“Muslims were responsible for the demise of Urdu in India and they are the ones who must fix it now,” says Dr Shamim Hanafi. PHOTO: FILE
“I think that Urdu can only flourish in Pakistan. Its future in India seems bleak,” Dr Nasir Abbas Nayyer said at the third session of the Second International Urdu Conference on Sunday.
The theme for the session was Urdu in India. Writer Intizar Hussain presided over the session. The panelists included Dr Shamim Hanafi, Zubair Rizvi from India, Asghar Nadeem Syed and Dr Nayyer. The session was moderated by Aliya Shah. Nearly 200 people attended the session.
Dr Nayyer opened his talk by discussing the history of languages in India and the position of Urdu among them. He said the Indian government had deliberately lowered the status of Urdu after partition. There was active propaganda against the language, he said, Urdu had been removed from the school curricula and even Muslims had to study Hindi instead. “There aren’t many who can read or write Urdu in India,” said Dr Nayyer.
“We need to examine the role of major institutions in India, if we are to analyse the state of Urdu there,” Syed said. Bollywood has played a major role in sidelining Urdu under a government strategy, he said, Urdu enjoyed presence in Indian media till the 1980s. Syed said several Urdu writers and poets including Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Sahir Ludhianvi, Saadat Hassan Manto, Javed Akhtar and Gulzar had contributed to Indian cinema...now called the Hindi film industry. He said that students who studied Urdu in Indian universities became researchers and critics, but very few of them opted to become writers or poets. “The future of Urdu in India is not that gloomy,” he said, “Its cinema still borrows heavily from it.”
Dr Rizvi, a script writer and researcher from India, said that Hindi was a ‘link language’ and the Indian government was justified in labelling it that way. “Urdu has its own status that cannot be diminished by any other language,” he said. Most kathak dancers and classical singers only performed on Urdu poetry. “Urdu has blended with several arts and no one, not even the Indian government, can take it out from there,” he said.
Dr Hanafi said, “The state of Urdu in India is not deplorable. However, whenever I think of Urdu I think of Pakistan.” He said that Pandit Nehru, who was criticised for propaganda against Urdu in fact, loved the language and would call it his mother tongue. “His wedding card was in Urdu. There were political reasons for declaring Hindi as the official language along with English, not enmity,” said Hanafi.
He said many rich languages were spoken and written in India. Urdu’s status as a language of the court had dealt it damage. “Languages do not flourish through the government’s supervision. Its speakers and writers make them progress,” he said.
Hanafi said that one of the reasons why Urdu failed to flourish among all classes and communities in India was the mistreatment of non-Muslim Urdu writers. “Muslims were responsible for the demise of Urdu in India and they are the ones who must fix it now,” he said, “The language needs all the help it can get to regain its vigour.”
Intezar Hussain concluded by seconding Hanafi’s statements and said, “All that had to be said has been said. Whatever I can add to it would not be of much value.”
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2013.
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You know, lets ignore ,for a moment , this Hindi Vs Urdu matter.
What are the ground realities ? Much of the literature published in URDU consists of poetry. Prose takes a backstage. Fine, be it so.
Look at the needs of the 21st century. Can anyone show me a single TEXT-BOOK of international standards ,on technical subjects such as Physics , written in URDU or Hindi.
Supply & demand ; that is the hard fact of language usage.
@genesis: Millions of Sunnis today also speak Farsi and its dialects, such as Dari and Tajik. Many local dialects in Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan have significant Farsi influence as well.
@Rajesh: No one stated that Urdu is only a mixture of Farsi, Turkish, and Arabic. Urdu is an amalgation of numerous local dialects which was adopted as one language of communication (the other being Farsi) for Muslim soldiers, hence the word Urdo meaning military camp in Turkish. Pure Urdu shares numerous similarities with Farsi (it may even be considered a dialect of it, like Dari). As a matter of fact, many people regard Urdu poetry as a successor to Farsi poetry. Hindi on the has no linguistic or literary merit, as it is a crude language artificially synthesized to counter Urdu.
@Rakib: It has been the policy of the Indian government to sideline and marginalize the Muslim minority, and that includes its language (Urdu) and its Muslim cultural identity. Urdu is seen as a Pakistani language and Islam is seen as a Pakistani religion, hence the friction between Hindus and Muslims in India today which breeds extremist genocidists based on mob communalism like BJP, RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, and any other of the hundreds of groups of Hindu fanatics.
