Hindi gains due to demographic shift

Context: Hindi Diwas, celebrated on September 14 every year, aims to raise awareness about the language and also commemorate the event when it was adopted as one of the official languages of India. 
Background

• The Constituent Assembly of India had, in 1949, recognised and adopted Hindi — an Indo-Aryan language written in the Devanagari script — as the official language of the country. 
• Article 351 gives power to the Union Government to issue a directive for the development of the Hindi language.
• The Hindi language is one of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
• The Constituent Assembly Debates record intensive arguments being made for and against the designation of Hindi as the ‘national language’.
• The Constituent Assembly finally decided on Hindi as the official language, while providing a clause that stated the continuation of English as an official language for a period of 15 years. 
• In 1963, the central government passed the Official Languages Act, which provided for the continuation of English language for official purposes of the Union and for its use in Parliament.
• The ‘Official Languages Act’ was amended in 1967 guaranteeing the "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" for all official purposes of the Union.
• The National Policy on Education, 1968 recommended that the states were to adopt a three-language formula. 
• In the non-Hindi areas, the mother tongue, Hindi and English or some other national language was to be taught in schools. 
• In the Hindi areas a non-Hindi language, preferably a southern language, was to be taught as a compulsory subject.
• The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommends that all students will learn three languages in their school under the 'formula'. At least two of the three languages should be native to India.

Hindi as a National language- A debate

• According to the 2011 Census, Hindi speakers have grown from 36.99% of the population in 1971 to 43.63% by 2011. A large factor in this growth comes from demographic changes.
• Fertility rates are higher among the poor and among women with less education, who comprise a higher share of Hindi speakers
• The ten States with the highest share of Hindi speakers grew from 41.9% of India’s population in 1971 to 46.5% by 2011.
• Migration could be increasing the number of those whose mother tongue is Hindi even in non-Hindi speaking States. 
• Language related frictions: For example, recently, Malayali nurses in a Delhi government hospital opposed a ban on speaking their language even among themselves. 
• Issues with One nation-One Language concept: Focussing on a national language restricts education and governance to a handful of languages.
• Recently, an MP raised a query in the Lok Sabha asking for the estimated number of people from non-Hindi speaking States who would understand the Central government’s notifications and Acts.
• The Centre cites the Census’ mother tongue data to justify its stances on the languages used in governance. 
• The Home Ministry responded with Census data claiming that the Hindi speaking population of Nagaland was 62,942, while the English speaking population was 419. For Kerala, the figures were 51,928 and 4,471, respectively. 
• However, these are in fact, the number of people who claimed Hindi and English as their mother tongues, not the number who can actually speak these languages. 

Hindi is identified as a language of power. When Hindi is promoted, it is not a promotion of choice, but a promotion of power.

• Variants like Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Magadhi and Chhattisgarhi — each of which has more than a crore speakers — are all clubbed under the Hindi umbrella. 
• Only about 26% of the Indian population actually selected Hindi itself as their mother tongue. Almost 40% of those clubbed under the Hindi label actually chose one of the variants.
• The 2021 Census will record for the first time the growth among actual speakers of a language, rather than those who claim it as their mother tongue.

English Vs. Hindi: There is a top-down pressure to promote Hindi, from the government, as well as the more organic promotion via popular culture. 
For English, there is a societal pressure, from the bottom-up, from a society which recognises it as a language of aspiration. 

• Opposition from Non-Hindi states: Faced with political pushback from non-Hindi speaking States, the Centre had also amended the draft of the National Education Policy 2020 to ensure that Hindi is not imposed as a compulsory language choice for school students. 
• The NEET examination for entrance into medical programmes is now offered in 13 different languages, while engineering colleges have started offering courses in five Indian languages this year. 
• Lesser representation of vernacular languages in higher education: Higher education — which produces the teachers who teach the language in schools — is significantly skewed towards Hindi and English. 
• Education Ministry data shows there were 1.3 lakh students enrolled in M.A. Hindi programmes in 2019-20, while the next highest language, Bengali, had only 22,719 students at the postgraduate level. 
• Languages like Bhili or Gondi, which have lakhs of speakers, are not in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
• English has almost 2 lakh students enrolled for Masters degrees.
• Unless English is replaced at the higher education level, nothing will change. The government must develop curriculum, reading materials, resources and teachers for Hindi and other vernacular languages.