Mr. Vice-President, Sir, before making my submissions on the draft Constitution, I would like to lodge a protest. The Constituent Assembly refrained from taking any decision as to the language question, and had postponed its consideration to a future stage. But the Drafting Committee, of its own accord, inserted a clause laving down that Hindi and English shall be the languages for transacting the business of the House. In today’s paper I saw a report that the Muslim members from the United Provinces and Bihar have agreed that Hindi with Devanagari script shall be the official language. I therefore think it necessary to repudiate that statement at the very outset, and say clearly that we stand for Hindustani written in either script as the national language of our motherland. So far as English is concerned, I think it is necessary to retain it for some years to enable those who are not acquainted with Hindustani to be able to take an effective part in the discussions in the House. An Honourable Member from Madras was right when he said that there should be no linguistic imperialism. For that reason, Hindustani written in either script along with English should be the languages used for transacting the business of the House.
