In the central Gangetic plain the artificially generated conflict situation between Hindi and Urdu on communal and political consideration remains a dangerous explosive issue ..

Fifty years ago ... a decision was taken to make Hindi the national language while retaining the status of English as ... the language of communication among the states within India and with other countries in the world. This decision was based on the argument that the largest number of people spoke some kind of Hindustani, which is akin to Hindi. In the beginning, was some degree of general consensus in this regard. In the subsequent years organised efforts were undertaken in a crude manner to purge the so-called alien features from Hindustani and impart a sanskritic ... content to it on the one hand, and to impose the new-look Hindi, on the other hand, on the people in other states. This evoked a feeling of disenchantment, which gradually turned into resistance, and at times into language riots ... Thus, language, a bridge for communication, became an instrument ... of discord that threatens to endanger political unity and integrity of India.

Language apart from being means of communication is being used, with the backing of the state power, for securing economic benefits and political power ...

That the language issue has been blatantly used by a certain segment of politicians irrespective of their party affiliation is irrefutably proved by the treatment given to Urdu, a beautiful, musical and rich language. Disregarding the indigenised development and secular background of this language, an impression has been artfully created ... that Urdu is the language of the Muslims ...

Urdu belongs to Indo-Aryan family and is based on prakritic languages. It is closely associated with Braj, Punjabi, Saraiki and Haryani, though the standard Urdu is based on Khariboli, spoken in and around Delhi. Being on the confluence of North-Western and Central dialects, Urdu developed as assimilative and receptive genius much before the advent of the Mughals, from the mid- thirteen century, i.e. the times of Amir Khusrau, the earliest poet of both Hindu and Urdu ..

Urdu has a preponderance of borrowings from Arabic and Persian, while Hindi borrows liberally from Sanskrit. A part of borrowings from Arabic and Persian in Urdu has also been assimilated in Hindi. The inflectional base of both the languages is the same: the evolved forms (tatbhava) are totally identical. Hindi uses Devnagari script, but Urdu uses Persian script in an indigenised form. The grammar of both the languages is more or less identical.

Politics before and after the transfer of power in August 1947 was instrumental to a great extent in the creation of a certain degree of antagonism between the adherents of Hindi and adherents of Urdu.

Urdu was not confined to any the specific geographical areas and among any specific ethnic group. It has not, therefore, attained the status of a state language in any of the states in Indian. As par census records, Urdu is the second largest language in five Hindi states where Hindi is the official language: Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. It is the third largest in seven states and the fourth largest in three states. In other words, Urdu is used in fifteen states in India ... But it is not given its due recognition in any of these states.

The trends of development during the last several decades irrefutably indicate that the era of domination hegemony in the sphere of human endeavour can hardly survive for long. No linguistic group can perpetually dominate over the others ... In recent history, rise and fall of Soviet regime offers an insight into the importance of language policy in emotional integration in a multi- lingual country ... The hegemonistic attitude of the mainly Russian-speaking ruling elite was one of the main causes of disappointment growing into bitter distrust among the people belonging to other linguistic groups. The role of linguistic hostility in the dismemberment of mighty Soviet Union has not yet been adequately recognised.

A democratic language policy helps in the unhindered ... development of all languages and dialects, prevents hegemony of one language over another and allows natural course of voluntary acceptance of an appropriate language for communication in a multi-lingual country. Such a policy of encouraging and promoting all the diverse languages and dialects will be in consonance with the cultural heritage of India .. (Source: The Radical Humanist, August 1997)