Why can't we make Hindi the sole official language of India to develop a unique identity?

It's a simple answer.first of all, If GOI takes Hindi as national language there can be a civil war at hand. You may know that the reason Bangladesh broke off from Pakistan was because they did this "sole national language "scheme. That is why GOI didnot change language to solely Hindi as they learnt from Pakistan. If they did it, there could been a war. The second reason is jobs. For example, u studied nd became a very good engineer but u know just hindi, there is a BIG chances that u will not get a job fast as u can only go for jobs in India(which is overpopulated so u will face big competition). If you learn in English, u have more probability on having job as u can have job not only in India but also in countries like USA, UK ,Canada ,Australia and NZ.

Yes, we can definitely partition the nation and make Hindi the official language of one of the parts. In a special case like that of India - whether good or bad - we must learn to separate linguistic identity with national identity. This is unlike the European nations where both identities can be the interchangeable..

The 'developing unique identity' point of your's is certainly not wrong. However one should understand that while most of Hindi dialects (and even other North Indian languages like Punjabi and Gujarati) are born out of Sanskrit, the Tamil language for example is older to even Sanskrit. Similar is the case with other Dravidian languages. So it is unlikely that South Indians will accept Hindi. Very similar is the case with languages of north-east India, which were not born out of Sanskrit. Please note, India is a federal country and the present-day India was never held as one single nation (only British did it). We are pluralist by constitution at federal level - it means two official languages and no national language. Further, all states have semi-autonomy - that is what is federalism. By the way, your assumption that we accept foreign language (i.e. English) as our own, is a wrong assumption. English is just a connecting language (it means lingua franca). North-East, South, and North Indians are culturally too different to have one common language.

India cant have a national language hindi The answer is simple. India is a democratic country. Even indian constitution doesn't allow it read article 345 345. Official language or languages of a State Subject to the provisions of Article 346 and 347, the Legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State All indians have right to freedom of speech and expression. Try to adopt my dear friend. Learning new language, new culture is a great luxury enjoy. Edit: the original question is changed Your question is right we can have a single language for better communication. We can have Telugu as national language. What you say for this?

Haha!! :D You're forgetting the fact you're living in India, a nation of diversity. In other words we can say, "India is a unified representation of diverse nations..!" You're taking if for granted that all Indians should know Hindi, in a nation that speaks around 1500 languages with 22 scheduled among them..! Moreover, "Bollywood" - a visual medium using Hindi - is not a representation of India and it's core! It's just a junk stereotype! ;) When it comes to East and South Indians, they prefer another better and useful uniting medium "English" - the Global language! - which helps us to move across boundaries, offers immense opportunities to grow, eventually merges us into this globalized, competitive world. Note that Quora, Your question, Our Answers all use the same medium though each one of us are spread across our country or the world. That's the real power of a language! :) A good 40% of Indians know Hindi! while the remaining, in numbers, ~750 million Indians don't! So, how you can justify your stance and say that Hindi should be our national language? "National" means all over India, not simply the Hindi-belt of India..! :D Better try learning the local language if needed, & adapt yourself into the prevailing culture..! Help is always there as long as you're willing to ask! When others are doing it, why can't you..?! Why simply being an outsider? ;) "Challenges will always teach something, while Comfort doesn't!"

There are multiple problems with having any ONE language as official language of India.  First the language has to be used by most people in education and communication.  As of now, it is English 'officially' throughout India and it is difficult to choose English as it will be likened to colonial legacy.  Hindi as of the 'lingua franca' - ie spoken language may not be that difficult to make but 'official language' means all public/govt documents have to be in that language.  Even looking at it 'unemotionally' it is an impossible task.  Looking at it emotionally any non-English official language is non-starter.

India is not a nation(in an usual sense). India is a union of states(self governing entities). We do not need a single unique identity. We are quite unique with all the diversity and cultures. Our national anthem says we are an amalgamation of "Panjab, Sindhu, Gujarata, Maratha, Dravida, Utkala, Vanga, Vindhya, Himachala" etc...  Our currencies have values printed in 16 languages. Now coming to Hindi, it does not have a great and history like our classical languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Oriya and Sanskrit. Even Marathi, Bengali and Assamese are older than Hindi. Hindi is mixture of Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Prakrit etc. There is no one Hindi. Rajasthani is very different from Maitheli. It is laughable to think that Hindi can represent all of Indians, especially us south Indian who all speak classical languages that have thousands of years of history, culture and literature.

