Languages with official status in India
The Constitution of India designates the official language of the Government of India as Hindi written in the Devanagari script, as well as English. There is no national language as declared by the Constitution of India. Hindi is used for official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government. States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s) through legislation and therefore there are 22 officially recognized languages in India of which Hindi is the most used. The number of native Hindi speakers is about 25% of the total Indian population; however, including dialects of Hindi termed as Hindi languages, the total is around 44% of Indians, mostly accounted from the states falling under the Hindi belt. Other Indian languages are each spoken by around 10% or less of the population.
Dravidian parties
DMK leaders also perceived that the attempts to declare Hindi as the sole national language of India was an attempt impose an Aryan language unwilling people in the South. According to the terms of the Indian constitution dated 26 January 1965, English as an official language of India would come to an end and Hindi would become the sole official language. However, the Madras Anti-Hindi agitation in 1965 compelled the Central Government in India change its language policy, allowing English to continue as an official language.
Although DMK was not directly involved in the violence that marred the agitation, the protest itself catapulted DMK to political power in the State in the 1967 legislative elections. Annadurai became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of the post-1950 Madras state as a result.