Hindi Divas at GD Somani

India is a diverse country of myriad communities with their own cultures and traditions. Each of them has a different language and way of life. As per the last review, there are 22 major languages in India, written in 13 different scripts with over 720 dialects. Amidst this proliferation of languages, Hindi was chosen as the official language of the country. There are approximately 420 million Hindi speakers, and while English is also widely spoken, Hindi has a special place in our cultural heritage too.

Picking a universally approved language was probably a huge challenge in the post-Independence era. But eventually, on 14 September, 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in Devanagari script as the official language of the Republic of India. Until then, the laws and the entire Indian Constitution were written in English. It wasn’t until a series of protests that the country came together to question why we must resort to English alone, when we are a country of so many diverse languages of our own.

Soon after, Hindi was added as an official language. It took until 26 January, 1950 to come into effect under the Article 343 of the Indian Constitution. To date, it is used for official purposes such as parliamentary judiciary proceedings, and communications between the Central Government and a State Governments. This day is commemorated as Hindi Divas.

Country-wide, the day is marked by celebrations at various government offices, firms, schools, colleges and other educational and government institutions, to honour and respect the language. It is a day to recognise our linguistic roots by celebrating the rich wealth of prose, poetry, music and so many other art forms that this language lends itself to.

On the same day, our school conducted a lot of events in Hindi itself. The epitome of that day was all the students were dressed in traditional outfits, bringing in a lot of enthusiasm for the ‘Hindi Elocution Competition’ which happened on the same day. The Morning Gathering (Assembly) was also conducted in Hindi. Children sang Hindi songs with a lot of patriotism in them during the assembly. The day was culminated very well, creating a lot of memories for our own Hindi Divas.

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