Education in India

Every ten years the literate population of India goes up by about 10%. During its independence, there were only 12% literate Indians, according to the 1991 census there are 52% literate Indians, meaning that over half a billion people are literate. Education is monitored in India by state governments and this finds its expression in different figures for different states. Kerala in south India, with a population of 30 million, has the highest literacy rate in India of about 90%. Rajasthan in north India, with a population of 45 million, has the lowest literacy rate of about 40%. 

Literacy rate among the urban population is higher than among the villagers. It is also higher among the men than among the women. In some states the gap between literate men and literate women is very salient. For example, in Rajastan and Bihar, the gap is about 30%, while in Kerala and Mizoram it is about 7%. Literacy rate among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (see Caste system in modern India) is lower than in the general population. Among the Scheduled Tribes it is the lowest because many tribes still prefer to stay away from the main stream population. But since independence the literacy rate among the women and the lower castes has grown up at a much higher rate than among the general population. 

The state governments allow free education at primary level. But, not all Indians get the opportunity to go to school. Schools are funded from different sources like government, local bodies and private funds. The smaller the funds the less the students receive. School institutions range from schools without any building to schools with all the hi-tech facilities and even sites on the internet. 

According to researches made in the 1980s about one-third of Indians study or studied in schools, which have English as medium of instruction. This number has gone up in the 1990s. For these people, English is in many senses their first language and it is easier for them to read, write and even communicate in English than in their own Indian languages. This makes India the second largest English speaking country in the world after USA.

At the time of independence in 1947 there were 19 universities in India. In 1997 there were 219 universities or institutions at university levels. The larger universities have many colleges affiliated to them. The language of instruction at the better rated colleges is English. Among the universities, some universities are considered as high standard good level universities. In 1995 there were over 5 million students in Indian universities. In general, less then 3% of India's population has academic education, which is very low compared to world standard. But numerically India has almost 24 million university graduates. India is also among the few countries in the world to launch satellite and has proven its nuclear capability. Because of this high number of academicians and their good knowledge of English, many technology companies (especially in the computer field) from around the world have arrived in India.

Languages and Dialects

Language is one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity. The Indian constitution recognizes, for now, 18 official Indian languages. But, almost each of these 18 languages, include different dialects or variations of that language. Besides these 18 languages, there are other languages which are recognized by the central government, but not as official languages. There are other languages which aren’t recognized by the central government. Some of the present India’s states boundaries created were based on the boundaries of the main Indian languages as recognized by the Indian constitution.

The process of creating Indian states began after India’s independence in 1947. During the British rule of India, there were two types of British India states, princely states and provinces. With India’s independence, provinces like Bombay and Bengal became Indian states and the small princely states adjoining the big provinces were added to the provinces. In some cases some small adjoining princely states were joined together to make a new state like Rajasthan. Big princely states like Hyderabad, Mysore and others were also made states. But many local leaders demanded states for their culture and identity. The main demand was to create states based on language boundaries. This process of creating states based on languages began in 1953 and even today there are demands for new states for different language speakers.

States whose boundaries are based on languages are Kerala for Malyalam speakers. Tamil Nadu for Tamil speakers. Karnataka for Kanadda speakers. Andra Pradesh for Telugu speakers. Maharashtra for Marathi speakers. Orissa for Oriya speakers. West Bengal for Bengali speakers. Gujarat for Gujarati speakers. Punjab for Punjabi speakers. Assam for Assami speakers. Some of these states like Bengal and Orissa were provinces during British rule. Though many states were created based on language boundaries, there are other states which weren’t created based on language boundaries and there are many language speaker who don’t have their own state. 

To name a few other languages spoken in India, one can name Dogri, Ladacki and Kashmiri which are spoken in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir state. In Sikkim, different languages are spoken. The main language there is Nepali. In Manipur the main language is Manipuri. In Madya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh the main language is Hindi, which is also become the national language of India. Some languages of India aren’t specific to a region of India, like Sindhi whose speakers came to India from Sindh (in present day Pakistan), but are scattered all over India. Urdu is spoken by many Muslims all over India. The different tribes of India (some of them only a few hundreds) also have their own languages. 

