Which among the following is not a language listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India?

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2025 GK Q12?

B. Correct — B, Gondi. The Eighth Schedule lists twenty-two languages and Gondi is not among them. Gondi is a Dravidian language of central India, spoken across the old Gondwana country — parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha — and it is one of the largest Indian languages without Eighth Schedule status. The other three names in the option list all belong to the Schedule, and each arrived through a named amendment, which is what makes the item answerable rather than a matter of impression. Manipuri and Nepali were added together with Konkani by the Constitution (Seventy-first Amendment) Act, 1992. Dogri came in with Bodo, Maithili and Santali under the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003, the change that raised the count from eighteen to twenty-two. The Schedule began in 1950 with fourteen languages; Sindhi was added by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1967. The only change since 2003 has been cosmetic — the Ninety-sixth Amendment of 2011 replaced the spelling 'Oriya' with 'Odia'. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)Manipuri
(b)Gondi
(c)Nepali
(d)Dogri

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Gondi. The Eighth Schedule lists twenty-two languages and Gondi is not among them. Gondi is a Dravidian language of central India, spoken across the old Gondwana country — parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha — and it is one of the largest Indian languages without Eighth Schedule status. The other three names in the option list all belong to the Schedule, and each arrived through a named amendment, which is what makes the item answerable rather than a matter of impression. Manipuri and Nepali were added together with Konkani by the Constitution (Seventy-first Amendment) Act, 1992. Dogri came in with Bodo, Maithili and Santali under the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, 2003, the change that raised the count from eighteen to twenty-two. The Schedule began in 1950 with fourteen languages; Sindhi was added by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1967. The only change since 2003 has been cosmetic — the Ninety-sixth Amendment of 2011 replaced the spelling 'Oriya' with 'Odia'.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Manipuri — Listed. Manipuri, also called Meitei, entered the Eighth Schedule with Konkani and Nepali under the Seventy-first Amendment in 1992.
(c)Nepali — Listed. Added by the same Seventy-first Amendment of 1992; it is an official language of Sikkim and widely spoken in Darjeeling.
(d)Dogri — Listed. Added by the Ninety-second Amendment in 2003 along with Bodo, Maithili and Santali; it is one of the official languages of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Concept

The Eighth Schedule names the languages the Constitution recognises for the purposes of Articles 344 and 351 — the composition of the official-language commission and the direction that Hindi draw on them for its vocabulary. Inclusion also affects practical things: candidates may write the civil services examination in a scheduled language, and the schedule is used as a reference by other statutes and by bodies such as the Sahitya Akademi. It began with fourteen languages in 1950 and stands at twenty-two.

A which-one-is-not item on this Schedule is really a test of the amendment history, because three of the four options will usually be recent additions. The additions come in three clusters that are easy to hold: Sindhi alone in 1967, then Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali in 1992, then Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali in 2003. Anything in the option list that does not belong to one of those clusters, and is not one of the fourteen originals, is the answer. Do not confuse Eighth Schedule status with classical-language status, which is conferred separately by the Ministry of Culture and follows different criteria — a language can hold one without the other. The Ministry of Home Affairs has for years had before it demands for the inclusion of dozens of further languages, and the Schedule has not been enlarged since 2003.

Key facts

The Eighth Schedule contains twenty-two languages; it began with fourteen in 1950.
Sindhi was added by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1967.
Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added by the Seventy-first Amendment in 1992.
Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali were added by the Ninety-second Amendment in 2003, taking the total from eighteen to twenty-two.
The Ninety-sixth Amendment of 2011 made no addition; it replaced 'Oriya' with 'Odia'.
Gondi is a Dravidian language of central India and has never been included in the Schedule.

How the Eighth Schedule reached twenty-two

1950 — fourteen languages→Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu.

21st Amendment, 1967→Sindhi added; total fifteen.

71st Amendment, 1992→Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali added; total eighteen. Two of this question's options come from here.

92nd Amendment, 2003→Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali added; total twenty-two. The third option comes from here.

Gondi→Never included. A Dravidian language of central India, and the answer to this question.

Three clusters of additions since 1950 — and Gondi belongs to none of them.

Study next

Articles 343 to 351 — the official language of the Union, and the role of the Eighth ScheduleClassical-language status and how it differs from Eighth Schedule inclusionThe Sitakant Mahapatra committee and the criteria proposed for adding languagesLanguage families of India — Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-BurmanThe Official Languages Act of 1963 and the position of English

Common traps

Assuming a language with many speakers must be scheduled; Gondi and Bhojpuri both have large speaker numbers and neither is listed.
Treating classical-language status as the same thing as Eighth Schedule inclusion.
Reading the Ninety-sixth Amendment as an addition; it only changed a spelling.

As a which-is-not item like this one, as a question on which amendment added a particular language, or as a count question on how many languages the Schedule now holds.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2024_GS1_Q722024Open & attempt →

The Constitution (71st Amendment) Act, 1992 amends the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution to include which of the following languages? 1. Konkani 2. Manipuri 3. Nepali 4. Maithili Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1, 2 and 3
(b) 1, 2 and 4
(c) 1, 3 and 4
(d) 2, 3 and 4

Answer(a) 1, 2 and 3

The 1992 cluster asked directly, and it contains two of this question's distractors. Maithili is the odd one there because it belongs to the 2003 group, which is the same distinction that makes Dogri a listed language here.

CDS_GK_2022_II_Q342022Open & attempt →

Which one of the following languages was added to the Eighth Schedule by a Constitutional Amendment in 1967?

(a) Khasi
(b) Kashmiri
(c) Sindhi
(d) Urdu

Answer(c) Sindhi

The first addition ever made to the Schedule. Its distractors work the same way as this question's — Kashmiri and Urdu were already there from 1950, while Khasi, like Gondi, has never been included.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following languages was added to the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India by the Twenty-first Amendment?
- (a)Konkani
- (b)Sindhi
- (c)Santali
- (d)Maithili
Answer(b) Sindhi — added in 1967, taking the Schedule from fourteen languages to fifteen. Konkani came in 1992 and Santali and Maithili in 2003.
practice — not a real PYQ
How many languages are listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India at present?
- (a)Fourteen
- (b)Eighteen
- (c)Twenty-two
- (d)Twenty-four
Answer(c) Twenty-two — fourteen at the start in 1950, eighteen after 1992, and twenty-two since the Ninety-second Amendment of 2003.