Hindi grew rapidly in non-Hindi states even without official mandate
India Today
According to the 2011 Census, in percentage terms, the number of Hindi speakers grew the most in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh, among others.
The language debate is back, and along with it, the hardening of positions for and against adopting Hindi as an officially-mandated common language across the country.
Data shows that Hindi has grown from strength to strength in the last four decades, and this happened despite no official mandate.
Sample the following data points to understand what changed over four decades starting in 1971:
- As per the 2011 Census, the percentage of the Hindi-speaking population stood at 44 — nearly seven percentage points more than in 1971. Bengali remains the second most spoken language with eight per cent of India’s population versed in that language. This is followed by Marathi at seven per cent.
- Between 2001 and 2011, the number of Hindi speakers increased by a whopping ten crore. This decadal addition was more than the total number of speakers of the second most spoken language in the country.
- Hindi remained the fastest-growing language among all the scheduled languages in 2011. The growth between the two censuses was more than 25 per cent. Hindi was followed by Kashmiri (23 per cent) and Manipuri (20 per cent).
- Nearly 53 crore people speak Hindi, followed by 9.7 crore Bengali speakers, and 8.3 crore Marathi speakers.
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