As stated earlier most of the main Indian languages have different dialects and variations, sometimes very different from each other. Hindi has more than ten variations. Hindi spoken in Rajasthan is different from Hindi spoken in Bihar or Hindi of Himachal Pradesh. Sometimes the different variations of a language are considered as separate language with their own literature. One of Hindi dialects spoken in east India is Maithali. Many Maithali speakers regard their language as a different language from Hindi. Also Rajasthani from Rajasthan is considered sometimes as a different language and not as Hindi. But, actually Rajasthani also isn’t one language but different tribal languages spoken by the people of Rajasthan and they all call their languages after the name of their region.

Another language named after its region is Konkani spoken in Goa and named as such because of the Konkan coast. To the north of Goa in the Konkan coast of Maharashtra there is another ‘Konkani’ language which is considered a dialect derived from the Marathi language and is different from Goa’s Konkani language. 

The Indian constitution uses the term ‘mother tongue’ instead of language or dialect. Officially the central government recognizes 18 languages, but each language includes in it many mother tongues. The Indian census records over 200 different mother tongues.

Despite the different languages and dialects, most of the official languages speakers have developed a standard of speaking language which has become the accepted style of speaking for that language. Sometimes, like in the case of Hindi this language is completely different from some of its dialects.

Princely States and Provinces

The British ruled India with two administrative systems. One was ‘Provinces’ and the other ‘Princely States’. About 60% of the Indian sub-continent's territory were Provinces and 40% were Princely States. Provinces were British territories completely under British control. Princely States were states in British India with local ruler or king with honorary titles like Maharaja, Raja, Maharana, Rana, Nizam, Badshah and other such titles meaning king or ruler in different Indian languages. These rulers were subjected to the British Empire. These two types of administrative systems were the result of the British East India Company's attempt to annex the whole of Indian sub-continent and make it into a British territory.

The British East India Company arrived in India in 1600. They arrived in India for spice trade. India was then world famous for its spices. Some European rulers gave their country citizens charter to trade with the Indian sub-continent. A group of British businessmen got the charter from the British crown to trade with India. These businessmen named their trading company, 'East India Company'. When the representatives of the British East India Company arrived in India, representatives of other Europeans regimes were already trading with the Indian sub-continent. The Portuguese, who arrived in India in 1498 had strong business ties in the spice trade with different rulers in India. The Dutch also had strong business ties with different Indian rulers.

The Indian sub-continent was always a bunch of different entities ruling different parts in India. During the arrival of the British in India, the most dominant empire in the Indian sub-continent was the Moghul Empire. Their capitals were centered in the Delhi-Agra region. The Moghul Empire acted as patrons to many smaller kingdoms all over India. With the collapse of the Moghul Empire, which began in the 18^th century, the different rulers became semi-independent and they began searching for other patrons. The British East India Company began playing this status in many ways. The British East India Company, which arrived in India for spice trade found out that the Portuguese and the Dutch had strong holds in the spice trade. They therefore began searching for other trading options in India. They offered the different ruling families in India sophisticated agreements, which gave the British control over the management of the kingdoms, while the Indian rulers were rulers in official titles and spent most of their time having an extravagant life. According to one of the articles in the agreement between the East India Company and the Indian rulers, if the king did not have a son to inherit from him then the kingdom was transferred to the East India Company. The Company saw in the cheap Indian labor force an important factor to control India. Slowly the British began annexing Indian land and making it, East India Company's property. The British also established factories and began using the cheap Indian work force to enrich themselves. 

Not all Indian rulers were happy with the British annexation process. Some of the Indian rulers began fighting the British East India Company. Among them were the Marathas in west India, the rulers of Mysore in south India and the Sikhs in north India. The British won in these wars against the local rulers and gave different status to the occupied land. A large part of the land captured from the Marathas by 1803 became part of province named Bombay. The East India Company directly ruled this province through a British representative. While in Mysore, in south India, the East India Company defeated and executed the ruler Tipu Sultan in 1799 and replaced him with another Indian ruling family which became popular among the local Indians. But in general the East India Company's policy was annexation of Indian territories and turning them into British property.

In 1857 a mutiny against the British arose in which, different rulers in India collaborated to defeat the British East India Company. This mutiny did not succeed and the British defeated their unorganized Indian rivals. After this mutiny the British crown took back the charter from the East India Company and began ruling India directly through a Viceroy. The British also stopped the process of annexing Indian territories and came to agreement with different ruling families in the Indian sub-continent which made these families rulers of their kingdoms. These kingdoms were called Princely States. In these Princely States the rulers were responsible for the interior administration of their kingdoms but they were subjected to British general policy. If necessary the British were entitled to interfere in the interior matters of these states. The different Princely States had different agreements with the British. Some even had their own state coins. Some Hindu rulers were titled as Rajas, Maharajas, Ranas etc. The Muslim rulers were titled as Nawab, Nizam and other titles. 

