The Twenty-first Amendment of the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental ...

, officially known as The Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 1967, amended the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution so as to include Sindhi as one of the languages, thereby raising the total number of languages listed in the schedule to fifteen. The Eighth Schedule lists languages that the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

has the responsibility to develop. The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution originally included 14 languages. The 71st Amendment, enacted in 1992, included three more languages, i.e. Konkani, Meitei (Manipuri) and Nepali. The 92nd Amendment, added

Bodo Bodo may refer to: Ethnicity * Boro people, an ethno-linguistic group mainly from Northwest Assam, India * Bodo-Kachari people, an umbrella group from Nepal, India and Bangladesh that includes the Bodo people Culture and language * Boro cu ...

Dogri Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Prad ...

, Santhali and Maithali in 2003, raising the total number of languages to 22.

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Proposal and enactment

The ''Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Bill, 1967'' (Bill No. 1 of 1967) was introduced in the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

on 20 March 1967. It was introduced by

Yashwantrao Chavan Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan (Marathi pronunciation: əʃʋənt̪ɾaːʋ t͡səʋʱaːɳ 12 March 1913 – 25 November 1984) was an Indian politician. He served as the last Chief Minister of Bombay State and the first of Maharashtra after ...

, then Minister of Home Affairs, and sought to amend the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution to include Sindhi as one of the languages listed in the schedule. The full text of the Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the bill is given below: The Bill was considered by the Rajya Sabha on 4 April 1967 and passed in the original form on the same day. The Bill, as passed by the Rajya Sabha, was considered and passed by the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

on 7 April 1967. The bill received assent from then President

Zakir Hussain Zakir Hussain ( ur, , link=no) is the name of: * Zakir Husain (politician), an Indian politician and former president of India * Zakir Hussain (actor), Bollywood actor * Zakir Hussain (field hockey) (1934–2019), Pakistani field hockey player * ...

on 10 April 1967. It was notified in ''

The Gazette of India ''The Gazette of India'' is a public journal and an authorised legal document of the Government of India, published weekly by the Department of Publication, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. As a public journal, the ''Gazette'' prints offi ...

'' and came into force on the same date.

References

{{reflist 21 1967 in India 1967 in law Languages of India Indira Gandhi administration

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Proposal and enactment

See also

References