Shahabuddin's Letter to Azad Academy Journal, 25 March, 2000
Apropos Mr. Azad Gulati's article 'Urdu Medium Education' (March, 2000), in the existing circumstances as well as keeping in view the constitutional provision, one must clearly distinguish between the use of Urdu as medium of instruction at the primary level and at higher levels of education. At the primary level, it should be mandatory for all students whose Mother Tongue is Urdu i.e. whose parents declare Urdu as the Mother Tongue. On one hand, social pressure should be built up for such declaration and on the other political pressure on the state to provide due facilities without any pre-conditions or numerical limits in all Urdu-concentration urban wards/rural Panchayats where one or more government primary schools should be Urdu-medium as needed
Secondly, at the middle or junior level, Urdu should be taught as a compulsory language to all such children. At the secondary level, Urdu as the Mother Tongue, should be the First Language under the Three-Language Formula for such children. In all states, the Second Language should be the principal language of the State and that should also be compulsory; Urdu-speaking children should enjoy option only for the third language, perhaps between English, Persian and Arabic. The medium at this level will be and, in my view, should be the principal language of the State, except as mentioned later.
The problem arises in non-Hindi States where the Urdu-speaking student has to be proficient, apart from his Mother Tongue Urdu, in Hindi, the national link language and English, the international link : language. This foursome can be reduced to three by prescribing a composite Urdu-Hindi course which would give the Urdu-speaking student a working proficiency in Hindi. This is not a new idea and was, in fact, introduced in Andhra Pradesh. Incidentally, among the major Urdu concentration States outside the Hindi majority zone, only Maharashtra (with Marathi as the principal language), Andhra Pradesh (with Telugu as the principal language) and Karnataka (with Kannada as the principal language) figure. Others like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir etc. together account for only 8.4 per cent of the total Urdu-speaking population of the country.
The above scheme does not rule out the existence or establishment of Urdu-medium Secondary schools by the State as a token of its commitment to promotion of Urdu, say, one in each Urdu-concentration district and by the Urdu-speaking community as a measure of its linguistic aspiration. These schools will generally find it difficult to get affiliated to the local Secondary examination boards. It is hence that the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) came into the picture. It should have statutory authority to affiliate such schools scattered throughout the country, conduct examination and award certification.
In the States where Urdu is used as medium of primary education, it is the SCERT which should prepare and publish the standard Urdu textbooks for the primary level in all subjects. This should not involve too much labour or resources because already any member of Urdu textbooks as well as supplementary reading material are available. For other subjects, basically it would be a matter of translation from the principal language of the State to Urdu.
For the higher classes, Urdu textbooks were at one stage prepared by the Jamia Millia Islamia and also by the Aligarh Muslim University. They can serve as models and the MANUU can buiid on their foundations to prepare and publish Urdu textbooks from Class VI to X for nationwide use or get them published by the NCERT.
However, what is most important is the creation of adequate number of Urdu and Urdu-medium teachers for the Urdu-medium primary schools and for Urdu-teaching high schools. Even more important is to find trained teachers to fill up these posts. This task can be undertaken only by the State Governments which should set-up Urdu and Urdu-medium teachers training colleges. These teachers would naturally have the same emoluments, enjoy the same service conditions and the same degree of economic security as other government teachers.
As far as the NCPUL is concerned, its area of responsibility should be limited to standardisation of Urdu syllabus and publication of supplementary reading material and reference books. But these tasks should be undertaken in intensive consultation with the MANUU. It can not be the executive responsibility of the National Council for Promotion of Urdu (NCPUL) to provide Urdu-medium instruction at the secondary or college level, to recruit Urdu and Urdu-medium teachers or to finance Urdu-medium schools. MANUU should certainly serve as the Coordinator among Urdu Academic, Urdu institutions and even Urdu NGOs and to serve as a liaison between the State and the Urdu-speaking people.
As for the Gujral Committee recommendations, though there is no point in flogging a dead horse, some of the recommendations which are still relevant should indeed be taken up by the MANUU, NCPUL and all other official and non-official Urdu bodies.