When the British gave the Indian sub-continent independence in 1947 there were 562 Princely States. Some of them like Kashmir, Mysore and Hyderabad were as large as England. There were also smaller Princely states like Junagad, Udaipur, Janjira, Aundh and Cochin.

Along with the Princely States there were also 11 Provinces in British India. These Provinces were under direct British control. These Provinces were formerly Indian entities, which the British annexed from the Indian rulers, attached them together and turned them into British Provinces. Among these Provinces were Bombay, Madras, Bengal, Assam and United Provinces.

Languages recognized by the Indian constitution

1. Assamese.
2. Bengali.
3. Gujarati.
4. Hindi.
5. Kannada.
6. Kashmiri.
7. Konkani.
8. Malayalam.
9. Manipuri.
10. Marathi.
11. Nepali.
12. Oriya.
13. Punjabi.
14. Sanskrit.
15. Sindhi.
16. Tamil.
17. Telugu.
18. Urdu.

The Business potential of India

India is considered as one of the poorest and backward countries in the world. Only 52% of its population is literate. Its per capita income is about $350. Less than 50% of the houses have electricity, less than 23% of the houses have sanitation facilities. With these figures it might seem that India isn't a good market for business. But if these figures are broken up in different factors like Indian states or into numbers, one might find that India could be a good lucrative market for business.

 

In the educational field, after every ten years the literate population of India goes up by about 10%. During its independence, there were only 12% literate Indians and according to 1991 census there were 52% literate Indians, meaning that over half a billion people are literate. Among the literates, about one-third of them (according to researches made in the 1980s) study or studied in schools which have English as language of instruction. For these people, English is in many senses their first language and it is easier for them to read and write and even communicate in English than in their Indian languages. This makes India the second largest English speaking country in the world after USA.

 

In 1995 there were over 5 million students in Indian universities. In general, less then 3% of India's population has academic education, which is very low compared to world standard. But numerically India has almost 24 million university graduates. India is also among the few countries in the world to launch satellite and has proven its nuclear capability. Because of this high number of academicians and their good knowledge of English, many technology companies (especially in the computer field) from around the world have arrived in India.

 

The per capita income of India is low at $350. From this figure one can conclude that the salaries are low in India and therefore it is cheap to produce in India. But one might also conclude that India isn't a good market for marketing quality and costly products. But, even though the per capita income in India is low, India is a huge market, even for costly products. In general, India has a potential of almost a billion buyers. About 10% of Indian households have an income of just over $1400. Numerically that is about 100 million people, which is about the population of Germany. Less them 5% of Indian households have an income of over $30000, but numerically that is over 40 million people. Some estimated that by the year 2000, the number of Indian households to have this level of income would surpass that of USA. Beyond these figures, when the Indian income is measured by purchasing power parity - PPP - calculations, the Indian economy and income gives better figures. In this sense India is the fifth largest economy in the world. The middle class of India is estimated at 180 million people. For these reasons, many international companies and names in different fields, from shoes to cars, have arrived in India and they manufacture and sell their goods in India.

 
 

True to 1994, Indians had more than 40 million televisions; 10 million telephones; 60 million radios; 10 million refrigerators; 16 million two-wheel vehicles; 2 million cars and according to 1997 figures almost a million cellular phones. Some estimate that by the year 2002, about 25 million Indians can be potential buyers of cellular phones. There are many business fields which are new in India and have huge potentials like credit cards. According to 1995 figures there were less than a million credit card holders, while the potential is estimated at about 10 million by the year 2000. Another potential market that involves millions of people is tourism. In general India has about 2 million foreign tourists per year, which is low considering India's potential as a cultural country. But India also has over 130 million Indians travelling around India.

 

The standard of living, like education figures is different from state to state. Punjab in north India has the highest income per capita in India, while Bihar in east India has the lowest. Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat are considered as the more prosperous states of India. Bihar, Orissa, Madya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are considered as the less prosperous states of India. Goa which was created in 1987 also has a high per capita income. The prosperity of states finds its expression in electricity used by the states. In prosperous states all the villages are electrified, while in the less prosperous states not all villages are electrified. But the electric figures can be misleading because some states, like Kerala, where all villages are electrified there are hours in the day when there are electricity problems. Because of these electricity problems, many houses and businesses use private generators.

