UPSC Prelims 2024 Q72: 71st Amendment & Eighth Schedule Languages

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:

  1. 1, 2 and 3
  2. 1, 2 and 4
  3. 1, 3 and 4
  4. 2, 3 and 4

Answer: (a) 1, 2 and 3

Statement-wise explanation

  • 1: correct — The Constitution (71st Amendment) Act, 1992 added Konkani to the Eighth Schedule. Konkani is the official language of Goa. With this Act the Schedule grew from 15 to 18 languages.
  • 2: correct — Manipuri (Meitei) was one of the three languages added by the 71st Amendment Act, 1992. It is the main language of Manipur.
  • 3: correct — Nepali was the third language added by the 71st Amendment Act, 1992. It is an official language of Sikkim and is widely spoken in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal.
  • 4: incorrect — Maithili came in more than a decade later. The Constitution (92nd Amendment) Act, 2003 added it along with Bodo, Dogri and Santhali, and the Act received Presidential assent on 7 January 2004. This took the Schedule to its present 22 languages.

How to eliminate

This question needs one fact. The 71st Amendment (1992) added three languages: Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali. The 92nd Amendment (2003) added four: Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali. The option structure helps a little. Every option has three statements, so exactly one statement is wrong. If you remember any one 2003 language, find it among the statements and drop it. Maithili is the only 2003 language here, so the answer is the option without it. A simple way to remember: 1992 brought the 'K-M-N' trio from the west coast and the North-East and Himalaya (Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali). 2003 brought the 'BDMS' four (Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santhali).

Know more

The Eighth Schedule lists the languages the Constitution recognises. Two Articles refer to it. Article 344(1) says the Official Language Commission must include members from the Eighth Schedule languages. Article 351 says Hindi should be developed by drawing on the forms, style and expressions of the other Eighth Schedule languages.

The Constitution began with 14 languages in 1950. Only Parliament can add a language, by a constitutional amendment.

Amendment Year Languages added Total after
Original 1950 Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu 14
21st 1967 Sindhi 15
71st 1992 Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali 18
92nd 2003 Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santhali 22

Points UPSC likes to test:

  • Sindhi is the only scheduled language that is not the official language of any State. It was added in 1967 without a State base.
  • An Eighth Schedule language is not the same as an official language of the Union. Under Article 343, Hindi in Devanagari is the Union's official language, and English continues alongside it.
  • There is no fixed test for adding a language. Two committees tried to set criteria and neither produced an accepted standard: the Pahwa Committee (1996) and the Sitakant Mohapatra Committee (2003). The Home Ministry has told Parliament that about 38 more languages are seeking inclusion, among them Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Tulu and Khasi.
  • Scheduled-language status is different from 'Classical Language' status, which is given by an executive decision of the Ministry of Culture.

NCERT Concepts to Revise

  • Eighth Schedule: The question asks which languages one amendment added to this Schedule, so you need to know what the Schedule is.
  • Scheduled languages: The present count of 22 scheduled languages is the sum of the original 14 and three amendments, including the 71st.

Read more