Railway
Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution by the 92nd Amendment, which came into force in:
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Answer: Option D — 2004
Detailed Solution
Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution by the Constitution (Ninety-second Amendment) Act, which came into force in January 2004.
About these four languages:
- Bodo: spoken mainly by the Bodo people of Assam; it is written in the Devanagari script, and is an official language of Assam.
- Dogri: spoken mainly in the Jammu region; it is written in the Devanagari script.
- Maithili: spoken mainly in north Bihar and parts of Nepal; it is the language of the poet Vidyapati, and is written in the Devanagari script (earlier in the Tirhuta or Mithilakshar script).
- Santhali: spoken by the Santhal people in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar; it is written mainly in the Ol Chiki script, invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the 1920s.
The Eighth Schedule:
- It lists the languages recognised by the Constitution; at present, it contains 22 languages.
- Languages in the Eighth Schedule get certain benefits, such as representation in the Official Language Commission, use in the examinations for central services, and support for their development.
The present 22 languages:
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
Demands for inclusion:
Many other languages, such as Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Tulu, Bhoti and English, have been demanded for inclusion.
Classical languages:
Separately, the Government of India has given the status of "classical language" to some languages, such as Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia.
Importance:
The Eighth Schedule reflects India's linguistic diversity and the recognition of the cultural identity of different communities.
Why not the other options?
- ✗1995, 2000 and 2011 are not the year in which these four languages were added.
Quick tip
Remember: Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali added to the Eighth Schedule by the 92nd Amendment (in force 2004); now 22 languages.
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Languages & Scripts — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Languages & Scripts, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers the languages of India, the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, classical languages, official languages of states, scripts such as Brahmi, Kharosthi and Devanagari, and the most widely spoken languages of the world. Questions often ask which languages have classical status, which language is official in a particular state, or how many languages the Eighth Schedule contains. Remember the amendments that added languages to the Eighth Schedule (for example, the 92nd Amendment added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali). Because the list of classical languages has grown over time, check the latest official count before your exam. Practise the languages and scripts questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.