Hindi Enthusiasts Fail To Stop Bill

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 17

Hindi Enthusiasts Fail To Stop Bill

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW DELHI, Nov. 28.

Hindi enthusiasts in Parliament yesterday tried to block the introduction of a Government bill to allow English to continue as an associate official language alongside Hindi as long as non-Hindi-speaking people want it.

Seth Govind Das, a member of the Congress Party and an ardent protagonist of Hindi, and Mr Madhu Limaye, leader of the opposition Samyukta Socialist Party, maintained that the bill was ultra vires the Constitution. But the House of the People voted by 181 votes to 25 to allow Mr Y. B. Chavan, the Home Minister, to introduce the bill. India’s Constitution of 1950 stipulated that Hindi should be the official language of India but that for a period of 15 years—up to 1965—English should continue to be used for official purposes. But when the 15 years were up, the Government allowed the continuance of English for official purposes after antiHindi riots in the non-Hindi-speaking South, and the late Prime Minister, Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, gave assurances that English would continue as long as the non-Hindi people wanted it. The present bill seeks to

give effect to those assurances by providing that English should continue as an associate official language until the legislative assemblies of the non-Hindi States pass resolutions that English be discontinued.

It also provides that English should continue to be used in additional to Hindi for conducting proceedings in the Central Parliament.