The Gujral Committee Report - Language in India

was a happy blend of the two (Hindi and Urdu) with the grammatical structure
unaffected by Arabic and Persian..."
(December 18, 1947)
Added by the Constitution (21st Amendment) Act, 1967, *** Harijan', February 1, 1942. Delhi Diary by M. K. Gandhi, p. 266. *
3.19 In the years immediately after independence, there was considerable development of Hindi in various directions. The coining of technical terms, the translations from 26
languages into Hindi and the progressive use of the language by a number international
State Governments as also by the Centre, led to considerable diversification of the uses of Hindi. The desire to forge ahead speedily in the use and development of Hindi is fully understandable, but in working at speed and in haste, the form, style and even the of
of the language often undergo many changes. These changes take time to get assimilated in the main stream, as laid down in Article 351 of the Constitution which envisages the assimilation "of the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and genius
other languages of India". If sufficient attention is not paid to this directive, the two in
languages, Urdu and Hindi, might drift further apart at the literary level and away from the genius of Hindustani. For all lovers of Hindustani this poses a challenge : Can we still attempt to reclaim at least a part of the heritage and halt this drift ? sister
One finds an echo of these thoughts recorded in the report of the Official Language Commission, presided over by B.G. Kher, a close associate of Gandhiji. In keeping with the spirit of Article 351, he called upon' "those concerned with the policy aspect of the 3.20
to avoid the high-flowns stuff on both i.e. Persianised Urdu and Sanskritised matter"
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The Gujral Committee Report
Hindi. He felt that after excluding the high flown part, "the remainder of the vocables needed for common use would not present a great number of such difficult points. To the small extent to which such a difficulty would occur, even within such vocabulary, it may be solved by using both words optionally.*
on Urdu