Authoritative Hindi Constitution
The original Constitution of India was handwritten in both English and Hindi. Prem Behari Narain Raizada executed the original calligraphy. The 58th Amendment Act in 1987 authorized the President to publish an authoritative Hindi text.
Primary Reference: Standard Educational Reference
Target: UPSC Civil Services
Updated:
Difficulty
Hard
Skill Tested
Factual Recall
Verify the historical facts concerning the physical drafting and linguistic authority of the Indian Constitution:
1. The original physical artifact of the Constitution was beautifully handwritten in exclusively the English language.
2. The original drafts of the Constitution were manually transcribed by calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada in both Hindi and English.
3. The 58th Constitutional Amendment formally authorized the President to publish an authoritative legal text of the Constitution in Hindi.
Detailed Solution & Context
Analyze the legal evolution of the Constitution's linguistic authority:
1. Assertion: It took nearly four decades after the republic's inception to establish a legally authoritative version of the Constitution in the Hindi language.
2. Reason 1: The original drafters only produced a typed English manuscript, completely ignoring the Hindi language.
3. Reason 2: The 58th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1987 was specifically enacted to authorize the President to publish the authoritative Hindi text.
Detailed Solution & Context
Imagine you are a legal archivist in 1985 searching for the 'authoritative' legal text of the Indian Constitution in Hindi to resolve a high court dispute. What administrative reality will you encounter?
1. You will easily find it, as the authoritative Hindi text was published immediately upon adoption in 1950.
2. You will not find a legally 'authoritative' Hindi text, because the amendment authorizing the President to publish one will not be passed until 1987.
3. You will find that the original handwritten Hindi calligraphy copy by Prem Behari Narain Raizada serves as the absolute final legal authority in court.
Detailed Solution & Context
Determine the validity of the following claims regarding the linguistic history of the Constitution:
1. The original foundational documents were manually transcribed in both the Hindi and English languages.
2. The 58th Constitutional Amendment explicitly mandated the translation and publication of an authoritative Hindi text.
3. The authoritative Hindi translation was placed directly under the publishing authority of the President.
Detailed Solution & Context
🚨 The Examiner's Trap
Candidates often assume the original Constitution was exclusively in English, ignoring the Hindi calligraphy copy, or they assume an 'authoritative' Hindi text existed from 1950, rather than realizing it required a specific amendment in 1987.
⚡ Quick Revision
Concept Flow Mapping
Logic Quest
"What legal deficit regarding the national language was corrected by the 58th Amendment Act?"
Topic Clusters