URDU

Mushirul Hasan On Nehru and Urdu

Nehru's ambivalence is also reflected in his attitude towards Urdu. He knew that Urdu was not spoken by Muslims alone but by millions of non-Muslims in Kashmir, Punjab, UP, Bihar and Bengal. He knew that it was a vital and graceful aspect of a vibrant composite tradition in the Indo-Gangetic belt. He himself read Urdu prose and poetry, and was an admirer and friend of writers and poets like Anand Narain Mulla, Sajjad Zaheer, Josh Malihabadi and Firaq Gorakhpuri and Faiz Ahmad Faiz. He argued, just as Gandhi had done, the case of Hindustani 'to foster a sense of unity among our countrymen' and criticised those who created the Hindi-Urdu controversy. He failed to understand the hostility to the inclusion of simple Urdu words in Hindustani and the concerted attempts to introduce a difficult form of Hindi simply out of hatred of Pakistan. The position of Hindi was assured - Urdu was not its rival - so why were Hindi zealots trying to suppress the language of Mir and Ghalib? Why such narrowness of vision?

Nehru posed these questions to Tandon, Pant, Govind Das, Sampurnanand, Kamalapathi Tripathi, Ravi Shankar Shukla and K.M. Munshi, the star performers at the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. They represented Hindu nationalism within the Congress ranks with no interest in Nehru's cherished projects - fostering a composite heritage and encouraging India's diverse and rich intellectual and cultural traditions. They were instinctively hostile to any trace of 'Muslim'/Islamic inheritance, and hence Hindustani, which they saw as a mask for Urdu, was anathema to them. The depicted it as a Muslim language, which it was not, and identified it with the Pakistan movement. They demanded that Hindi alone, written in the Devanagari script, be made India's official language.

Muslims did not contest this claim - how could they? They merely proposed that more time be allowed for the change-over. What they clamoured for, along with many Hindus, was Urdu's recognition as a second regional language in areas where it was widely spoken by Hindus and Muslims alike. Ravi Shankar Shukla rebutted Nehru's insistence on broadening the conception of the national language to include Urdu and Urdu script, in particular. He wrote: "We have already paid a heavy price for our policy of appeasing communalism. No more quarter can be given to communalism. We must build a strong nation on the solid foundation of a single national language and a single national script. We must know in what way inclusion of Urdu and the Urdu script make for broadmindedness, culture and scholarship, and advocacy of Hindi and Devanagari smacks of a narrow and perverted nationalism".

Kamlapathi Tripathi said to Nehru on the eve of the crucial Congress meeting, after which the Constituent Assembly declared, 'Maharaj, I am for Hindi'. Sampurnanand, in charge of the education portfolio in Lucknow, made it clear at the UP Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in 1949 that Urdu could not have the status of a state language. The Urdu style was distinctly 'unnational, if not anti-national' and he claimed that Urdu writers had made a deliberate and painstaking of fort to 'effect a break with Indian tradition'.

(Source: The Pioneer, 2 March, 1997)

On Distortions in Three Language Formula Shahabuddin's Letter to Bommai, 16 May, 1997

I welcome your statement in Lok Sabha on May 12, 1997 that no classical language shall be included under the Three Language Formula. However, I find that already Sanskrit has been made more or less compulsory at least in UP and extensively in Bihar and perhaps in other Hindi-speaking States, under this Formula. In fact, the formula has been reduced to Hindi, Sanskrit and English. This is detrimental to the legitimate interest of non-Hindi-speaking children, who are entitled to have their mother tongue as the first language and anxious to study Hindi and English in addition. A large number of Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and Nepali children are studying in these States. Their interest calls for an urgent review of the implementation of the Three Language Formula.

The situation is even worse for non-Hindi linguistic minorities in non-Hindi States. Their children are anxious to learn their mother tongue, the principal language of the State, Hindi and English, but they are forced to sacrifice either Hindi or their mother tongue. In any case, they are the losers. Both these problems demand your urgent attention. That is to restore the Three Language Formula to its original formula when the mother tongue had the pride of place.

I, therefore, suggest that in order to place the problem before the nation and work out a solution based on national consensus you may like to convene a meeting of the CMs of the States to consider this question. Such a conference may also consider the extent and effectiveness of measures taken to provide mother tongue as the medium of instructions at the primary level to linguistic minorities.

Politics of Urdu Editorial, The Organiser, 18 May, 1997

In his first ever telecast as Prime Minister Shri I.K. Gujral declared that the recommendations of the Committee on Urdu headed by him would be implemented soon. He said that Urdu did not belong to any particular community. But whatever Shri Gujral say, today Urdu is fast regressing to the position of being the language of the elite of a particular community. The Committee was set up in 1972 as a sop to a minority by Indira Gandhi. Its report was presented to the Government in 1975. In 1990, the Janata Dal Government dug it out of the official dumps and set up the Jafari Committee which presented its report in September, 1990. But soon the V.P. Singh Government fell and in 1991 the Congress came to power. It implemented some of the recommendations about electronic media (like the start of Urdu news bulletins on Doordarshan) but found its full implementation non-feasible. Gujral has now declared that his government will implement the; report, unmindful of the sea change in linguistic reality since 1979 when the recommendations were first made. But then the purpose of the announcement is not linguistic; it is aimed at appeasing a particular section of the Indian electorate. It is this political agenda which has harmed the cause of Urdu more than anything else.