchidanand Sinha was made the interim president of the Constituent Assembly. After this Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected its president. Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar was the chairman of the drafting committee (committee drafting the constitution) of the Constituent Assembly. Apart from various rules and regulations in the Constitution, the issue of the official language of the new nation was also important because India had hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects. After much deliberation, Hindi and English were chosen as the official languages of the new nation. On 14 September 1949, the Constituent Assembly accepted Hindi written in Devanagari script along with English as the official language of the nation. Later Jawaharlal Nehru government decided to celebrate September 14 as ‘Hindi Diwas’ every year, seeing the importance of this historic day. The first official Hindi Diwas was observed on 14 September 1953.
The constitutional status of Hindi
Though Hindi is not the National Language of our country, it holds the honour of being the official language of Union. Article 343 of Indian Constitution states that (1) The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals. (2) Notwithstanding anything in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement: provided that the President may, during the said period, by order1 authorise the use of the Hindi language in addition to the English language and of the Devanagari form of numerals in addition to the international form of Indian numerals for any of the official purposes of the Union.
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Above that Article 351 of the Indian Constitution states: ‘It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the 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 Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.’