Hindi Day (Hindi-speaking states of India)

Hindi Day is celebrated in some parts of India to commemorate the date 14 September 1949 on which a compromise was reached—during the drafting of the Constitution of India—on the languages that were to have official status in the Republic of India. The compromise, usually called the Munshi-Ayyangar formula, after drafting committee members K. M. Munshi and N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, was voted by the Constituent Assembly of India after three years of debate between two opposing camps. The Hindi protagonists wanted the Hindi language in the Devanagari script to be the sole "national language" of India; the delegates from South India preferred English to have a place in the Constitution. The Munshi-Ayyangar formula declared (i) Hindi to be the "official language" of India's federal government; (ii) English to be an associate official language for 15 years during which Hindi's formal lexicon would be developed; and (iii) the international form of the Hindu–Arabic numerals to be the official numerals. The compromise resolution became articles 343–351 of India's constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950. In 1965, when the 15 years were up, the Government of India announced that English would continue to be the "de facto formal language of India."

The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland or the Hindi-speaking states, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India where various Northern, Central, Eastern and Western Indo-Aryan languages are spoken, which in a broader sense is termed as Hindi languages, with Modern Standard Hindi serving as the lingua franca of the region. This belt includes all the Indian states whose official language is Modern Standard Hindi.

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.