 

According to the 1991 census about a quarter of India's population live in cities. The standard of living is higher in cities than in villages. The urban people are more aware to modernization than villagers. Less than one third of the villages are electrified while almost 75% of the urban dwellers have electrified homes. Less than 10% of the village households have sanitation facilities while 60% of the urban households have sanitation facilities. Its not rare in Indian villages to find satellite dishes on house roofs, while in the whole village there isn't a single toilet. Drinking water is more secure in cities than in villages. In many villages, water is even today pumped from wells or from water streams. Most of the urban houses don't have 24 hours water facilities, but instead these houses and buildings have big water tanks which get filled during those hours when there is water in order to secure 24 hours water facilities for the houses. These problems mentioned above, have good business opportunities for development planners. As mentioned above people who live in cities are more aware of modernization than villagers. About a quarter of India's population (numerically that is about the whole population of USA) is urban. At least 23 Indian cities have over million residents. Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai and Chennai are the four main cities of India. The first three cities have over 10 million residents each.

 

The first impression a foreigner gets of Mumbai is poverty. But Mumbai for Indians is like New York and Los Angles together. In many fields it is the center of India. Mumbai is the commercial, financial and entertainment center of India. Of the 23 stock exchanges in India, the stock exchanges of Mumbai are the most important. In general there are over 7000 companies registered in Indian stock exchanges, second after USA. India produces the largest number of movies in the world. Until the mid-90s it had over 800 movies a year. In this field Bollywood(like Hollywood) in Mumbai is the entertainment center, even though some other cities of India, like Chennai in south India produces more movies than Mumbai.

The Mumbai cinema is perhaps the only culture common to Indians all over India. The Hindi movies produced in Mumbai (before the boom of cable TV) were the most popular entertainment of India. In Indian movies, except in a few cases, there are always a few dances and songs. But almost all of these songs are sung by professional singers called playback singers and the actors only move their lips in the film. One such playback singer, Lata Mangeshkar, sung over 50000 songs for different actresses in different Indian languages. These Indian films and their dances, songs, singers, and actors are very popular in India and with Indians all around the world. Many non-Indian companies that sell Indian music almost never sell music from Indian movies, only classical, missing a huge market.

In the last few years Hyderabad, capital of Andra Pradesh, is competing with Chenai as the movie center of India. Hyderabad is also competing with Bangalore as the 'silicon valley' of India. Bangalore is considered today as the technology center of India. Most of the high technology companies that operate in India are centered in Bangalore. Bangalore is called 'garden city'. It is very clean compared to other Indian cities. It is also seen as the most westernized city in India because of the pubs and western style shopping centers.

 

Until the early 1990s, the Indian governments were very conservative in their approach towards west. They were very suspicious of the capitalist system. One of the reasons for this fear of western capitalist system was the fact that a British trading company, East India Company, came to India as a trading company and turned up to be rulers of India. During Indira Gandhi's reign as Prime Minister, many new laws were enforced which prohibited foreign companies from holding more than 49% of the companies shares operating in India. For this reason many foreign companies left India and came back again in the 1990s. Many other companies, from shoes to cars, who foresaw the potential of Indian market also arrived in India. For the last few years, the 'hot' field in Indian business is computers. Many international computer companies have subsidiaries in India. A combination of low salaries, good English knowledge of Indians, big number of academicians and the government's desire to make India a high technology country has made India to transform into one of the computer centers in the world. The Indian government has established many software parks in different places in India where foreign companies can also establish software companies.

Caste system in modern India

The leaders of independent India decided that India will be democratic, socialist and secular country. According to this policy there is a separation between religion and state. Practicing untouchability or discriminating a person based on his caste is legally forbidden. Along with this law the government allows positive discrimination of the depressed classes of India. 

The Indians have also become more flexible in their caste system customs. In general the urban people in India are less strict about the caste system than the rural. In cities one can see different caste people mingling with each other, while in some rural areas there is still discrimination based on castes and sometimes also on untouchability. Sometimes in villages or in the cities there are violent clashes which, are connected to caste tensions. Sometimes the high castes strike the lower castes who dare to uplift their status. Sometimes the lower caste get back on the higher castes.

