I hear some Indians hate hindi is this true or is it a rare few ?

Hi Hari, A lot of indian states especially some south indian states where there have been anti-Hindi movements. But off late all these movements have subsided. These days Hindi is accepted as the mother tongue and all schools in India cover Hindi. Cheers! Ram

while in India one will have to speak Hindi one or at the other place because this is the only language widely used and understood

Yes, there are many many Indians who hate the idea of learning Hindi simply coz it’s the national language. If you look at how the Indian nation was created and carved into states, you’ll see that the states were created on a language basis…each state of India has its own robust language and the people take immense pride in speaking, nurturing and propagating their own language. Each of the languages are akin to classic in themselves i.e. they are quite old and very rich in literary work. Hindi too, is spoken naturally as a language by a few states of north India. It also happens that our first PM was from one of these states where Hindi is naturally spoken. So you see, after independence, when Hindi was imposed as a national language, naturally people of other states took umbrage and protested…their pride was slighted by the fact that the language spoken by a few states in the north would now become the national language of the entire nation overriding their own languages in importance. So you see the problem? Hindi was never the national language in the entire Indian sub-continent…it was only after independence and after the birth of the Indian nation that Hindi was made the national language as because most of the influential people during those days of formation were Hindi speaking. Personally I feel English should have been the national language…it’s a neutral language which would have bonded the nation better.