Editing Hindustani language (section)

==Official status==
[[File:South asia.jpg|thumb|Hindustani, in its standardised registers, is one of the official languages of both India (Hindi) and Pakistan (Urdu).]]
Before 1947, Hindustani was officially recognised by the British Raj. In the post-independence period however, the term Hindustani has lost currency and is not given any official recognition by the Indian or Pakistani governments. The language is instead recognised by its standard forms, Hindi and Urdu.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schmidt|first=Ruth L|title=Urdu|work=The Indo-Aryan Languages|publisher=Routledge|year=2003|isbn=9780700711307|editor-last=Cardona|editor-first=George|pages=318–319|editor-last2=Jain|editor-first2=Dhanesh}}</ref>

=== Hindi ===
Hindi is declared by Article 343(1), [[Part XVII of the Constitution of India|Part 17]] of the [[Constitution of India|Indian Constitution]] as the "official language ({{lang|inc-Deva|राजभाषा}}, {{transliteration|inc|ISO|rājabhāṣā}}) of the Union." (In this context, "Union" means the Federal Government and not the entire country{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}—India has [[languages with official status in India|23 official languages]].) At the same time, however, the definitive text of federal laws is officially the English text and proceedings in the higher appellate courts must be conducted in English.

At the state level, Hindi is one of the official languages in 10 of the 29 Indian states and three [[Union territory|Union Territories]], respectively: [[Bihar]], [[Chhattisgarh]], [[Haryana]], [[Himachal Pradesh]], [[Jharkhand]], [[Madhya Pradesh]], [[Rajasthan]], [[Uttarakhand]], [[Uttar Pradesh]] and [[West Bengal]]; [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]], [[Dadra and Nagar Haveli]], and Delhi.

In the remaining states, Hindi is not an official language. In states like [[Tamil Nadu]] and [[Karnataka]], studying Hindi is not compulsory in the state curriculum. However, an option to take the same as second or third language does exist. In many other states, studying Hindi is usually compulsory in the school curriculum as a third language (the first two languages being the state's official language and English), though the intensiveness of Hindi in the curriculum varies.<ref>[http://education.nic.in/natpol_new.asp Government of India: National Policy on Education] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620100111/http://education.nic.in/natpol_new.asp |date=20 June 2006 }}.</ref>

=== Urdu ===
Urdu is the national language ({{Lang|ur|{{nq|قومی زبان}}|rtl=yes}}, ''qaumi zabān'') of Pakistan, where it shares [[official language]] status with [[Pakistani English|English]]. Although English is spoken by many, and [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] is the native language of the majority of the population, Urdu is the ''lingua franca''. In India, Urdu is one of the languages recognised in the [[Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India]] and is an official language of the Indian states of [[Jharkhand]], [[Bihar]], [[Telangana]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[West Bengal]], and also the Union Territories of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. Although the government school system in most other states emphasises Standard Hindi, at universities in cities such as [[Lucknow]], [[Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh|Aligarh]] and [[Hyderabad]], Urdu is spoken and learnt, and ''Saaf'' or ''Khaalis'' Urdu is treated with just as much respect as ''Shuddh'' Hindi.