Answer:

The language and culture of an area are undoubtedly important as they represent a pattern of living which is common in that area. While examining the related issues the Commission looked into minimum of internal cohesion and scope of positive expression of the collective personality of a people in habitating a state or region. Common language may not only promote the growth of such regional consciousness but also cause administrative convenience. Moreover, in a democracy it is the duty of the Government to ensure that the administration is conducted in a language which the people can understand. But the Commission had to operate within certain 'limiting factors' as well. The limiting factors were:

1. A linguistic State with its regional language as its official language may easily develop into an independent nationality. The road between an independent nationality and an independent State is very narrow.

2. India has been for several millennia a multilingual and multicultural country. There are a large number of bilingual belts between different linguistic zones.

3. Not all the language groups are so placed that they can be grouped into separate states.

4. There exist areas with a mixed population even within unilingual area.

5. There is not a single major modern Indian language whose speakers do not employ at least three contact languages and not a single speech-community which has less than at least three distinct linguistic codes in its verbal repertoire.

6. All major languages of India exist beyond their home-territory. As such speakers maintain their native (home) language and also speak the dominant local language, providing a clear case of grass-root bi-lingualism.

7. Different zones might have been declared uni- or bi-lingual for administrative convenience but basically each of them is a multilingual and multicultural complex entity.

8. Border areas of almost all the zones offer a diffusion belt, emerging out of contact patterns with languages belonging to different families.

Because of such limitations, a considerable number of people speaking languages other than the dominant language of a state remain a minority in the state. It required several safeguard for the interests of these people.