CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 34 of 120

Correct — C, Sindhi. The Eighth Schedule began in 1950 with fourteen languages. Sindhi was the fifteenth and the first ever added, by the Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 1967. The circumstance is what makes it memorable: Sindh had gone to Pakistan at Partition, so Sindhi was the one language on the list with no Indian State of its own, spoken instead by a community scattered across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Recognition was the answer to a sustained campaign by that community for a place in the Constitution that territory could not give them. Nothing else was added for another twenty-five years, until Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali came in together by the Seventy-first Amendment of 1992, and then Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali by the Ninety-second Amendment of 2003, bringing the list to the twenty-two it stands at now.

• (a)Khasi — Khasi is not in the Eighth Schedule at all. It is an Austroasiatic language of Meghalaya and an associate official language of that State, and it sits on the long list of languages for which inclusion has been demanded — along with Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Tulu, Mizo and some three dozen others.
• (b)Kashmiri — Kashmiri was there from the start. It is one of the fourteen languages the Eighth Schedule carried when the Constitution came into force in 1950, so it was never 'added'.
• (d)Urdu — Also one of the original fourteen of 1950. Urdu is tempting because, like Sindhi, it is a language without a single home State, but it needed no amendment to get on the list.

The Eighth Schedule is the Constitution's list of recognised languages, referred to in Article 344(1), which provides for a Commission on official language, and Article 351, which directs the Union to promote Hindi and to draw on the Schedule's languages for its vocabulary. Inclusion carries real consequences — representation on the Official Languages Commission, eligibility as a medium in central recruitment examinations including those of the Union Public Service Commission, and a claim on Sahitya Akademi and other institutional support. Adding a language requires a constitutional amendment, which is why the list has grown only four times in seventy-five years.

This is a date-and-instrument item and the way to hold it is as a short sequence rather than as four isolated facts. Fourteen in 1950; one in 1967; three in 1992; four in 2003. Twenty-two. Everything else the examiners can ask — which amendment number, which languages arrived together, which are still outside — falls out of that sequence. The specific trap here is that three of the four options are respectable-sounding languages and only one of them was ever added by amendment: two were in from the beginning and one has never been in. A student who remembers only that 'Sindhi is somehow special' still gets the mark. One further caution worth keeping separate in your head: Eighth Schedule status is not the same thing as classical language status, which is a Ministry of Culture designation with its own list and its own criteria.

• The Eighth Schedule had fourteen languages when the Constitution came into force in 1950 and has twenty-two today.
• Sindhi was added by the Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 1967 — the first addition ever made.
• Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added by the Seventy-first Amendment, 1992; Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali by the Ninety-second Amendment, 2003.
• The Ninety-sixth Amendment, 2011 added nothing; it only replaced the spelling 'Oriya' with 'Odia'.
• The Schedule is referred to in Article 344(1) and Article 351; inclusion requires a constitutional amendment.
• Khasi, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Tulu and Mizo are among the languages for which inclusion has been demanded but not granted.

• Treating Kashmiri or Urdu as later additions; both were in the original fourteen.
• Confusing Eighth Schedule inclusion with classical language status.
• Attributing the 2011 amendment to a new language when it only changed a spelling.

As a language-to-amendment or amendment-to-year match, or as a count question on how many languages the Schedule now holds.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following languages were added to the Eighth Schedule by the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003?

  • (a)Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali
  • (b)Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali
  • (c)Sindhi and Konkani
  • (d)Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and Tulu

  Answer(b) Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali — the four that took the Schedule from eighteen languages to twenty-two.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many languages does the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India contain at present?

  • (a)14
  • (b)18
  • (c)22
  • (d)24

  Answer(c) 22 — fourteen in 1950, plus Sindhi in 1967, plus three in 1992 and four in 2003.