Hindi and India

I am staying in U.K with my husband as he is working here.The week before last I met some of his friends.They had arranged a small party after the badminton match they played at the leisure centre.The topics at the party wavered from their clients to the net profit of their company to what is better chicken or paneer.All of a sudden somebody suggested the topic that; should Hindi be enforced to be learned by the Indians.For the first time in my entire life I witnessed so much of resentment against Hindi.Somebody even said that," I don't take Hindi as the language of India .I am a south Indian I know English I preserve my culture I help people as an when required to the best of my capacity and I don't think not knowing Hindi is a communication barrier for me so it implies that Hindi is not my cup of tea."I don't know weather he was right or wrong ,and I am strictly not contradicting anybody I am just trying to clear my concepts about the significance of Hindi as a language of today's India .
Hindi as far as my knowledge of history supports me originates from the word Hindustan.In ancient times it was referred to as "Jo boli hind ki sarzameen par boli jati hai".Considered as one of the richest literature's of the world it has writers like Premchand, poets like Chaturvedi and Dinker.No I am not trying to justify the language's grandeur what I am trying to do is just see it with a new light.
I am not against any regional language.What I want to say is that why can't Hindi be the uniforming language for the Indians ? Why today we are ready to accept English as the language to communicate through out India but to learn Hindi we say it should not be enforced?Don't you think that if all the states of India start talking in their own language what a pandemonium will it cause?Why is Hindi considered as a language of north India and not as the language of our country.Those citizens who think that they are preserving their regional culture and language and that is more than enough I would like to ask you a simple question if all the states of India start thinking in this way who will preserve the national language? So to conclude I would like to say that you must know your regional language but the nation is above the region so you must know the national language.Thats Hindi .My friends how long will you acknowledge a foreign language ,(English) as your language.Doesn't a prospering country like India with its rich culture and heritage deserve its own linguistic identity?