The three-language formula is a language learning policy first formulated in 1968 by the Ministry of Education of the Government of India in consultation with the states.
The first recommendation for a three-language policy was made by the University Education Commission in 1948/1949, which did not find the requirement to study three languages to be an extravagance, citing the precedents of other multilingual nations such as Belgium and Switzerland.
While accepting that Modern Standard Hindi was itself a minority language, and had no superiority over others such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Malayalam, Assamese and Gujarati all of which had a longer history and greater body of literature, the commission still foresaw Hindi as eventually replacing English as the means by which every Indian state may participate in the Federal functions.
The committee's 1975 report recommended safeguards for significant (i.e. greater than 10 percent) Urdu-speaking minorities which included the use of Urdu for official purposes and as a medium of instruction.
Following consideration of the report by the Cabinet in 1979, and by the Taraqqui-e-Urdu Board from 1979 to 1983, modified proposals from the Gujral committee were passed on to the state governments in 1984.