Mr. C. Rajagopalachari lamented that 1965 was a “mournful new year for the South.” The Dravida Munetra Kazhagam cursed January 26 as the “day of mourning” because on that day Hindi replaced English as the official language of the Government of India according to the terms of the Constitution.
On the other hand, the champions of Hindi hail the occasion as the day of deliverance from English. And they invoke the Indian Constitution, which unlike the American Constitution—which it follows in some other respects—provided for an official language for the Government of India, and named Hindi for it. They claim for the Indian Constitution, and for Hindi for an integral part of it, the high moral sanctity and legal finality accorded to the American Constitution by the Americans.
But the comparison is not on all fours. The Indian Constitution has, no doubt, the same legal authority as the American, but it has not the same ‘moral sanctity’ because of several major differences in evolution. For one thing, the American Constitutional Convention, which was called into existence by the American people after they had, by their unilateral action, declared independence. On the other hand, the Indian Constitution was enacted by the Indian Constituent Assembly, or Consembly for short, which was created by the British Government before it conceded Dominion status to India.
Unlike its American counterpart, the Indian Consembly was based on communal electorates and was conducted on party lines and acted both as a body to enact the Constitution and as Parliament to enact laws. The Indian National Congress acted as a political party with a majority in the Consembly, met separately and privately, took decisions, invoked party discipline, and secured the enactment of its decisions. As a consequence, the Consembly was more a legislature than a Consembly. These, among other deviations and departures from the proprieties, denied to the Indian Consembly and the Indian Constitution the moral authority which their American counterparts rightly command.
Casting vote
The moral sanction for Hindi is very much less than for the Constitution. At the critical meeting of the Congress party, Hindi secured a majority of one vote at a second ballot! And that was the casting vote of the chairman, who in violation of all proprieties and well-established conventions, gave it in favour of “Change” to Hindi instead of the status quo ante, that was English. The proceedings of the meetings of the party were private and have not been published. But Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, then the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Consembly, had access to the private meetings. In his book, Thoughts On Linguistic States, he said :
“There was no article which proved more controversial than Article 115 which dealt with the (Hindi) question. No article produced more opposition. No article more heat. After prolonged discussion: when the question was put, the vote was 77 against 77. The tie could not be resolved. After a long time, the question was put to the meeting once more, the result was 77 against 78 for Hindi. Hindi won its Place as a national language by one vote.”
Bitter conflict
The sharp differences of opinion were voiced in the open meetings of the Consembly almost from its beginning. Some members like Seth Govind Das insisted that Hindi should first be declared as the “national” language of India, and that the Constitution should be drafted, discussed and passed in that language. As there was strong opposition to it, discussion on the official language was postponed till September 12, 1948, the fag end of the Consembly, in the hope of securing an agreed solution. In the meanwhile the draft Constitution in English was discussed and passed.
The article to adopt Hindi as the official language of the Union was moved by Mr. N. Gopalaswami Iyengar. The fact that he was from Madras has been exploited to assert that non-Hindi members welcomed Hindi. If this had been the case, there would not have been the prolonged and bitter conflict in the Congress party itself, and there should have been no occasion to vote on it. Mr. Gopalaswami Iyengar’s speech in proposing Hindi as the official language was not of an enthusiastic supporter, as it would have been the case if Seth Govind Das had moved it.
Said Mr Iyengar: I for one did not easily reach the conclusion that was arrived at the end of the discussion because it involved our bidding goodbye to a language on which, I think, we built and achieved our freedom. Though I accepted the conclusion at the end that the language should be given up in due course and in its place we should substitute a language of this country, it was not without a pang that I agreed to this decision.”
As chairman of the Drafting Committee, Dr. Ambedkar should have moved the proposition. In pressurising Mr. Iyengar to do so, the Hindi champions resorted to an astute diplomatic maneuver or a mean and cruel trick. But their success was marred by the public confession of Mr. Iyengar of his real feelings and his efforts to salvage English for as long as possible.
The speeches of Mr. T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar and other non-Hindi members were more bitterly against Hindi than friendly to it. They resented the chauvinism of the Hindi champions so much so that Mr. Nehru was driven to admonish the latter. He said : In some of the speeches I have listened to here and elsewhere, there is very much a tone of authoritarianism, very much a tone of Hindi-speaking areas being the centre of things in India, the centre of gravity, and others just the fringes of India. This is not only an incorrect approach, but it is a dangerous one.
Hopes dashed
Those who reluctantly acquiesced in Hindi as the official language sought comfort in the constitutional provision that English should continue for 15 years after the Constitution was passed, which would give them opportunities for reconsideration of the decision without precipitating an insuperable deadlock immediately. They also hoped that, since the Congress itself was pretty equally divided on the issue, the Congress Government of India would not take advantage of the proviso that Hindi might also be used during the first 15 years of the Constitution. But their hopes were dashed. The Government of India started pushing Hindi almost immediately and steadily and relentlessly.
Under power given by the Constitution, Parliament passed an Act in 1963 permitting the use also of English for another ten years, after which a parliamentary commission would decide its future.
Speaking in the Consembly on November 5, 1949, Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari, who is now the Union Finance Minister, said that the English language was no longer hated in South India, that he refused to be compelled to learn Hindi to participate in parliament, and that he would not willingly learn Hindi because of the constraint put on him. To this day he has not spoken in Hindi in Parliament. He warned that “Hindi imperialism” would mean the “enslavement” of the non-Hindi people, and pointed to the movement in South India for separation because of Hindi imperialism.” He ended by saying that it was for the Hindi champions to decide whether India would remain as a single unit, or suffer partition. “If we are left out, well, we will only curse our luck and hope for better times to come.”
He hoped in vain. He has not so far publicly recanted his dreadful apprehensions. Whether he does or not, he never said anything truer than when he asserted that Hindi ‘imperialism’ would lead to the enslavement of India. No article in the Constitution is less worthy of respect and more worthy of repeal. Hindi has the same moral value as Shylock’s bond.
This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. The following excerpt is from the Indian Libertarian Journal, published on 24 March 1988. The original version can be accessed here.