Dehradun, April 19 -- Book Review

On the 13th of September 1949, sixteen members of the Constituent Assembly including Dr BR Ambedkar, G Durgabai, TT Krishnamachari, Dr P Subbaya and Dakshayani Velayudhan and Laxmi Kant Maitra (among others) moved a resolution for making Sanskrit the official language of India after the transition period for English. Interestingly none of these members were from core Hindi-speaking states, yet they all felt that this would bridge the gap between the North and the South. However, this was not to be. Per Article 343, Hindi in the Devanagari script was adopted as the official language of the Union. Perhaps as a compromise of sorts, Sanskrit was included as one of the fourteen languages of the eighth schedul...