Official language and special provisions

Special provisions for certain classes (Part XVI)

To bring historically disadvantaged communities into public life, the Constitution reserves seats in legislatures and protects their claims to public posts.

• Articles 330 and 332: seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha and in the state legislative assemblies, in proportion to their population.
• Article 334: this reservation was meant to be temporary. It has been extended ten years at a time; the 104th Amendment extended it up to January 2030 and ended the nomination of members of the Anglo-Indian community.
• Article 335: the claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are to be considered in appointments to government posts, consistently with efficient administration.
• Articles 338, 338A and 338B set up national commissions for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the backward classes.
• Articles 341 and 342: the President notifies which communities are Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in each state; only Parliament can change these lists.

The 106th Amendment (2023) provides for one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies to be reserved for women, to take effect after a delimitation that follows the next census.

Official language (Part XVII)

India has no "national language" in the Constitution. It has official languages.

• Article 343: the official language of the Union is Hindi in the Devanagari script, with the international form of Indian numerals. English was to continue for fifteen years; by the Official Languages Act, 1963, Parliament has allowed its use to continue alongside Hindi.
• Article 345: a state legislature may adopt one or more languages in use in the state, or Hindi, as its official language.
• Article 348: the language of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and of the authoritative texts of laws, is English, until Parliament provides otherwise.
• Article 350A: states should try to provide instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage to children of linguistic minorities.
• Article 351: it is the duty of the Union to promote the spread of Hindi.

The Eighth Schedule lists the languages recognised by the Constitution. There were 14 in 1950; there are 22 today, including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu, Sanskrit and Santali.

Temporary, transitional and special provisions (Part XXI)

India's states differ greatly in history and circumstances, and the Constitution recognises this.

• Article 370 gave a special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir. In August 2019, by orders of the President and a resolution of Parliament, the provisions of the Constitution of India were applied to it in full and the special status ended. The state was reorganised into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. In December 2023 the Supreme Court upheld this change.
• Articles 371 to 371J make special provisions for particular states, to protect local customs and land rights or to meet the needs of backward regions: Maharashtra and Gujarat (371), Nagaland (371A), Assam (371B), Manipur (371C), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (371D), Sikkim (371F), Mizoram (371G), Arunachal Pradesh (371H), Goa (371I) and Karnataka (371J).

Miscellaneous (Part XIX)

Article 361 protects the President and the Governors from being answerable to any court for the exercise of the powers of their office, and bars criminal proceedings against them while they hold office. Article 366 defines terms used in the Constitution.

The last part (Part XXII)

Articles 393 to 395 give the short title, the dates of commencement and the repeal of the earlier laws. Article 394A, added in 1987, provides for an authoritative text of the Constitution in Hindi.