Official Languages Act, 1963
| Official Languages Act, 1963 | |
|---|---|
| Parliament of India | |
| |
| Citation | Act No. 19 of 1963 |
| Assented to | 1963-05-10 |
| Status: In force | |
The Official Languages Act, 1963 is an act of the Parliament of India which designates which of the official languages of India are the language of government.
History
[edit]The act was passed to pre-empt protests in certain southern states, such as Tamil Nadu, where there was significant opposition to the "imposition" of Hindi.[1]
In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use of English, but it was met with protests from states and territories, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry, Nagaland, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. Some of these protests also turned violent.[2] As a result, the proposal was dropped,[3][4] and the Act itself was amended in 1967 under the Indira Gandhi administration[5] to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament.
Provision
[edit]The act provide for the languages which might be used for the official purposes of the union.[6] The act effectively made English a permanent official language of India, notwithstanding the constitution limiting this to the 15 years after 1950.[6] The act effectively made the government of India bilingual.[7]
The act establishes the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language and section 4 of the act states that its remit is to review the progress made in using Hindi for the official purposes of Union and submit a report.[8]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Neelakantan, Anand (2025-03-02). "There is more to India than Hindi". The New Indian Express. Archived from the original on 2025-04-26. Retrieved 2025-04-26.
- ^ Hardgrave, Robert L. (August 1965). "The Riots in Tamilnadu: Problems and Prospects of India's Language Crisis". Asian Survey (University of California Press)
- ^ "The force of words", Time, 19 February 1965, archived from the original on 14 October 2007, retrieved 5 June 2007
- ^ Forrester, Duncan B. (Spring–Summer 1966), "The Madras Anti-Hindi Agitation, 1965: Political Protest and its Effects on Language Policy in India", Pacific Affairs, 39 (1/2): 19–36, doi:10.2307/2755179, JSTOR 2755179
- ^ Singh, Mahendra Prasad; Dhussa, Ramesh Chandra (2020), Brunn, Stanley D.; Kehrein, Roland (eds.), "Reorganization of States and the Politics of Official Languages in India", Handbook of the Changing World Language Map, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1509–1524, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3_85, ISBN 978-3-030-02438-3, retrieved 2025-04-26
- ^ a b Patra, Atul Chandra (1968). "Multilingual Legislation". Journal of the Indian Law Institute. 10 (4): 661–686. ISSN 0019-5731.
- ^ Mandavkar, Pavan (2023). "Role of Languages in National Education System of India". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4609001. ISSN 1556-5068.
- ^ Brittas, John (2022-11-23). "The notional case for a national language". Deccan Herald. Archived from the original on 2022-11-24. Retrieved 2025-04-26.