urdu’s past, present and future: facets of an ongoing s past, present and future: facets of an...

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Urdu’s Past, Present and Future: Facets of an Ongoing Debate [For some time now a debate about the status of Urdu has been going on in both India and Pakistan, but mostly in India. Views regarding its history, its place in Subcontinental life, its indigenous or foreign character, official promises made to give it an uplift, lack of action on those promises, who bears the responsibility for its neglect?—all these have been expressed in the print media in a range of emotions, from anger, frustration, and wistfulness, to confidence and hope. Reproduced below are some of the pieces which were sent to us by our readers, as well as some which we found ourselves in different publications. These should be seen merely as different facets of an ongoing debate, not as the last word on the subject. —Editor] Preserving Urdu Through Self-Help Our mother tongue furnishes the sinews of our intellectual powers and supplies the strength for our mental exertions. For Urdu speakers, Urdu is the unique carrier of our emotional and reasoning activity. It opens the high road for us to acquire and grasp the values of integrity, social matur- ity, contemporary ideology and true republican political consciousness. It is the gateway to the secrets of our souls. By and through Urdu alone shall we secure our material survival and our spiritual advancement. We are now concerned with the material means we must produce to enable us all to restore and preserve this priceless gift that is our most pre- cious heritage. How shall we do it? We shall seek constitutional protec-

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Page 1: Urdu’s Past, Present and Future: Facets of an Ongoing s Past, Present and Future: Facets of an Ongoing Debate [For some time now a debate about the status of Urdu has been going

Urdu’s Past, Present and Future:Facets of an Ongoing Debate

[For some time now a debate about the status of Urdu has beengoing on in both India and Pakistan, but mostly in India. Viewsregarding its history, its place in Subcontinental life, its indigenousor foreign character, official promises made to give it an uplift, lackof action on those promises, who bears the responsibility for itsneglect?—all these have been expressed in the print media in arange of emotions, from anger, frustration, and wistfulness, toconfidence and hope. Reproduced below are some of the pieceswhich were sent to us by our readers, as well as some which wefound ourselves in different publications. These should be seenmerely as different facets of an ongoing debate, not as the last wordon the subject. —Editor]

Preserving Urdu Through Self-Help

Our mother tongue furnishes the sinews of our intellectual powers andsupplies the strength for our mental exertions. For Urdu speakers, Urdu isthe unique carrier of our emotional and reasoning activity. It opens thehigh road for us to acquire and grasp the values of integrity, social matur-ity, contemporary ideology and true republican political consciousness. Itis the gateway to the secrets of our souls. By and through Urdu alone shallwe secure our material survival and our spiritual advancement.

We are now concerned with the material means we must produce toenable us all to restore and preserve this priceless gift that is our most pre-cious heritage. How shall we do it? We shall seek constitutional protec-

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tion. This does not mean that we shall rely only on constitutional protec-tion and not make all-out efforts ourselves. Ralph Russell, in his article inthe Economic and Political Weekly (– January ) has emphasized theneed for the Urdu-speaking people to bestir themselves to teach theirchildren and dependents Urdu by their private, individual and collectiveefforts. Of course, we must and shall do this.

The best means to promote Urdu is books. Thanks to the computerwe are now free of the bottleneck of the calligrapher who had held us inthrall for so long. Now every computer with the addition of a single diskof software can produce all our literature in nastq’lµq. This does not meanthat we should neglect Roman or Devanagari scripts. They have theiruses. But obviously our main thrust must be in nasta’lµq which is now oneof the most efficient, as it is perhaps the most beautiful scripts in theworld.

We must activate all the existing Urdu book producing agencies andcreate new ones where necessary. This must be done in a crusading spirit.We need a series of cheap paperbacks on the lines of Penguin Books asthey originally were printed at d each. Such mass publication is essentialto restore to ourselves our Urdu heritage. These publications wouldinclude not only the giants like Gh≥lib, Iqb≥l and Fai¤ but all the otherwritings and great speeches of our freedom movement from to as well as the soul stirring literature of the great Progressive Writers’Movement, beginning with the thirties and fourties wherein Urdu playedsuch a notable part.

