Question

Constitution of India provides that Hindi shall be the _____
A. National language of India
B. Language of communication
C. Official language of the Union of India
D. Language of communication between the Union Government and the State Government

Answer 1

Hint:
Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language conversed mainly in India.
It is the principal speech of about a third of India's 1.09 billion people.

Complete answer:
The Constitution of India provides that Hindi shall be the Official Language of the Union of India. The Constitution declared so in 1950. In the Constitution, it is specified in Article 343(1) that Hindi in Devanagari script shall be the Official Language of the Union of India. The numerals used for official purposes shall be the international form of Indian numerals. Though Hindi is the Official Language of the Union of India, English is also allowed to be used in official matters i.e. parliamentary proceedings, communications between Central and State Governments etc.

An official language for all these purposes was required because India is an extremely vast country with numerous languages. There are 22 recognized regional languages in the Constitution of India (excluding English). All the states in India have the liberty to specify and use their own official languages. Hindi and English are the only languages that the states can use to communicate with the Central Government.

For e.g.
If two states have to communicate with each other and they use different languages but also use Hindi as one of their languages, then the official language for their communication is required to be Hindi.
But if two states communicating with each other have completely different official languages and do not have Hindi in common, then they are required to use English as the official language.

When the Constitution was written, it stated that the “English language” would be used only for 15 years after Independence and then India would use “Hindi” exclusively for all official purposes. But in 1963, the Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act stating that the regions in India which have no Hindi background will not be able to communicate with the rest of the Union. Thus, allowing the use of English along with Hindi for official purposes even after 15 years of Independence.

Therefore the correct answer is C

Note:
It is often mistaken by people that Hindi is the National Language of the country. Now we know that the Constitution states that Hindi is the Official Language of the country.
In fact, there is no national language in India because India has 23 official languages. Also, India has six Classical Languages that are Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Odia.

There are more than 150 countries in the world that have their National Language mentioned in the Constitution.