A strong Yes from my side that India should have a national language.  I don't care if it is Hindi, Telugu , Tamil , Bengali , Kannada or some language from North-East India, but should have a common language that bridges communication gap between her states. Shashi Tharoor (previous Minister of State in the Government of India for External Affairs(2009–2010) and Human Resource Development (2012–2014). - Wiki) has once spoken about something called as 'Soft Power'. It includes a country's culture, religion besides it's Language.  India having numerous distinctive cultures definitely has a solid score in this aspect. Cultures and traditions may make you understand about few people but what really keeps people connect each other is Communication - or more precisely Language. When I was born, my parents , my brother and others around me were speaking Telugu. Naturally I learnt how to speak and communicate in Telugu. But when I joined in a school, I got touch of two more languages- Hindi and English. After knowing that I have to learn these two languages to move onto next class, I some how got hold of them and learned them. Sixteen years later, I came to Tamil Nadu to do my engineering. Though afraid that I don't know Tamil, I was excited to go out of my state for the first time hoping English/ Hindi would save me. Trust me, not knowing the local language is most difficult thing you can face. I can't buy a bus ticket, food or in fact a water bottle without having to struggle for 5 minutes. It is not just with Tamil Nadu, but I would have faced same difficulties when I went to any other state, and again not just with me. When a Tamilian visits Andhra or Malayali visits Madhya Pradesh, Gujarati visits Karnataka they all will have all these hurdles. This is just a crude instance of explaining how important communication is and in fact how crucial language is. My dear friend asked me once ,do you know why other countries are producing more research papers than India? When I said different reasons, he told just one reason: Language. Seeing confused expression on my face, he explained -- have you ever seen German going behind English, French going behind English , American going behind Spanish? No. They all have a single language with which they are born , educated, work and communicate. They have no trouble in articulating their idea to others. Meanwhile, in India we are born with one language , raised by learning other language and finally settle learning English. If one has to say an idea to vast people that India has, he looses half of his/her energy in translating it to local language or to English. Imagine how great it would be to have single language for all of us? Wouldn't it be great if I just backpacked to other state without packing extra book of 'learning xxx in 30 days'.  How about a 1.2 billion speaking a single common language ( a part from their own language) to let their thoughts go freely? How strong work force can it make?  Our country's diversity makes it mandatory to learn another language if there needs to be a free communication. So, nurturing their own languages , there should be another common language that should be spoken, written by all the people of India. Out of all the languages we currently have, all factors show Hindi could be the best option as it is atleast understood by more number of people than any other language. If you say we have English, Remember, English is not our language. By learning another Indian language you become more Indian but by learning English you become more Western. --Jai Bharth!.

The constitution of India declares "Hindi in Devanagari script" as the official language of India. However, as India was a British colony, all officila work was being done in India. So a transition period of 15 years was provided to make this transition. And there are guidelines in the constitution about that. For those 15 years, English was to remain the second official language and its use was to be slowly reduced and replaced completely with Hindi. This was to happen in 1965, (15 years after the constitution was implemented in 1950) but there was a revolt/dharna in Tamil Nadu, and as usual politics came in to play and the transition never took place. The result was that English was never replaced and its use continued to grow. So even though constitution says to keep English as "official" alongside Hindi for 15 years, it still is the second official language of India, but in practice the first official language as almost all official work now takes plae in English. The Indian constitution is freely available online. I'll quote the constitution of India. Part XVII, title "Official Language of the Uinon":  "(1) The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals. (2) Notwithstanding anything in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before" Article 344 asks the formation of a commission which will form the procedure for the transition in those 15 years. Another quote from the article: "It shall be the duty of the Commission to make recommendations to the President as to— (a) the progressive use of the Hindi language for the official purposes of the Union; (b) restrictions on the use of the English language for all or any of the official purposes of the Union;"  Article 351 of the constitution: "It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages."