controversy:: does India has a Rashtra bhasha (National language)?? Facts

[suman kumar]

 Hi dears

Controversy: Is Hindi our Rashtra bhasha or Does India has a single national language? what are the facts??

In short short::: NO

In longer version:  India attached importance to each of its constituent languages. According to the Constitution of India, any language, accepted by a State of India as its official language will be given the status of national language. In India, no language is accepted or spoken by the States unanimously.(Even Hindi, the language spoken by most people, is unable to attain the status of national language as it is does not fulfil the condition laid down by the Constitution of India. Though Hindi is spoken by a large number of people, only ten States of India have accepted it as their official language).There is a special provision for the development of Hindi under Article 351, though, which attempts to increase awareness of Hindi in all regions of India.

Article 343 of the Constitution declares Hindi as the official language of the Union of India. English remains the additional official language. It is the authoritative legislative and judicial language. In fact, one could say that English is the official language of India for all practical purposes.

NOW::: what is the difference between national and official language? 

 The national language defines the people of the nation, culture and history.  The official language is used for official communication.  While the national language can become the official language by default, an official language has to be approved by law in order to become the national language.  

  India has no legally-defined national language; it has only 18 official languages according to the Constitution. 

In other words all these are national languages!!

The fun fact is that even wikipedia has an entry about India when you type national language!! It says that we do  not have single national language; but different official languages