I had earlier referred to the need to publish translations of scientificand technical works from English. These are essential particularly for ourartisans and skilled workers, like welders, who wish to improve theirskills.

If good, cheap and well-printed books are available, the readers willbe found.

We must press for the establishment of more schools teaching theUrdu language. Ather Farouqui reported in his article in Economic andPolitical Weekly ( April ) that there was not a single functioningUrdu medium primary school in the UP. This seems to be still the posi-tion. This violates the constitutional mandate that obligates the state inthe following words:

It shall be the endeavour of every state and local authority to provideadequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primarystage of education to children belonging to the linguistic minority groups;and the president may issue such directives to any state as he considers

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necessary and proper for securing the provision of such facilities. (Article-A)

This is buttressed by the fundamental right enshrined in Article ofthe Constitution of India which reads: “Any section of citizens residing inthe territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, scriptor culture shall have the right to conserve the same.”

In the UP there is not even the facility for Urdu-speaking people totake Urdu as an optional subject. This again smacks of cultural genocide.I have no objection to anybody, if he voluntarily so chooses, writing Urduin the Devanagari script. But I object if a child, whose mother tongue isUrdu, is taught in school to write “zalµl” for “jalµl” and “p≥’®kh≥na” for“parv≥na.” No wonder the Urdu-speaking people recently taught somemuch needed electoral lessons in the UP to responsible persons whothought that they held their elected seats secure till eternity.

The position in the UP now is that the literate Urdu speakers have bya governmental measure which can only be described as cultural genocide,been deprived of literacy in their mother tongue. But this languagesurvives among the “ummµ” (illiterates). It now becomes the duty of thestate and even of the international community (in view of the element ofgenocide) to teach these ummµ to read and write in nastq’lµq Urdu.Volunteer organizations will supply the teachers. A major campaign mustbe launched in this connection with full use of modern technology suchas television and computer. In view of the special circumstances perhapsthe cooperation of international agencies such as the UNESCO may besought.

Another serious grievance is that the three language formula of thegovernment of India has been mala fide operated in the UP in such a waythat an Urdu-speaking person has to forego his right to study Englishproperly if he opts for Urdu as his mother tongue. This has been done byfalsely demoting Sanskrit from its status as a classical language of Indiaand categorizing it as a modern language which it is not. This fraud onthe Constitution and the Urdu-speaking people must stop. We have noobjection to studying Sanskrit. In fact all Indians must study it. But wecannot be deprived of the right to education in our mother tongue to pre-serve our heritage and also to master English to secure our livelihood.Perhaps public interest litigation may secure this right.

Another fraud to which Urdu speakers in the whole of north India,particularly the UP, have been subjected has been the falsification of cen-sus reports wherein Urdu speakers have been wrongly entered as Hindispeakers. This has been done most extensively among the illiterate major-

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ity population. This has been a form of cultural genocide for sinisterpurposes. It must stop.

Urdu must above all maintain its image as carrier of progressivethinking and ideology. Urdu was the language in which Bhagat Singhgave our country the slogan “inqil≥b zindab≥d.”

We cannot afford to neglect the field of theology and Islamic tradi-tion that influences the thinking of many of our people. It is necessary toundertake the translation of progressive modern Arabic and other foreignworks on this topic. I have suggested the translation of Mu√ammadƒusain Haikal’s famous book on the life of Prophet Mu√ammad. It wasthe duty of our ulema to have made this work available to the people inUrdu. At present it is available only in Arabic and in English. It should bemade available in Urdu also.

