Hindi Diwas 2023: Indians on 14 September celebrate National 'Hindi Diwas'. On this day in 1949, the Hindi language was adopted as one of the official languages of the Republic of India. Written in the Devanagari script, the Constitution of India accepted Hindi language as the official language of India on 14 September 1949. And, on 14 September 1953, India celebrated the first Hindi day (Hindi Diwas). About 425 million people speak Hindi as their first language and about 120 million people speak Hindi as their second language.
On the occasion of 'Hindi Diwas', Union Home Minister Amit Shah said “Hindi is the name for unifying the diversity of languages of India, the world's largest democracy. From the independence movement till today, Hindi has played an important role in uniting the country...”
The Hindi language is majorly spoken in states like Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Punjab. In terms of countries, Hindi is also spoken in Mauritius, Nepal, Fuji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago.
An important reason behind celebrating the Hindi Diwas is to reduce the increasing trend of the English language in the country. Mahatma Gandhi called Hindi the language of the people. Many literary and cultural events are organised across India on the occasion of Hindi Diwas. Besides, awards like Rajbasha Kirti Puraskar and Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar are given on Hindi Diwas to ministries, departments, public sector units, and Public Sector Banks for their contribution and promotion of Hindi.
This day also marks the birthday of the Indian writer Simha who worked tirelessly to make Hindi one of the official languages.
The Indian constitution recognizes 22 major languages of India in what is known as “the 8th Schedule” of the Constitution. These include Sanskrit, Assamese, Bangla, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri,
Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Santali, Sindhi, and Urdu.
Originally, only 14 languages were included in the 8
th Schedule of the Indian constitution. Bodo, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Nepali, Santali, and Sindhi were recognized later.
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