Which, amongst the following, is the latest language to be included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India?

Correct — A, Maithili. Three of the four options entered the Eighth Schedule on the same day. The Constitution (Seventy-first Amendment) Act, 1992 added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali together, taking the list from 18 languages to 21. Maithili came in the next round, with the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003, which added four at once — Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali — and brought the total to the 22 that stand today. So of the names offered, only Maithili belongs to the later batch, and it is therefore the latest. It is worth being precise about what 'latest' means here, because Maithili did not arrive alone: it shares its date with three other languages, and any of those four would have answered the question equally well had the paper offered them. Nothing has been added since 2003. The one later change to the Schedule was cosmetic — the Constitution (Ninety-sixth Amendment) Act, 2011 replaced the spelling 'Oriya' with 'Odia', which renamed an existing entry rather than creating a new one.

• (b)Nepali — Added by the 71st Amendment in 1992, eleven years before Maithili. It is spoken chiefly in Sikkim and in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal.
• (c)Konkani — Also from the 71st Amendment of 1992, and in the same year it became the official language of Goa. Same date as Nepali and Manipuri, so it cannot be later than any of them.
• (d)Manipuri — The third of the 1992 trio. The language, also called Meitei, is the official language of Manipur, but its place in the Eighth Schedule dates from the same amendment as Konkani and Nepali.

The Eighth Schedule lists the languages recognised by the Constitution, and it is read with Article 344(1), which provides for a Commission on official language, and Article 351, which directs the Union to promote the spread of Hindi by drawing on the forms and expressions of these languages among others. It began in 1950 with 14 — Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Sindhi followed in 1967 by the 21st Amendment, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali in 1992 by the 71st, and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali in 2003 by the 92nd, giving the present 22.

The item is really a chronology test disguised as a recall question, and it is answerable without remembering four separate dates. Group the additions in batches instead: one language in 1967, three in 1992, four in 2003. Then notice that three of the options — Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali — are the entire 1992 batch, which means they share a date and none of them can be the latest. That leaves Maithili by elimination, and the reasoning holds even for a candidate who cannot recall which year the 92nd Amendment fell in. Two cautions on adjacent ground. Eighth Schedule status is not the same as classical language status, which the Ministry of Culture confers separately and which Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia hold among others. And a language's absence from the Schedule says nothing about its size — Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and Tulu are all outside it, with demands for inclusion long pending.

• The Eighth Schedule has 22 languages: 14 from 1950, plus Sindhi in 1967, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali in 1992, and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali in 2003.
• Maithili was added by the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003, together with Bodo, Dogri and Santali.
• Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added by the Constitution (Seventy-first Amendment) Act, 1992, and Sindhi by the 21st Amendment in 1967.
• The Constitution (Ninety-sixth Amendment) Act, 2011 changed 'Oriya' to 'Odia' — a renaming, not an addition.
• The Schedule is read with Article 344(1) on the official language Commission and Article 351 on the development of Hindi.

• Reading 'latest' as 'the only one added recently'. Maithili shares its date with Bodo, Dogri and Santali.
• Counting the 96th Amendment of 2011 as an addition. It only respelled Oriya as Odia.
• Confusing Eighth Schedule status with classical language status, which is granted by the Ministry of Culture on entirely different criteria.

As a which-is-latest item like this one, as 'which amendment added these four languages', or in the negative — which of the following is NOT in the Eighth Schedule, where Bhojpuri and Tulu are the usual answers.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following languages was added to the Eighth Schedule by the Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 1967?

  • (a)Konkani
  • (b)Sindhi
  • (c)Santali
  • (d)Dogri

  Answer(b) Sindhi — the single addition of 1967, taking the list from 14 to 15. Konkani came in 1992 and Santali and Dogri in 2003.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many languages are currently listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India?

  • (a)18
  • (b)20
  • (c)22
  • (d)24

  Answer(c) 22 — 14 at commencement, then Sindhi in 1967, three languages in 1992 and four in 2003, with no addition since.