@Bakhtiyar Ghazi Khan: India is not made only of Lucknow, Bhopal, Aligarh, Jaunpur, Malihabad & Rampur. Although Urdu was shaped in Deccan, there are millions of Muslims of Andhra (except Hyderabad & Nizam areas), Tamilnadu (except North Arcot Dist), Coastal Karnataka, interior Maharashtra, Kerala, Orissa, Bengal & Assam & certain Sects for who Urdu (also Hindi) is a strange language. Malappuram in Malabar region of Kerala has population equal to New Zealand. 70% Muslims. Literacy rate 93.55%. Controlled by Muslim League.Only Malayalam & English, No Urdu! There never was any in its long history. Some of the finest writers & poets in Bengali, Assamese, Tamil, Konkni, Marathi & Malayalam are Muslims who know not a word of Urdu! Though Hindi has been promoted I agree, it is not Govt that has sidelined Urdu which never had all-India status, just as Hindi too doesn't have it. Also, it is Muslims themselves in vast tracts outside North India who do not see Urdu as "their"language & prefer the local vernacular.. Status of Islamic language is only for Arabic here.
@Rajesh: Completely agree! I'm a Bengali Hindu by birth, and Urdu is the most refined language I have heard after English. Bengali, for obvious reasons, appears to be the sweetest and most musical language to me, but Urdu comes a close second. Decline of Urdu could be political or related to decline of the court-ashraf culture, but like Sanskrit it will continue to speak to readers and listeners through the ages! As they say, "aisi boli woh boley ki har lafz sey khushbu aaye, aisi boli wohi boley jisey Urdu aaye."
both urdu& hindi are beautiful languages- both will survive& both r thriving in india,the spoken form is very much similar.due to continuous brainwashing,my paki friends forget,sanskrit grammar has originated from PANINI in taxilla(present day pakistan),pakistan has also issued postage stamps in honour of panini, the language evolved into many indian languages like hindi,sindhi,marathi&punjabi,kashmiri etc. urdu is a hotchpotch language forced down the throat of south asia's natives as a form of cultural invasion,native scripts-like original kashmiri,gurmukhi& sindhi have been supplanted by arabic script by the invaders to create native slaves& errand boys,just like the british created burra sahibs..... one only has to read about the fate of the ancient hebrew script by muslim invaders,before the state of israel was created& a lost script& language revived...... all the same languages are dynamic&evolve continuously..... no need to regret,if any language outlives its utility.... ancient india-indians were their own masters-so sanskrit,medieval india muslim invaders ruled-so arabic,persian,urdu,present world-america, britain,australia are world powers-so english is dominant,to survive every species has to adapt&english is the way forward.if at all pakis have 2 repent,demise of language,they have to repent the demise of punjabi,pashto,sindhi& balochi.once they save these languages, they may once again revive the original parent of their languages,sanskrit&then throw out the languages which have made them mental& cultural slaves....if israel could do it by reviving the dead language herbrew,why not the pakis?
I am surprised that very few people know the history of Urdu/Hindi which has evolved from the Hindustani language widely spoken in the middle-ages in North India. The Hindustani language derived from a language called Khari Boli - a popular language in UP in those days. The early forms of present day Hindustani emerged from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhramsha vernaculars of North India in the 7th–13th centuries CE (wiki). Almost all the grammar and composition of Hindustani language comes from Sanskrit. As an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic vocabularies. This is the reason that many in India still speak Hindustani language instead of Sanskritised Hindi. The Persian/Turkish and Arabic vocabulary enriched the Hindustani language which is definitely more sweeter than the pure Hindi language. All those people who think that Urdu has come purely from Persian/Turk cannot be more wrong because most of the grammar and composition of Urdu comes from Sanskrit. If I replace many of the English vocabularies with Hindi vocabularies from English language and start calling it Hinglish, that won't make it a language distinct from English. Instead of fighting over language, we should appreciate its common heritage ET: I'd appreciate if you can publish this, Thanks.
@Bakhtiyar Ghazi Khan: If that is so ,it is still not too late to adopt farsi as the official language.there is a problem however with farsi.It is a shia language and not sunni so not acceptable to the majority.
@M. Emad: The Indian government has a policy to limit the use of Urdu to sideline Muslims in India. Its part of a broader policy to marginalize Muslim culture in India.
As far as Pakistan, Urdu is well and striving. There is no immediate or long-term danger of any extinction of Urdu in Pakistan. You really should not talk about subjects you have no knowledge of. The vast majority of educated and professional people in Pakistan communicate in Urdu, even as a second-tongue if not as their first.