In his book Haikal contrasts and compares the accession speeches ofthe first Caliph ƒa¤rat Ab∑ Bakr ¿iddµq with that of the first AbbasidEmperor ManΩ∑r who usurped the title of Caliph. The former said,

O men I have been assigned the task of ruling over you. I am not the bestamong you. If I do well in my job, help me. If I do wrong, correct me.Truthfulness is fidelity. Lying is treason. The weak shall be strong in my eyestill I restore them their right. The strong shall be weak in my eyes until I havedispossessed them of their usurpation. Obey me so long as I obey God andthe Prophet. But if I disobey God’s commander His Prophet then noobedience is incumbent on you.

The usurper said,

O men I am God’s power on earth. I rule over you with His guidanceand approval. I am the guardian of his wealth and I manage it by Hiswill in accordance with His pattern. I disburse it with His permissionƒfor he has made me the lock. If He chooses I shall open so that youmay receive therefrom. If He chooses I shall remain locked.

Haikal comments that this was a change from the accountabilityinsisted on by the sharµ‘a to that of absolute power derived from divineright.

Haikal points out the dire effect of this change upon Islamic societyand thinking. He cites the famous Egyptian Arab scholar ShaikhMu√ammad ‘Abduh who points out how the so-called scholars of theimperial court corrupted Islam and taught the masses that corruption,insecurity, hardship and deprivation are not the responsibility of the rul-

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ers but fulfilment of certain alleged prophesies. A whole army of suchfalse teachers spread among the Muslims. Historical conditions preservedthese aberrations throughout the period of feudal autocracy followed bythe colonial period. We have some remnants of all this here. These rem-nants raised their heads most notably during the Shah Bano case.

[Revised version of a paper presented in the “Symposium on the Status ofUrdu and other Linguistic Minorities in the Indian Polity,” under theauspices of the Linguistic Minorities Guild, at India International Centre,New Delhi, on April ; courtesy C.M. N; edited for the AUS]

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Murder of a Language

Very few Hindus realize that the largest surviving group of victims of thePartition are those Muslims who chose to stay in India.

They came to be mistrusted and despised in the land of their birth.Nothing symbolizes this more poignantly than the treatment meted outto Urdu in post-Independent India. This can well be described as linguis-tic genocide. Most people are just as unaware that in the region that gavebirth to Urdu and was the traditional center for Urdu learning for centu-ries, namely Uttar Pradesh, there is not a single Urdu-medium primary orjunior high school.

The only two Urdu-medium high schools are those run by and affili-ated to Aligarh Muslim University. Consequently, very few among thepost-Independence generation can read or write Urdu. All those familieswho are keen to have their children pick up some Urdu have to send theirkids to religious madrasas.

Thus Urdu learning gets divorced from secular education and relig-ious leaders alone get associated with the defense and spread of Urdu.This strengthens the hold of those Muslim leaders who want their com-munity to limit their concerns to religious issues and ignore the secularinterests of Urdu speakers.

This further widens the gulf between Muslims and other communi-ties. Why this attempt at decimation of Urdu? Many Hindus have beenmisled into believing that Urdu is an alien language, that it was once thelanguage of foreign invaders and that for this reason their supposeddescendants made it the language that helped bring about the partition of

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India.The actual facts tell a very different story. The foreign invaders who

brought Islam to India were Turks who knew no Urdu simply becauseUrdu did not exist at that time. Though their own language was Turkish,their successors, the Mughals, used Persian as the court language afterthey established their empire in India. It is only in Bombay films thatemperors like Akbar and Shahjehan speak in Urdu.

In actual fact, the great Mughals considered Urdu too plebian for useas a royal language. It is only later that lesser Mughals whose empires hadshrunk in both size and glory began using Urdu at court, as the gapbetween royalty and commoners narrowed dramatically.

Urdu was not the language of Muslim rulers but grew on Indian soilas a language of the b≥z≥rs and ±^≥vnµs (military garrisons) of north Indiaout of the interaction between Persian and Khari Boli. Just as Hindi isSanskritized Khari Boli, Urdu is Persianized Khari Boli and, therefore,Hindi and Urdu are close kin.

Urdu was the language of the educated élite among both Hindus andMuslims for a few hundred years until English replaced it. Thus, contraryto popular belief, Urdu is not the language of Muslims alone.

