We have been fooled in school

I was shocked to hear the news that "Hindi is not the national language of India". We all have been fooled in school, in our NCERT text books, stating that Hindi is our national language.

India as a nation comprises of various languages and cultures. Every individual represents his language and culture likewise language and culture are symbols of ones identity. India considers itself a federal republic because it comprises of different states which have their own language and culture. There was a strong cultural and administrative reason to form the states based on linguistic affiliation, because of the vast diversity in culture and language. Thus each state has its own official language which mostly differs from that of other states'. That language is the lifeline of the people of state and it represents its culture, since language is the media for communication and inheritance of culture.
Hindi was accepted as official language in some states and it represented the culture of only those states. Nowhere in the constitution is Hindi mentioned as the "National language". According to Indian Constitution, 22 languages are accepted as scheduled languages. Among these 22 languages a single language does not represent India's culture in its entirety. A situation where a single language can represent India's culture can only be made possible by suppressing India's diverse cultures. Hence Hindi is NOT the "National Language" of India.

Many of the languages like Bhojpuri, Pahaadi, Rajasthani, Haryanvi, etc have been systematically reduced to "dialects" of Hindi. Many other languages like Punjabi, Marwari, Gujarati,Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi have lost their entertainment industries and are happy entertaining themselves in Hindi, an alien language to most people living in those states. Students in most of the states have been brainwashed that Hindi is the national language of India. Loyalty and patriotism to the nation has been reduced to acceptance of Hindi as the sole "National" and "Link" language. Any Indian having a different opinion on this is branded as not being nationalist enough! A bigger problem this has created is the false sense of superiority in the Hindi speakers. Their expectation that the whole of India speaks Hindi, their reluctance to learn the language of the place they settle in, arrogance that they display in their interaction with fellow non-Hindi speaking Indians is the biggest threat to national integration.

Please be aware of this fact and make sure to speak back if someone speaks superior of Hindi and inferior of your local language.