May 12, 2002

IS Urdu a dying language in India? While introducing the film “In custody” (by Ivory & Merchant), the host at Public Broadcasting Service pronounced the demise of Urdu and assigned it to the ranks of Sanskrit and Latin. In fact it was the fear of the extinction of Urdu in India that had moved Ismail Merchant to make the film based on a novel by Anita Desai about an aging Urdu poet.

Immediately after Independence, the governments in Hindi-Urdu speaking states, notably UP and Bihar, devised policies to discontinue the teaching of Urdu in schools. The central government under Nehru, who spoke Urdu himself, was not in favour of these policies. But education being a provincial portfolio, the centre could not intervene directly. It did, however, provide funding to organizations such as the Taraqqi Urdu Bureau (now National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language) and the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu for the promotion of the language.

Since 1989, in UP on paper and in Bihar in practice, Urdu is recognized as the second official language. It is offered as a subject in schools and colleges and the state governments in Bihar and UP, Haryana and Delhi have established Urdu academies. The belief was that national integration could be achieved by promoting Urdu since in India it has been identified as the language of the Muslims.

This is a strange concept because usually a language is associated with a region and not with a religion. Premchand started writing in Urdu before he did in Hindi. Malik Mohammed Jaycee is a well known Hindi writer. Masoom Raza Rahi is an acknowledged writer in both the languages. In Punjab, the pro-BJP paper, Pratap is published in Urdu. To Raghupati Sahai Firaq Gorakhpuri, Hindi was the ‘language of the rustics’. Tilokchand Mehroom is an authority on Iqbal. When Mujeeb Rizvi was the head of the Hindi department at Jamia Millia, Gopi Chand Narang was the head of the Urdu Department. Today, Asghar Wajahat is the Head of the Hindi Department at Jamia Millia. The Urdu correspondence course at Jamia Millia is very popular with non-Muslims all over India.

Urdu is one of the 17 languages recognized by the constitution. Muslims in southern India, Gujarat, Bengal, and other non-Hindi states speak whatever is the language of their state. Neither Hindi nor Urdu is the state language in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Orissa, yet the state governments there have set up Urdu academies. Kashmiri is one of the 17 recognized languages, but the sole official language in Jammu and Kashmir is Urdu. Teaching of Urdu in government schools is compulsory in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

In everyday spoken language there is not much of a difference between Urdu and Hindi as anyone who has watched a Bollywood movie can testify. Some people prefer to call this version Hindustani. Long time ago in the past, the Persians and the Arabs used the word Hindavi for Urdu.

Urdu and Hindi both have a common base in Khadi Boli. According to some linguists, the word Hindoostanee was coined by J.B. Gilchrist, the first President of Fort William College. It was here that the British carved out two languages from one in the nineteenth century by borrowing from Sanskrit for Hindi and Persian and Arabic for Urdu. The assertion of these linguists is that Hindustani is older than Urdu or Hindi.

After 1947, the tradition of borrowing from Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic continued as both languages developed their vocabulary. This trend has set Hindi and Urdu further apart instead of bringing them together. Since Persian was the language of the court and administration for a long time, some Urdu words and expression still have not been translated into Hindi. It is not unusual to hear an Urdu expression in the middle of a Hindi presentation. There is still no Hindi equivalent of inqilab zindabad. Wakeel nama is still called by that name and the document is in Urdu in Devnagri (Hindi) script.

The older generation, whether Hindu or Muslim, is equally comfortable with Urdu. If the short story, “Pardah”, by the famous Hindi writer Yashpal, was produced on audio tape no one will be able to tell that it is written in Hindi. A student enrolled in the Urdu correspondence course offered by Jamia Millia stated his reason for learning the language to be his desire to read the diaries of his father and grandfather.

According to the 1990 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, there are more than 35 million people in India whose mother tongue is Urdu. As statistics these figures may not be hundred per cent accurate, but the point is that the Urdu speaking population is large enough to attract the attention of politicians and entrepreneurs. In the recent state elections in UP in February, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, promised to set up a world Urdu centre. While the BJP government was in office in UP a huge billboard in Urdu from the premier, Rajnath Singh, adorned the landscape in old Lucknow. ETV has started a channel in Urdu. Its success will depend on sponsors.

Ismat Chughtai told Ralph Russell that her daughter did not know Urdu. She is not the only one in the post-Independence generation. Most of the younger people cannot read or write Urdu. Urdu is offered as a subject in schools and colleges now, but students prefer to take other subjects that will get them somewhere professionally and of course English is the preferred medium of education.