Both Hindus and Muslims joined together in creating this beautifullanguage. It is no less incorrect to stigmatize Urdu as the language thatcreated the partition of India.

The very idea of Pakistan was conceptualized in England’s Cam-bridge University by a handful of Western educated Muslim intellectualslike Jinnah and Iqbal.

They cooked up this fantasy influenced by European nationalism—an ideology that has been responsible for some of the bloodiest massacresand wars known to human history, including two world wars.

It was an anglicized intellectual, Jinnah, who hardly knew any Urduand was not even a practicing Muslim, who was able to convince largenumbers of educated Muslims that they were not just a community, but aseparate, distinct nationality and, therefore, needed a separate homelandand nation state.

Almost till the very end, the indigenous educated ulemas andmaul≥n≥s sided with the Congress and opposed the partition. Thus, theideology that led to the disastrous partition of India was the product ofWestern education rather than that of Urdu or Islamic tradition.

The traditional teachings of Islam actually go contrary to the tenets ofthe nationalist ideologies of states such as Pakistan. Nevertheless, theHindu élite has been taught to mistrust Urdu because it was adopted as

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the national language of Pakistan.Ironically enough, despite fifty years of brainwashing of Pakistani

Muslims into accepting Urdu as their national language, it has very weakroots in Pakistan. Urdu is an alien language for most Pakistanis, barringthe minority who migrated from Uttar Pradesh at the time of partition.Most Pakistanis speak very clumsy Urdu with a distinct accent character-istic of the region they are from in Punjab, Sindh, Multan or the Frontierprovinces. The real Urdu-speaking people are still called Mohajirs, that is,foreigners.

The party of the Mohajirs, the MQM, is locked in a deadly battlewith the Pakistani political establishment. Many people in Pakistan’sprovinces feel Urdu is an unwelcome imposition on them and they areextremely hostile to Urdu-speaking Mohajirs.

Just as the political establishment in India has tried to wipe out Hin-dustani from official use, which is indistinguishable from Urdu, and sub-stituted a Sanskritized Hindi, so also the Pakistani establishment is atpains to ruin Urdu by stuffing their official language with as many Arabicwords as possible while also distancing it from Hindustani.

The result might be considered comic were it not for its tragic conse-quences. For example, most Pakistanis delight in seeing Bombay filmsand listening to Bollywood music. Many of them, including the videoparlor owners who stock them, refer to them as Urdu films and Urdusongs. They do not seem to have any difficulty understanding the lan-guage and ethos of our Hindi films. But almost everyone I met during mythree visits to Pakistan poked fun at the sark≥rµ Hindi peddled by Doord-arshan which they find incomprehensible. However, the Sanskritizationof Hindi, courtesy of Bharat Sarkar, is part of a political exercise meant todrive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in north India.

Similarly, while most who know Hindustani in India can enjoy Paki-stani popular entertainment and ghazals, we find it hard to follow thelanguage used in the news bulletins of sark≥rµ PTV. The imposition ofUrdu on Pakistan’s non-Urdu speaking people has produced many nega-tive consequences, including the secession of Bangladesh. Similarly, inIndia it does harm when Urdu is assumed to be the language of non-Urdu speaking Muslims.

A section of the Muslim leadership has been working hard to force allMuslims—no matter if they live in Kerala, Karnataka, Assam orGujarat—to adopt Urdu as their mother tongue. This amounts to drivinga wedge between them and the local culture and community in whichthey are now rooted.

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The language of every community in India is region-specific, notreligion specific. Just as Hindi is not the language of all Hindus in India,Urdu cannot and is not the language of all Muslims in the Subcontinent.Muslims will have the incentive to stay rooted in their regional and lin-guistic identities only if they feel secure and confident that their religious,cultural, economic, political and citizenship rights are secure.

If they are victims of hatred and violence, if they don’t feel physicallysecure, politically confident and culturally fulfilled, they are likely to seeksecurity in huddling together defensively as an inward-looking religiouscommunity that uses formal adherence to Urdu for symbolic purposesalone.

