Recently, on the occasion of Hindi Diwas, the Union home minister had proposed to promote Hindi as

the country’s common language + Earlier the draft National Education Policy 2019 also had some
sections which were interpreted as imposition of Hindi language - In this background, the debate over
one nation one language (ONOL)has resurfaced in the country.

The debate over ONOL started in the constituent assembly debates on the official language.

Basis for promoting Hindi language :

 Article 343 gives power to parliament to decide by law, the languages to be used for official
work.

 Article 344 - president should appoint a commission to make recommendations for progressive
use of Hindi & restricting usage of Hindi for official purposes

 Article 351: It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to
develop it as a medium of expression

Need for a Common Language:

 Impact on Indian Linguistic Culture: Due to the influence of foreign language, some of the Indian
languages have been losing their inherent culture of talking common tongue.

 Making Unique Identity:

Arguments in favor of:

 For the creation of knowledge and thus creating a Public Sphere: As we often see that, students
avoid going to other places for education and research, hesitancy to relocate in jobs due to lack of
understanding of local languages. So, a Universal language will help unite & remove barriers for
development.

 For effective administration: The various people who works for central government or Armies
etc. always face the language problem when they move to other regions of India.

 Increases technology penetration -many applications (mobile apps, portals) which are
unreachable today mainly due to lack of understanding of English language will becomce accessible
through universal language

 To give India a global Identity: If there are large no ‘of users then that language can be used as a
language in global forums like UNSC meet

Arguments against:

 Idea of a singular nation i.e. One nation, One language, is itself a European Idea, whereas India
always believed in Unity in diversity. This idea is not in tune with our history, culture and civilisation as
India is a multilingual society.
 Today nearly 35% of people are migrating daily for work. Therefore, clubbing together
multilingual spaces with monolingual habitats is not fair to the large cities today.

 Inevitability of English: English is today’s language of science and technology in the whole world.
Even if we replace English from all technological usage in India with Hindi, still it will remain the language
of science as it would be immensely difficult to translate all the scientific knowledge-base in Hindi
language.

 Hindi Imperialism: Many of the critics believed that imposition of one common language for
India as an imposition of Hindi imperialism for others Non-Hindi speaking that always led to violent
opposition by southern, non-Hindi speaking states

 Threat to Mother Language: At least 43% of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in the world
are endangered. UN says every two weeks a language disappears. At this juncture if a single language is
imposed, the rate of disappearance of minority languages increases.

 There have not been enough success stories globally- imposition of Mandarin, Russian or Urdu
have rarely fulfilled such aims of unity and integration.

 International Experience: Singapore despite having 74% Chinese, 13% Malays they adopted
English as Link language and not Chinese. Because Lingua Franca (common Language) should be
equidistant from all the culture groups. Also, Singapore adopted 2 Language policy.

Conclusion

1. Historical evidences shown that, attempts for homogenisation of society on the lines of Religion, Race,
Language led to downfall of society. Examples are

 Pak attempt to impose Urdu on Bengalis led to formation of Bangladesh

 Civil war in srilanka for imposing majority Sinhala language on minority tamilians

 Nazis attempt to homogenize on grounds of Ethnicity led to Holocaust of jews.

 PAk attempt to impose radical version of sunni islam one religious minorities led to Pak as hot
bed of terrorism

2. There are 22 languages constitutionally approved in India and besides this, hundreds of dialects (our
nation has more than 415 different dialects) are spoken across the country. The imposition of a common
language can give a blow to the federal spirit of the constitution and also can create burning contentions
among the different linguistic groups.

3. The need today is to respect, protect and nurture diversity of our nation so that unity is ensured.
 Can Hindi be the choice for “One Language, one nation”?

Arguments in Favour
Most widely spoken language - According to government’s 2001 census data, the number of native
speakers of Hindi language was 41% in 2001 besides many others speakers whose native language is not
Hindi but still use Hindi as their second language

In agreement with constitutional framers- such as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, who appealed to
citizens to increase the use of the mother tongue and Hindi.

Arguments Against
 History of Hindi is much more recent than many languages of India, say Tamil, Kannada, Telugu,
and so on.

 Article 29 gives every Indian the right to a distinct language, script & culture.

 Most of marginalized castes and indigenous communities of India prefer English, a language
devoid of caste memory and a language that provides mobility.

 in spite of being a base language for other Indian languages, Hindi is not actually Lingua Franca
of India.