Overview of the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution

About

It lists all the 22 official languages of India. It covers all the languages from Article 344 to Article 351. The Union Minister of Education has announced in the Lok Sabha the several steps that the government has taken to promote all the official languages in the Eighth Schedule.

History

The Indian language is primarily made up of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families. English and Hindi are both essential for communicating and handling administrative dealings in India. But this does not impose any regulation on people to speak these languages. This schedule allows the states to choose any of their regional languages and use them for educational and administrative purposes. Moving back to the time during the freedom movement, the Britishers made English their language for communication. However, the majority of Indians chose Hindi to communicate. In the year 1950, the Eighth Schedule was added, which marked 14 languages under ‘official languages’ status. Hindi was declared the official Indian language. Later, many amendments were made, and many other languages were added to this list.

Objective

• To accommodate and embrace diversity.
• To give equal representation to all races.
• To enable more businesses and trades that are possible by making common grounds of communication.
• Empowering all groups of people by giving them access to their native language.

8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution – Languages under 8th Schedule: There were originally eight schedules of the Indian constitution until November 1949, but after several amendments, there are now twelve schedules in the constitution. Schedules are a list that contains additional information that is not mentioned in the articles of the constitution. These schedules are an important part of the legal framework in India.

Let us study in detail the schedules, most specifically the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Read below this article to learn more.