Survival a language depends on geographical area, people and economic utility. The future of Urdu in South Asia including Pakistan doesn’t look hopeful.
The declaration of Pakistan founder Jinnah that ‘Urdu and only Urdu shall be the National Language of Pakistan’ at Dacca (Dhaka) in 1948 sealed the fate of Pakistan and Urdu Language in East Bengal (Bangladesh). Urdu completely vanished from East Bengal.
Future of Urdu language at its birthplace – India – doesn’t look promising. Indian experts potray gloomy picture.
The socio-political-economic situation -- in a politically unstable Pakistan -- of Urdu-speaking people (still called ‘Indian refugees’ — confined in few cities of Sind Punjabh) is at a cross point now. However in future Urdu may survive as a Punjabi dialect in part of present Pakistani Punjab area.
Hindi is a more recent language than Urdu. Hindi was formed by taking out Farsi, Turkish, and Arabic words from Urdu and replacing them with the dead language Sanskrit to Hindu-ize and de-Muslimize Urdu. This was part of the Hindu propaganda war against Muslim culture which eventually led to Partition. Urdu was adopted by the Muslims after the British outlawed Farsi to isolate Muslims from Iran and Afghanistan. Farsi was the chief language under the Mughals and previous Muslim rulers. Urdu was adopted later by Pakistan as a national language to bring unity, something which has had remarkable success and guaranteed the longevity of Urdu and its poetry for ages to come.
How many % of people in INDIA and PAKISTAN speak in HINDI and URDU?But both of them are state language.Here majority has been ignored.
We have a better language than Urdu. Its known as Hindi. Those Muslims who would like to be taught Urdu in schools should move to Pakistan with their entire family. Pakistan was created for people who love Urdu. The move will solve major headaches for India as well as the Urdu lover.
The headline in the Express-Tribune caught my eye. "International conference: ‘Muslims responsible for demise of Urdu in India.’ Unfortunately the report itself did not contain that statement, so I don't know who made that interesting claim. But the report contained other statements of a similar intent. Now, these mourners' cries make for interesting reading, but one cannot make sense of them unless one has somewhere a clear statement of the criteria used to determine if a language is alive and flourishing or dead and rotting. Perhaps the speakers made their criteria explicit in their talks, but I suspect that was not the case. Also, it is not clear if a clear distinction was made between the language Urdu and its literature. Because languages change—slowly, but always. And their spoken forms change more rapidly than the written.
In any case, I hope whoever made the claim also made it clear that the murder of Urdu was committed by Urdu-speaking Muslims, and that at least all the millions of Muslims who speak Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Assamese and Kannada were not involved in that condemnable act.
i didn't see these people crying against demise pakistani languages as much as they are crying against indian language..
@Indian: Are you by any chance one of those expats who more often than not, claim to be an Indian when in America/Europe and an American/European when in India.
@Indian: So our leader were really right that Hindus hate Urdu only because this is in Arabic script regardless of her rich cultural contribution. Pakistan was and is the best answer to a cruel, ruthless and bigoted majority. Long Live Pakistan and Long Live Urdu Urdu will not necessary in India when at least Hindi movies have dialogues like in Door Darshan news bulleton, just imagine above billion blank faces trying to imagine, what the hero trying to say to the heroin.
@bminiac
Try writing a Bollywood script without urdu and see the tamasha. Hindi or taporee is the best Bollywood can do without Urdu
Example Letter box in Hindii/ Sanskrit is patar ghusair, Railway Station is Bhak Bhak Adda and lawyer is Bharu Go ahead try it and see for yourself
As for Punjabi ask an honest Punjabi if at all you find one
In essence, a faux intellectuel conference for promoting conspiracy theories against a language. Lord help us, who need enemies with this kind of intellectual power behind everything.
@Analyst:
Your point?
There many parts in the north east that doesn’t speak Hindi either so what?
@Zeeshan:
In godd old ENGLISH, Sir
@Sam: You are very much right about Urdu's origin, but almost all of the languages developed that way. Over the last four centuries, Urdu has developed a lot and some remarkable literary work has been produced in Urdu. Urdu and Hindi are similar, they only differ in the way they are written, and Hindi is a beautiful language too. English is inflicting huge damage to all the native languages of the sub-continent. We need to preserve our languages as they represent our history and culture.
truthbetold The first para has no basis in truth. The second adds insult to injury.
