SAMACHEER KALVI, THE THREE-LANGUAGE FORMULA, AND FISCAL PRESSURE: CONSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF LINGUISTIC FEDERALISM IN INDIA

AUTHOR – GURUDEV AG, STUDENT AT SCHOOL OF LAW, SASTRA UNIVERSITY

BEST CITATION – GURUDEV AG, SAMACHEER KALVI, THE THREE-LANGUAGE FORMULA, AND FISCAL PRESSURE: CONSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF LINGUISTIC FEDERALISM IN INDIA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (8) OF 2026, PG. 674-684, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344. DOI – https://doi.org/10.65393/IJLRV6I871

Abstract

The controversy over Tamil Nadu’s insistence on a two language policy and the union government’s recurring effort to introduce the three language policy is a constitutional dispute that refuses to age. This article examines this dispute through three lenses; First legislative power over education between Parliament and the State Legislatures under the Seventh Schedule; the fundamental rights engaged when children are compelled to learn a language as a condition of accessing publicly funded education; and at last the fiscal architecture through which the Union exerts quiet but powerful normative pressure on State curriculum choices without passing a single line of legislation. The Samacheer Kalvi scheme, introduced by Tamil Nadu in 2010, serves as the concrete site of analysis. The article argues that the conventional ‘voluntariness thesis’, that States are free to decline grant conditions is constitutionally inadequate. It ignores the structural fiscal dependency created by Centrally Sponsored Schemes, the basic structure protection of federalism, and the co-operative federalism principle articulated by the Supreme Court in S R Bommai. The article closes with proposals for a more constitutionally honest framework for managing language policy in a multilingual federal State.

Keywords:  linguistic federalism; three-language formula; Samacheer Kalvi; Seventh Schedule; fiscal federalism; minority language rights