[Hindustan Times, Saturday, June , Section: Opinion; courtesyC.M. N; edited for the AUS]

*

Urdu language has an unbelievable capacity for survival and growth. ForPakistan, of course, it is a symbol of national and cultural ethos. But, evenwhen dislodged from several of its traditional strongholds inIndia—Delhi, Agra, Lucknow and Patna—it found new homes incountless centres of learning in distant lands.

It has not only refused to die or become extinct, it has even flourishedand proliferated because of the concern and love showered upon it inforeign climes. London, Paris, Heidelberg, Oslo, Stockholm, New York,Toronto, Montreal, Ankara, Baghdad, Cairo, Beijing, to name only someof Urdu’s adopted homes, boast of Urdu study centres and otheracademic institutions of a high order, a phenomenon that has evolved inthe recent decades.

[Excerpt from: M. H. Askari, “Urdu Abroad: Problems and Prospects,”Dawn (Karachi), Magazine Section, January, , p. ]

*

“Battameez” Urdu Medium

Driving down Fatima Jinnah Road, one can see a large crowd of youth infront of the Pakistan American Cultural Centre (PACC) and the BritishCouncil, especially in the morning and evening hours.

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The crowd includes an interesting variety of traditionally- and mod-ernly-dressed young boys and girls, sitting or standing idly in groups,under trees, on the footpaths, in their cars or on motorbikes.

Most of them represent the suppressed middle-class which is con-stantly struggling to rise above their social status. They are actually theproduct of our dual education system which, on one side, has ConventSchools, offering foreign maal [m≥l] at foreign cost and, on the other, thepopular peelay [p®l®] schools which have been producing generations ofinferiority-complexed youth.

In spite of having university degrees, and the label of being literate,these Bachelor’s and Master’s degree-holders are unable to communicateconfidently in a language which they studied as a compulsory subject formore than a decade.

The five per cent privileged class which even dreams in English can’teven imagine how this trauma damages an individual’s personality andkeeps one behind on every front. English is just a language, but for thosewho can’t speak and write it, it is a monster that overshadows all their tal-ents and proves them nil in the practical world.

The limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world. So, howcould a “battameez [bad-tamµz] Urdu medium” survive in a society likeours, where most of the career opportunity ads are with the conditionthat the candidate’s English should be fluent; where interviews, not onlyfor jobs but also for admissions to prestigious schools, are conducted inEnglish; where all the official documents from registries to amenities’ billsare printed in gora sahibs [går≥ Ω≥√ibs] language; and where all the impor-tant exams from the I.B.A. entry tests to the civil services exams are takenin the same medium. Not only this but even the criteria of being a mem-ber of the élite is to have command over the language, and the ability tospeak it with as much of a foreign accent as possible.

The demands of our society don’t end here. Whether you want tovisit the fancy restaurants or shop at the fashionable shopping centres,you need to converse in English. Speak Urdu, and you will be lookeddown upon as a social outcast. To meet the increasing needs of the mod-ern age, completely confused parents follow different strategies. Some ofthem are too busy and unconcerned to realize the importance of theirdecision regarding the choice of school for their children, which affectstheir whole personality, not just the communication skills.

Thus, many curious minds are paralyzed in government schools’ cul-ture of rattafication [i.e., cramming], where instead of nurturing naturaltalents and encouraging concept development, all the energies are focused

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on hammering simple, selected ideas like baba aaya aam laya, pul par chal,Jack & Jill went up the hill etc., into their minds without proper under-standing.

There is another category of parents, who in their effort to compen-sate for their own handicaps, have become the target of the so-called pri-vate English medium schools which are mushrooming at every nook andcorner of the country. High fees, innumerable additional funds, colourfuluniforms and foreign names are the characteristics of such schools whichimpart everything except education.

