Why Does India Not Have a National Language?

Contrary to what most people believe, India does not have a national language. Many might wonder why Hindi is not the national language when that is what the majority of the population speaks. This is because while 53.6% of the population fluently speaks Hindi, about half of it does not understand this language. For example, in the Southern half of India, less than 15% of speakers can understand Hindi. This leads to the question of what language the rest of India speaks, if not Hindi. 

The answer to that is extremely complicated. There are 1,369 distinct mother tongues according to the 2011 census and about 19,500 dialects. From a deeper linguistic perspective, the languages stem from four completely unrelated language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, and Sino-Tibetan. While the Indian government only recognizes 22 official languages, India is undoubtedly extremely fragmented linguistically. This leads to the interesting question of why there are so many languages and dialects. And why was there never a unifying language in India’s long history? 

After India received independence from Great Britain in 1947, there were many talks about having Hindi as a national language after having English and Hindi as the national languages till 1965 (according to Article 343 of the Indian Constitution). This would give governments, both local and federal, enough time to pass laws and policies to encourage Hindi as the main language to be spoken. As the date to have only one national language neared, widespread riots erupted across the Madras State. Roughly 70 people died, and a DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a political party in Tamil Nadu) member self-immolated on January 25th, a day now known as Anti-Hindi Martyrs’ Day. This led to the government permanently establishing English and Hindi as national languages with the Official Languages Act of 1963. 

While linguistic alienation is a huge cause of India having two national languages, many also believe that elitism played a role. Due to colonization, the upper class became proficient in English, which led to many exams, like the Union Public Service Commission Exam (UPSC), being administered in English. This gave the elites in the society an upper hand to maintain their status. It also allowed them to be the recipient of international trade, offers, businesses, and more, essentially allowing them to create a linguistic class divide. 

It is also important to note that much of linguistic fragmentation was due to British colonization politicizing languages. The linguistic survey they conducted deliberately did not include Madras (now known as Chennai), Mysore, and Hyderabad, cities in the South. They also created this "Aryan" (North/Indo-European) versus "Dravidian" (South) divide, which created political polarization as leaders like Periyar and parties like DMK emerged. This linguistic alienation led to the Madras Presidency developing colonial education institutions like Madras University, which allowed for English to become unequally spread in the "Aryan" (North/Indo-European) versus the "Dravidian" (South). 

This fragmentation that has deep colonial roots is still a heavily debated political topic, with this issue arising in modern times in 2019, 2022, and 2025. In 2019, Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister, tweeted Hindi as the “common national language.” This led to Kerala CM Vijayan viewing it as a “war cry against other mother tongues.” Amit Shah’s stance on this has led to opposition from media stars like A.R. Rahman and other incidents in Delhi’s hospital and companies like Zomato. One of the more recent flare-ups, in 2025, was the National Education Policy (NEP) standoff. The federal government made the decision to withhold over 20 billion rupees in educational funds, demanding the state of Tamil Nadu implement the three-language formula, which is learning English, the regional language of Tamil, and Hindi. Tamil Nadu opposed this and countered it with the State Educational Policy (SEP) of only English and Tamil. After many debates, they received partial funding, about 7 billion rupees. 

Overall, the issue of having Hindi as the only national language has been and continues to be a cause of great debate and controversy. There are many arguments to be made regarding this, as language will still continue to be a barrier in India, but at the same time linguistic and cultural diversity will persevere.