The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union.[5] Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease after the constitution came into effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965.[6] The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas of India, as a result of which Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965. An attempt was made in late 1964 to expressly provide for an end to the use of English, but it was met with protests from across the country. Some of these protests also turned violent. Widespread protests occurred in states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh. As a result of these protests, the proposal was dropped,[7][8] and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament.[9]