In modern India the term caste is used for Jat and also for Varna. The term, caste was used by the British who ruled India until 1947. The British who wanted to rule India efficiently made lists of Indian communities. They used two terms to describe Indian communities. Castes and Tribes. The term caste was used for Jats and also for Varnas. Tribes were those communities who lived deep in jungles, forests and mountains far away from the main population and also communities who were hard to be defined as castes for example communities who made a living from stealing or robbery. These lists, which the British made, were used later on by the Indian governments to create lists of communities who were entitled for positive discrimination. 

The castes, which were the elite of the Indian society, were classified as high castes. The other communities were classified as lower castes or lower classes. The lower classes were listed in three categories. The first category is called Scheduled Castes. This category includes in it communities who were untouchables. In modern India, untouchability exists at a very low extent. The untouchables call themselves Dalit, meaning depressed. Until the late 1980s they were called Harijan, meaning children of God. This title was given to them by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted the society to accept untouchables within them. 

The second category is Scheduled Tribes. This category includes in it those communities who did not accept the caste system and preferred to reside deep in the jungles, forests and mountains of India, away from the main population. The Scheduled Tribes are also called Adivasi, meaning aboriginals.

The third category is called sometimes Other Backward Classes or Backward Classes. This category includes in it castes who belong to Sudra Varna and also former untouchables who converted from Hinduism to other religions. This category also includes in it nomads and tribes who made a living from criminal acts.

According to the central government policy these three categories are entitled for positive discrimination. Sometimes these three categories are defined together as Backward Classes. 15% of India's population are Scheduled Castes. According to central government policy 15% of the government jobs and 15% of the students admitted to universities must be from Scheduled Castes. For the Scheduled Tribes about 7.5% places are reserved which is their proportion in Indian population. The Other Backwards Classes are about 50% of India's population, but only 27% of government jobs are reserved for them.

Along with the central government, the state governments of India also follow a positive discrimination policy. Different states have different figures of communities entitled for positive discrimination based on the population of each state. Different state governments have different lists of communities entitled for positive discrimination. Sometimes a specific community is entitled for rights in a particular state but not in another state of India.

In modern India new tensions were created because of these positive discrimination policies. The high caste communities feel discriminated by the government policy to reserve positions for the Backward Classes. In many cases a large number of high caste members compete for a few places reserved for them. While the Backward Classes members do not have to compete at all because of the large number of reserved places for them compared to the candidates. Sometimes in order to fill the quota, candidates from the lower classes are accepted even though they are not suitable. Sometimes some reserved positions remain unmanned because there were few candidates from the lower classes causing more tension between the castes. Between the lower castes there are also tensions over reservation.

In the order of priority for a reserved place of the Backward Classes, candidate from the Scheduled castes is preferred over a candidate from the Scheduled Tribes who is preferred over a candidate from the other Backward Classes. As stated earlier Other Backward Classes are about 50% of India's population but only 27% of the Other Backward Classes are entitled for positive discrimination according to central government policy. Some Other Backward Classes communities are organizing politically to be recognized as Backward Classes entitled for positive discrimination.

The Scheduled Tribes who are seen as the aborigins of India got ownership and certain rights over Indian land. Many communities in India claim also to be aborigins of India and they are claiming the same rights as the Scheduled Tribes.

The caste identity has become a subject of political, social and legal interpretation. Communities who get listed as entitled for positive discrimination do not get out of this list even if their social and political conditions get better. In many cases the legal system is involved to decide if a certain person is entitled for positive discrimination. 

But with all this positive discrimination policy, most of the communities who were low in the caste hierarchy remain low in the social order even today. And communities who were high in the social hierarchy remain even today high in the social hierarchy. Most of the degrading jobs are even today done by the Dalits, while the Brahmans remain at the top of the hierarchy by being the doctors, engineers and lawyers of India.

Official language

One of the main political issues in Indian politics is connected to language problem. After India’s independence the government decided that the official language of India will be Hindi. Hindi belongs to the family of Aryan languages. Speakers of other languages, especially the Dravidian languages, saw in this decision an attempt to erase their language cultures . But the Indian constitution has declared that English can also be used for official purposes. Hindi has at least 13 different dialects and she is the most commonly spoken language in India. But the reason Hindi was chosen to be the official language of India wasn’t because it is the most commonly spoken language in India, but it has connection with India history before it’s independence. 

