Languages with official status in India: Difference between revisions

The official languages of [[British India]] before [[Indian Independence Act 1947|independence]] were English, [[Standard Urdu]] and later [[Modern Standard Hindi]], with English being used for purposes at the [[federalism|central]] level.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mollin|first=Sandra|title=Euro-English: assessing variety status|year=2006|publisher=Gunter Narr Verlag|isbn=978-3-8233-6250-0|page=17|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qPhULmMmqJMC&pg=PA17}}</ref> The origins of official Hindi usage traces back to 1900, when [[Antony MacDonnell, 1st Baron MacDonnell|MacDonnell]] issued an order, which allowed the “permissive — but not exclusive — use” of [[Devanagari]] for [[Hindustani language]] in the courts of [[North-Western Provinces]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rai|first=Alok|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fmnpssOM_3kC|title=Hindi Nationalism (tracks for the Times)|date=2001|publisher=Orient Blackswan|isbn=978-81-250-1979-4|language=en}}</ref> The [[Constitution of India|Indian constitution]], adopted in 1950, envisaged that English would be phased out in favour of Hindi, over a fifteen-year period, but gave [[Indian Parliament|Parliament]] the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter.<ref>[[Kanchan Chandra]], [http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/chandra/ps2001.pdf "Ethnic Bargains, Group Instability, and Social Choice Theory", Politics and Society 29, 3: 337–62.]</ref> Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic were met with resistance in many parts of the country, especially [[Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu|in Tamil Nadu]]. English and Hindi continue to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) official languages.