This activity involves the screening of Episode 7 of ‘Samvidhaan’ and using the prompts in the Activity Sheet to conduct an interactive discussion on the question of national language for India.
Curriculum: NCERT
Subject: Social Studies
Textbook: Democratic Politics
Language has been a contentious issue in India’s constitutional and political history. Unsurprisingly, the Constituent Assembly witnessed a long and intense exchange on whether one language should be accorded the status of India’s national language and if so, which language should it be? While the Hindi chauvinists in the Assembly dominated this discussion, there was strong opposition from those in favour of English and other regional languages becoming the national language.
Episode 7 of Samvidhaan, a television series on the Constituent Assembly Debates, captures the spirit of the language debates in the Assembly. Use the screening of this episode to initiate a meaningful discussion on whether India needs a national language.
The NCERT textbook, Democratic Politics, for Grade 10 has a chapter on Federalism. It deals with power-sharing relationship between the Union and the States, the constitutional mandate of federalism, local governance and language policy. This exercise supplements the Federalism chapter and provides students an opportunity to understand India’s language policy through the language debates in the Assembly.
