Hindi Day

Beohar Rajendra Simha. On his 50th birthday (14-09-1949), Hindi was adopted as the Official Language of Republic of India.

Hindi Divas is celebrated on the 14th of September, to commemorate the adoption of the Hindi language, written in Devanagari script, as one of the two official languages of the Republic of India by Constituent Assembly of India. To this end, several people rallied and lobbied pan-India in favor of Hindi, such as Beohar Rajendra Simha along with Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Kaka Kalelkar, Maithili Sharan Gupt and Seth Govind Das. As such, on the 50th birthday of Beohar Rajendra Simha on the 14th of September 1949, the efforts came to fruition following the adoption of Hindi as an official language.[2][3] This decision was ratified by the Constitution of India that came into effect on the 26th of January 1950. Under the Article 343 of the Indian Constitution, Hindi written in Devanagari script was adopted as the official language. In all, there are 22 Scheduled languages of India, of which, two are officially used at Union level: Hindi and English. Modern Hindi today is spoken by more than 250 million people as a first language.

Apart from local-level events in schools and other institutions, a few of the notable events include

• The former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee had conferred awards in different categories for the excellence in different fields pertaining to Hindi at a function in Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi.
• Rajbhasha Awards were conferred upon the Ministries, Departments, PSUs and Nationalised Banks.[4]

Ministry of Home Affairs in its order dated 25 March 2015 has changed name of two awards given annually on Hindi Divas. 'Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar' instituted in 1986 changed to 'Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar' and 'Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar' changed to "Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar".[5]