Linguistic rights
The constitution of India was first drafted on January 26, 1950. It is estimated that there are about 1500 languages in India. Article 343–345 declared that the official languages of India for communication with centre will be Hindi and English. There are 22 official languages identified by constitution. Article 345 states that "the Legislature of a state may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State: Provided that, until the Legislature of the State otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution".
Himachal Pradesh
Hindi is the official language of Himachal Pradesh and is spoken by the majority of the population as a lingua franca. English is given the status of an additional official language. Most of the languages spoken natively belong to the group of the Himachali languages. According to the 2001 Census of India, the languages spoken in the state in descending order of native speakers are Hindi, spoken by 89.01% of the population (including Himachali languages as dialects of Hindi); followed by Punjabi (5.99%), Nepali (1.16%) and Kinnauri (1.06%).