India does not have any national language and this was done to ensure the protection of the other languages. India does have an official language. As per Article 343 of the Constitution of India, India's official languages shall be Standard Hindi (the dialect known as khadi boli) written in the Devanagari script and English. These are the official languages of India at the Central Government level. States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s) through legislation and therefore there are 22 officially recognized languages in India of which Hindi is the most used.
The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages therefore includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for communication between the union and the states inter se.
Unlike Sri Lanka, the leaders of our country adopted a very cautious attitude in spreading the use of Hindi. According to the Constitution, the use of English for official purposes was to stop in 1965. However, many non-Hindi speaking States demanded that the use of English continue and this demand took a violent form in Tamil Nadu. The Central Government responded by agreeing to continue the use of English along with Hindi for official purposes and was criticised for favouring the english-speaking elite.
Promotion of Hindi continues to be the official policy of the Government of India but this does not mean that the Central Government can impose Hindi on States where people speak a different language. The flexibility shown by Indian political leaders helped the country to avoid the kind of violence related to language that Sri Lanka has faced.
Given this diversity of language, it was necessary that the Indian Constitution adopted or framed a language policy for the country which would celebrate the diversity and at the same time allow people to adapt if necessary. The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently includes the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, Official Languages (Use for Official Purpose of the Union) Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states.
