There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that "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," while article 343(2) allowed for the continuation of English as an official language for another 15 years and 343(3) gave the parliament the power to provide for the use of English language after this period. The clause 3 of the Official Languages Act, 1963 allows for the continued use of English language for official purposes of the Union government and for parliamentary business. Hence Indian English and Modern Standard Hindi are the Official Languages of the Government of India.
Business in the Indian parliament may only be conducted in Hindi or in English. In addition to the official languages, the constitution recognises 22 regional languages, which include Hindi but not English, as scheduled languages (see below). According to Article 120, members of parliament are allowed to speak and present their views in any of the 22 scheduled languages recognised by the Constitution of India. English is allowed to be used for official purposes, including in parliamentary proceedings, the judiciary, and communications between the Central Government and a State Government. There are various official languages in India at the state/territory-level.
States can specify their own official language(s) through legislation. The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages, therefore, includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for communication between the union and the states.
History
The official languages of British India before independence were English, Standard Urdu and later Modern Standard Hindi, with English being used for purposes at the central level. The origins of official Hindi usage traces back to 1900, when MacDonnell issued an order, which allowed the “permissive — but not exclusive — use” of Devanagari for Hindustani language in the courts of North-Western Provinces.
Following independence, the Constituent Assembly remained divided on the language issue, with some like R. V. Dulekar and Seth Govind Das favouring declaring Hindi written in devanagri the national language of India immediately, while within the camp favouring Hindi there were divisions over whether the script of the language should be devanagri or roman, whether Hindustani with both devanagri and urdu scripts be retained, and whether the numerals should be international or devanagri. Meanwhile some like Frank Anthony, T A Ramalingam Chettiar, and Naziruddin Ahmad wanted to continue the usage of English, while Nehru although supporting the dropping of English as an official language in favour of Hindi/Hindustani cautioned against forcefully doing so in face of opposition in the South. The Indian constitution, adopted in 1950; as a compromise, envisaged that English would be phased out in favour of Hindi, over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter.
Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic were met with resistance in many parts of the country, especially in Tamil Nadu, which had a history of opposing imposition of the Hindi language dating back to 1937, when the Justice Party opposed the then Congress led Madras Government's decision to make Hindi compulsory in secondary schools.
English and Hindi continue to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) official languages. The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently is the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Language Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states.
Scheduled languages of the Indian Constitution
The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India contains a list of 22 "Scheduled Languages" (official languages) of the Republic of India.