The status of Urdu oscillates between two extremes. On the one hand it is considered the language of shair and shaaeri, beauty and elegance. The culturally suave talk in English, but quote Iqbal and Ghalib in Urdu. On the other hand, it is regarded as the language of the backward, economically disadvantaged lower middle class who cannot afford to send their children to English medium schools.

Since everyone has to learn Hindi at school and it can be adapted for writing Urdu, a whole lot of Urdu literature is being published in the Devnagri script.

To reach the younger generation who cannot read the Persian script, the Jamat-i-Islami took the initiative of publishing religious material in Hindi. Now, at any dargah or imambargah one can find books on namaz and duas printed in the Devnagri script. Recently, the great site of Islamic learning in Lucknow, Nadwa, launched a Hindi version of its magazine, Sachcha Rahi.

Thanks to the Indian film industry, spoken Urdu is widely understood by millions of people in India. Even those unable to read the Persian script have acquired an interest in Urdu literature, particularly Urdu poetry. With an expanding book market, publishing houses have been quick to respond.

You will find newspapers with Urdu titles such as Markaz being published in Hindi. In Rashtriya Sahara, which is in Hindi, Prof Akhtar-ul-Hasan of Jamia Millia has a question and answer column for Muslim readers on current issues and religious problems. In the sixties a magazine, Urdu Sahitya (Urdu Literature), which was edited by Balwant Singh, was published from Allahabad and carried contemporary Urdu writings in the Hindi script. For the past few years, Hasan Jamal has been publishing a quarterly periodical from Jodhpur in Hindi called Shesh which deals exclusively with Urdu writers: their works and concerns. These are just a few examples.

The market for Urdu literature in the Devnagri script is greater than that in the Persian script. Hindi publishers are so keen that some well-known writers get published in Hindi before they are published in Urdu. Some Urdu writers feel that to be financially successful one needs a Hindi publisher.

The quality of the printed work in Hindi is frequently better than its Urdu counterpart. People are quick to point out that the multi-volume Hindi edition of Manto’s work is more beautiful than any version of his work in Urdu. Both modern and classical Urdu authors are popular with Hindi readers. Urdu poetry is more widely read than Urdu novels, but the market is by no means limited only to poetry and novels.

The sales of diwans of Urdu poets and anthologies of Urdu poetry in Hindi range in thousands. Ghalib remains an all time favourite. There are something like two or three editions of Diwan-i-Ghalib in the Devnagri script including one published by the Ghalib Institute. Some works in Hindi are published with meanings of difficult Urdu words given at the bottom of the page. One example is, Sher-o-Sukhan, a multi-volume set of Urdu poetry in Devnagri script. Apart from the commercial publishers, National Book Trust and Sahitya Akademi also support Hindi editions of works by classical and contemporary writers.

The demand is not limited to Indians writing in Urdu. Works of many Pakistani Urdu writers are also available in Hindi. According to a bookdealer in Lucknow, cultural affinity is so great that Pakistani writers in Hindi sell better than the Hindi translation of some South Indian writers. Faiz, Faraz and Fehmida Riaz, amongst many others, are easily available for Hindi readers. “ Mushtaq Yusufi is the king of satire, “ says a Hindi translator. Another Hindi expert adds, “Mushtaq Yusufi and Ibne Insha are even more popular in India than in Pakistan.” Kishwar Naheed sells so well that there are already five selections of her poetry in Hindi available in the market, yet the publisher wanted a sixth one. Anyone more comfortable with Hindi than English can also pick up a Hindi translation of Tahmina Durrani’s My feudal lord.

Urdu is not the mother tongue of the majority in any country. But it is the official language of a country (Pakistan) and the sole official language of a state (Jammu and Kashmir). There are more people whose mother tongue is Urdu in India than in Pakistan. In 1990, only 6.7 million people in Pakistan declared Urdu as their mother tongue. In India the figure is 35 million. Yet the sale of Urdu literature in the Devnagri script is higher than in the Persian script. The market for Urdu books in the Persian script extends beyond the subcontinent to England, Canada and America. Urdu book dealers in India sometimes have more mail order customers than local buyers.

What does the future hold for Urdu in India? Will it survive only in the Devnagri script? Or will it be able to hold on to the Persian script? Once the script is changed will Urdu be merged into Hindi? Or will it still retain its identity? Is the language dying or is it undergoing a change? Time alone will tell.

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