Hindi Diwas 2020 : Do You Know How Hindi Became the Official Language After Independence?

New Delhi : Today, even though English language is prevalent around the world, for Indians, no other language can be replaced with Hindi language. Hindi was given the status of official language on 14 September 1949. Since then, every year this date is celebrated as ‘Hindi Diwas’. We all have become so busy learning English language that only a few people know why this day is celebrated and what is the significance of this day. Let us know about it in detail.

Hindi Diwas is celebrated every year on 14 September. Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in the world after English, Spanish and Mandarin. Every year on the Hindi Diwas, the President of India confers the Rajbhasha Puraskar to the people for their contribution towards the Hindi language.

The history of Hindi language in India is from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Which has been written in the Devanagari script as one of the official languages of India. When the country became independent, the biggest question was about the language. We all know that hundreds of languages and dialects are spoken in India. In such a situation, it was a big challenge for the makers of our Constitution to choose one language as the official language of India.

On 6 December 1946, the Constituent Assembly was formed to prepare the constitution of independent India. On 26 November 1949, the final draft of the constitution was approved by the Constituent Assembly, after which the Constitution of independent India came into force from 26 January 1950, but at that time there was a big question as to which language should be selected as the official language.

After which a lot of thought was done, then Hindi and English were chosen as the languages of the new nation. The Constituent Assembly accepted Hindi written in the Devanagari script as the official language of the nation along with English, but then on 14 September 1949, the Constituent Assembly decided with one vote that Hindi would be the official language of India. Section 343 (1) of Chapter 17 of the Constitution of India states that “The official language of the Union will be Hindi and the script Devanagari.

At the Hindi Literature Conference in 1918, the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi took the initiative to make Hindi language the national language. Gandhiji also described Hindi as the language of the public.

When Hindi was chosen as the official language of the country, at that time Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country, said that seeing the importance of this day, September 14 should be celebrated every year as Hindi Diwas. The first Hindi day in India was celebrated on 14 September 1953. Since then, Hindi Day has been celebrated on 14th September till date.

Will the Hindi language disappear?
It is true that today the English language has a heavy pan. Even today people feel that someone who knows more English is knowledgeable. People start considering them as high profile, even during the job, more than the experience of the person, many companies see how much the candidate’s grip is on the English language. If this continues with the passage of time, then the Hindi language will disappear and the scope of the English language will increase.

Even today, if we do not take caution about the Hindi language, then the day is not far when Hindi language will completely disappear. If we want to keep the importance of Hindi language alive, then its publicity has to be increased. Also, Hindi has to be given priority in the functioning of government and private offices. With this, the ability of any human being should not be judged on the basis of English language only.