Hindi Day (Hindi: हिन्दी दिवस, romanized: hindī divas) is celebrated in India to
commemorate the date 14 September 1949 on which a compromise was reached—during
the drafting of the Constitution of India —on the languages that were to
have official status in the Republic of India. The compromise,
usually called the Munshi-Ayyangar formula, after drafting committee
members K.M. Munshi and N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, was voted by
the Constituent Assembly of India after three years of debate between two
opposing camps. The Hindi protagonists wanted Modern Standard Hindi
register of the Hindustani language in Devnagiri script to be the sole
"national language" of India (replacing the British era
Hindustani of Perso-Arabic script); the delegates from South India preferred
English to have a place in the Constitution. The Munshi-Ayyangar formula
declared (i) Hindi to be the "official language" of India's federal
government; (ii) English to be an associate official language for 15 years
during which Hindi's formal lexicon would be developed; and (iii) the
international form of the Hindu-Arabic numerals to be the official numerals.
The compromise resolution became articles 343–351 of India's constitution,
which came into effect on 26 January 1950. In 1965, when the 15 years were up,
the Government of India announced that English would continue to be the
"de facto formal language of India."