Before its independence, most of India was a British colony. Before the British the most dominant Empire of north India was the Moghul Empire. The Moghuls were Muslim invaders who arrived in India from the present day Afghanistan . The official language of the Moghul courts was Persian. The Moghuls, like other residents who lived to the west of the Indian sub-continent named India as ‘Hind’ or ‘Hindustan’, after the river Indus which flows in the present day Pakistan. The language spoken in ‘Hind’ was called by them Hindi or Hindustani. This language and its script were based on an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit. Most of the sacred books of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit and the script is called Devanagiri. 

Some of the Moghul family members were great patrons of poetry and music. Slowly there developed a ‘Hindustani’ poetry, based on Hindustani language which used words from Arabic and Persian and was written in Perso-Arabic script. This language was called Urdu. Urdu also replaced Persian as the language of the Moghul courtyards. And so there developed two languages with different writings but were actually one language when spoken except for their higher vocabularies. For example, rulers were titled in Urdu language as Shah, Nawab or Nizam. While in Hindi they were called Raja or Maharaja. Among the Hindustani speakers of north India, Urdu became the language of the Muslims while Hindi became the language of others. 

After the collapse of the Moghuls the British became the rulers of north India. The British introduced English to India and continued using Urdu for official purposes. But nationalist Hindus demanded from the British to change the official language from Urdu to Hindi which is written in Indian script. Even Hindus whose mother tongue were not Hindi supported this argument. This debate between the Hindus and the Muslims continued right up to the independence of India. Against this stand of two different languages two of India’s notable leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, supported the idea of one Hindustani language which could be written in both forms. But when British India was divided in two countries, India and Pakistan. Muslims who got Pakistan made Urdu their official language and Indians made Hindi with Devanagiri script as their official language. But the debate over the official language didn’t end up with choosing Hindi with Devanagiri script as the official language. New debates occurred because of this decision.

One problem was connected to the different dialects of Hindi and the second problem was connected to other languages which exist in India. The first problem was which dialect of Hindi is the right Hindi. Hindi has at least 13 dialects, some of them completely different from each other. Two reasons caused to it that Hindi language includes in it so many different dialects. One reason was related to the fact that India is called Hind in many languages spoken west from it up to the Middle East. Muslim invaders of India like the Moghuls came from these regions and called the language spoken in ‘Hind’ as Hindi. The Indians also began calling their different languages as ‘Hindi’. The other reason which concerns to the fact that Hindi has so many different dialects is related to the independence period of India and the debate of the official language of India. 

Most of the Indians belong religiously to Hinduism and they perceive Urdu, written in Perso-Arabic script as Muslim language. Before the independence of India the Muslims supported the continuation of Urdu as the official language of India, while the Hindus supported Hindi. In order to secure Hindi’s position as the sole official language of India the political leaders convinced the north Indians to claim that they speak a Hindi dialect and so different dialect speakers were put together in the Hindi speaking category by the British bureaucrats. After India’s independence when Hindi was chosen as the official language of India, different ‘Hindi’ language speakers began demanding official recognition of their languages. Maithali and Punjabi speakers also demanded to recognize their languages as separate languages from Hindi. Of the different ‘Hindi’ languages, only Punjabi got this recognition. Other ‘Hindi’ languages are considered dialects of Hindi and their status in the different states of India isn’t clear and is interpreted differently by different parties. The official Hindi is based on the dialect which was spoken in the Delhi-Agra region with a Sanskrit vocabulary. While the popular Hindi spoken by majority of Indians is based on this dialect, it is also affected by the different cultures of India mainly the Hindi cinema based in Mumbai(formerly Bombay) in west India and it includes many English words. 

Among the other language speakers of India, the decision to choose Hindi as the official language was seen as an attempt to erase their cultures. After different struggles – political, violent and passive – the central government decided to allow the state governments to pick their official languages and recognized constitutionally other languages of India. For now the Indian constitution recognizes 18 Indian languages. One of meanings of the constitutional recognition is the right to use any of these languages for government service examinations. But, in reality this possibility isn’t always given to the examinee. 

The different states of India have different official languages, some of them not recognized by the central government. Some states have more then one official language. Bihar in east India has three official languages - Hindi, Urdu and Bengali – which are all recognized by the central government. But Sikkim, also in east India, has four official languages of which only Nepali is recognized by the central government. Besides the languages officially recognized by central or state governments, there are other languages which don’t have this recognition and their speakers are running political struggles to get this recognition. Anyway as stated earlier the central government decided that Hindi is the official language of India and therefore it has also the status of official language in the states. Another language that has a official status in all states is English.