Why do people lament about Urdu in India..? India had great languages, scripts etc. which went on being the national languages of many countries in south east Asia (Dravadian Languages) and Latin, Greek even present day English has many Sanskrit words as the base..
Urdu was spoken by Turkish,Persian soldiers (and they were'nt many) and later on since the offical languages in the Islamic conquerors courts were made Turkish and Persian later..totally sidelining the natives languages of North India. India has still many languages and it's hard for Pakistanis to understand that India's many languages are encouraged unlike Pakistan where cause of Urdu the Pakistan state was broken to Bangladesh and is still destroying Pashtu, Sindhi, Baloch etc by forcing Urdu on to them :(
Demonising Urdu will not do. It is a lingua rfanca for the sub continent. Any attempt to kill it politically will fail. Take our Urdu from Bollywood for example and the whole industry will fall on its face. As for Punjabis , they force their children to speak in Urdu as they know that Punjabi is the language of the red light area largely .Insulting in diction , content and sound.
What non-sense! Urdu is not dead in India. Most local languages are going through a down phase, as they have not caught up to science and business critical lingua, but they will. I won't write off Urdu at all!
@Dipak : Only 40 % of Indians speak and understand hindi. Entire South India doesn't use hindi.
This is a pure scenario of Supply and Demand. None of the Government or Community can make any language viable.
When there is no demand for Urdu in job market, who will come forward to learn this language? Urdu is not helpful for job prospective outside my city. So Hindi or Telugu is a must for me. Naturally like many of my relatives and cousins, I have choose Telugu for my studies not Urdu. Now I can talk Urdu but don't know to read and write Urdu which is not required for me.
Poor analysis by the participants at this conference. Spoken Urdu and Hindi are almost similar languages and difference is only at the literary level. Only difference is of script. Hindi is written in Devnagri and Urdu is Arabic scripts. Case is very similar to Punjabi which is written in Gurmukhi in India and Sahamukhi in Pakistan. Its wrong to say that Indian government supports Hindi over Urdu or for that matter any other language. Can Pakistani Hindus write in Devnagri script? Answer is bog no. How many people can read and write Hindi in entire Pakistan? India still has millions of people who can read and write Urdu. Some of the best contemporary Urdu scholars have been Hindus.
@Raj Kafir: Punjabi is a dying language in Pakistan. Give it another 20 years. 1000 years of poetic Sufi heritage would be lost to an upstart language that was forced on us. It is criminal.
Urdu comes from the Turkish word ordo meaning hoard..which is a slang for millitary. It is basically Hindi wrtten in Arabic. Thus I was surprized to know that unlike the fuss we make, the language does not have a strong intellectual origin, but it is what the soldiers from Iran and Turkey used to communicate with the natives of India. As such I do not see why there is so much fervor about propagating such a mish-mash language, which is not even a real language. It is much like a borrowed language, no different from the present generation's lingo which includes say Hindi and some borrowed English. Would anyone want to advertise the language this generation speaks which is neither proper English not proper Hindi? Then why the fuss about Urdu? It is neither proper Hindi not proper Arabic. Please tell me where my point of view is wrong?
No Indian or Pakistani language including Urdu and Hindi in present form has any future. If Indians and Pakistanis really want to save both languages, they should develop a common langauge in which popular words, phrases etc of both languages and other regional languages are included, adopt common alphabets (English Style), should be written left to right (Hindi or English Style). So far both Urdu and Hindi are good only to understand Indian movies and writing love letters to Urdu/Hindi medium girl friends. You cannot make a decent living on the basis of these languages.
We don't want any one to speak in Urdu, even though it is orginated in India.Majority of the people do not know if such type of language even exist in India.
AAH urdu it was a Mirza Ghalib language died long time ago with him in Dehli. (Na Dehli humari rahi Na urdu).
Urdu was created in India by Muslim rulers to communicate with Hindi speaking majority people. Now everyone in India understand each other because people speak Hindi or English easily. If one wishes to speak Urdu in India, it's OK but no longer necessary.
@Zeeshan: First of all, President of India is a Bengali not Punjabi. The business of state in India is conducted in English and not in Hindi or in Punjabi. Having said that Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and other 22 languages have official status in India, unlike Punjabi in Pakistan. Abh Khush Hain Zeeshan Sahib.
Hey Raj Kafir,
Is your Punjabi president delivering his speech in Punjabi or Hindi?
What is the status of Punjabi in Pakistan? Over 70 per cent speak Punjabi in Pakistan, yet it has no official status in Pakistan.