The Department of Official Language is the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

's department responsible for the implementation of the provisions of the Constitution relating to official languages and the provisions of the Official Languages Act, 1963. Department of Official Language was set up in June 1975 as an independent Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

History

The official languages of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

were English,

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

and later

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, with English being used for purposes at the central level. The Indian constitution adopted in 1950 envisaged that English would be phased out in favour of Hindi, over a fifteen-year period, but gave

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter. Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic were met with resistance in many parts of the country. English and Hindi continue to be used today, in combination with others (at the central level and in some states) official languages. The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently is the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Language Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states. The

Indian constitution The Constitution of India is the supreme legal document of India, and the longest written national constitution in the world. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and ...

, in 1950, declared

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

script to be the

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially Dravidian-speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi at all. As a result,

enacted the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965. Department of Official Language was set up in June 1975 as an independent Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Organizational structure

Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah is the head of the department. The department is divided into four main offices. * Central Translation Bureau * Central Hindi Training Institutes * Committee of Parliament on Official Language * Regional Implementation Offices

Activities

Annual targets are set by the Department of Official Language regarding the amount of correspondence being carried out in Hindi. A Parliament Committee on Official Language constituted in 1976 periodically reviews the progress in the use of Hindi and submits a report to the President. The governmental body which makes policy decisions and established guidelines for the promotion of Hindi is the ''Kendriya Hindi Samiti'' (est. 1967). In every city that has more than ten central Government offices, a Town Official Language Implementation Committee is established and cash awards are given to government employees who write books in Hindi. All Central government offices and PSUs are to establish Hindi Cells for implementation of Hindi in their offices. Department hosts various events throughout the year to promote Hindi language.

Hindi Diwas

Hindi Day (; ''Hindī Diwas'') is celebrated every year on 14 September marking the declaration of

Hindi language Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and is the ''li ...

as official language of

Union government of India The Government of India (ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of 36 states and union territo ...

. On 14 September 1949, Hindi was adopted as

in India.

Workshops

Hindi language training workshops are arranged periodically by the department.

Awards

Various national awards are given to individuals as well as to other government departments for their exceptional work. * Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar * Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar (for other internal government agencies) * Official language Achievement Award Ministry of Home Affairs in its order dated 25 March 2015 has changed name of two awards given annually on Hindi Divas. 'Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar' instituted in 1986 changed to 'Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar' and 'Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar' changed to "Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar". Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag On June 6, 2025, Amit Shah launched Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag platform to facilitates translations between different regional language and Hindi.

Parliamentary Committee on Official Language

In September 2024, Chairperson of the parliamentary committee, Amit Shah set the goal of using

for country's entire work by the

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

, 2047 when the country will mark 100-years of freedom. The committee has developed a Hindi Shabdkosh in collaboration with Ministry of Education, adding thousands of new words from other local languages, enriching Hindi of wider vocabulary words. Department of Official Language is working on a software that enables translation of all languages of 8th Schedule to Hindi automatically.

References

{{Union ministries of India, state=collapsed Ministry of Home Affairs (India) Official languages of India