The children who pass out from such schools are worse than the“peelay school products” as they remain neither teetar [tµtar] nor batair[bat®r]. These enrdu mixed-medium creatures mostly face great difficultiesin collecting and conveying their thoughts in any language, even in theirown national language and thus, fail to compete with the Cambridgeschool students of the same intelligence level.

A master’s degree-holder in English from the University of Karachisays, “I feel that even an ‘O’ level student is better than me, both inexpression and in knowledge because his foundation is strong, conceptsare clear, environment is supporting and he has developed the habit ofreading and writing from the very beginning, so he doesn’t need to put anextra effort to develop his communication skills.”

Another student from the Department of International Relations is ofthe opinion, “Right from the prestigious educational institutions to thehigh-level competitive exams for civil and defence services, excellentEnglish is the basic criteria and a vast majority of the middle-class youthare disqualified there solely for that reason. This means the tool of lan-guage is used by the powerful to keep the powerless away from the topdecision-making positions—the trick they have learnt from their colonialmasters while their own generations are trained in foreign universities totake the reigns of the country.”

The results are obvious. Most of these rejected minds give up andcompromise with their weakness. Others, more ambitious, join the manyinstitutions which arrange English language programmes and make high-sounding claims with exorbitant fees. However, very few of them virtuallyhelp these “English-phobia patients” to regain their confidence and getproficiency in the language while most of them are simply money-makingmachines.

One such old “patient” says, “I am always afraid of gatherings, meet-ings, interviews and presentations—anything which involves conversationor writing in English. It’s not that I can’t speak the language at all. It’s the

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fear of making a mistake that makes me dumb at such occasions.“This fear is deeply rooted in me since my college days when a

teacher insulted me in front of the whole class for speaking wrongEnglish. It was one of the city’s most recognised English Medium collegeswhere Urdu was forbidden in the class. So, a few Urdu Medium studentswho dared to get admission there, never participated in the class discus-sion. Beyond doubt, they had valid points in their minds and even knewthe answers, but they kept their mouths shut, only due to the lack ofconfidence.”

It’s funny that four languages—English, Urdu, Arabic and a regionallanguage are taught in the Matric system at the secondary level, but not asingle one can make its way to the students’ mind. Everyone knows earlychildhood is an ideal age to learn a language but when a mind is overbur-dened with as many as four languages, it is difficult to grasp even one.

The Director of Planning Development and Research in PACC,Azeemunnisa Shah says that a number of doctors, engineers, MBAs, MAsand even PHDs get themselves registered in their language programmes,but quite often they like to hide their identity. The PACC teachers sim-ply help them by focussing on spoken English as it is the yardstick bywhich the ability of the candidates is judged in most offices.

According to a spokesperson of the British Council Teaching Centre,“People want to study English language for different reasons. Some tomeet the professional and academic requirements, like students who seeka higher education abroad, businessmen to compete in the internationalmarket, scientists and technicians to keep up with the latest develop-ments, and professionals to feel confident in participating in internationalseminars, to travel abroad, and others to simply improve their lifestyles.Almost all of them have the potential understanding of the language, wesimply provide them a controlled environment under experienced teach-ing staff to overcome their flaws and fears and meet their requirements.”Whenever the question of medium of education arises, cynics start givingthe examples of the great old personalities who rose from ordinary schoolsand earned a great name in their respective fields.

But, what they forget is that a majority of the people are born with anaverage intelligence level and can do wonders with proper guidance andschooling. They can utilize their energies in more constructive work thansimply learning a language half of their lives and the rest regretting theirfailure. Therefore, it is important to have one medium of education,(either English or Urdu), one curriculum and one system all over thecountry. It sounds quite idealistic but not impossible.

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I would also like to suggest to the “English-phobia patients” youngand old alike, not to be ashamed. English is just a second language andthere’s no reason you can’t learn it. What you need is confidence, do ex-tensive reading preferably including foreign publications which are easilyavailable at low prices at secondhand book shops and constantly practicethe four basic skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Andabove all believe in yourself, nothing is impossible.

[Dawn (Karachi), Magazine Section, January ,. p. ; edited forAUS ]

*

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