Perversity and hatred were writ large in Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath’s venal remarks against Urdu in Uttar Pradesh assembly. He said that those leaders who plead for teaching children in Urdu want to make them maulvis, and take the country on the path of “Kathmulla” and alleged rabid fanaticism. He spewed this venom when Samajwadi Party leader Mata Prasad Pandey demanded Urdu translation of the debates of the assembly after Speaker of the House Satish Mahana announced that proceedings would be made available in four regional languages – Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj and Bundeli – as well as English.
Adityanath has a record of making hateful remarks against Muslims and Islam. Urdu is not a language confined to people of any particular faith. If Adityanath’s understanding is that Urdu is the language spoken only by Muslims is a gross distortion of documented history outlining its status as a language of people cutting across faiths and regions of our country.
Urdu as a language gave richness and beauty to the idea of an India rooted in linguistic diversity. The language – apart from remaining allied to the court – spread to the military camps and eventually evolved and prospered as a language of the masses. Former president, the late K.R. Narayanan, while inaugurating the All India Urdu Editors Conference on July 29, 1999, categorically stated, “It(Urdu) is not a Muslim language, but an Indian language which is used not only in Northern India, but in Eastern, Western, Southern and Central India not only by Muslims but by Hindus and others”.
He asserted, “Sant Tukaram, it is well known, wrote many of his devotional songs in Dakhani Urdu. Prem Chand wrote his early works in Urdu. Lala Lajpat Rai spoke Urdu and his paper Bandemataram was published in Urdu”.
By applying his convoluted standards on Urdu, Adityanath would have considered Sant Tukaram, Prem Chand and Lala Lajpat Rai fanatics because they used the Urdu language.
Urdu has a pan-Indian identity rooted in the cultural and civilisational ethos of our country. How is it that a chief minster, Adityanath, grossly distorts it and falsely associates it with fanaticism and bigotry?
Urdu has the enviable record of enjoying the status of the third largest language of India. It is recognised in the Sahitya Academy Awards. It is the official language of Jammu and Kashmir, the second official language of several states including Telangana, Jharkhand, Bihar and Delhi. Most importantly it is enshrined in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
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Therefore, the expression of utter contempt for Urdu by Adityanath constitutes an affront to the constitution itself and vast masses of people who use it as a medium of communication and transmission of ideas.
Mahatma Gandhi with his rare sensitivity to flag the importance of all languages of India accorded national importance to Urdu and went to the extent of saying that an amalgam of Hindi and Urdu-Hindustani would be the link language of our country. Participating in the Sahitya Sammelan in Indore in 1918 he said that Hindi is incomplete without Urdu. After India attained its independence he famously said, “In my view he who objects to Urdu is to that extent less of an Indian.”
If that yardstick is applied, Adityanath’s derisive remarks reduces him.
President Narayanan in his aforementioned 1999 speech on Urdu journalism had noted that Urdu was the medium of mass communication even before newspapers were brought out in a printed form. He stated that from Delhi alone 120 handwritten Urdu manuscript papers were mailed containing nationalist writings and attacking British rule. Large crowds in towns and cities attentively heard the contents of those manuscripts read aloud by the readers in important squares. It is instructive that the contents of those manuscripts agitated people to such an extent that Lord Auckland and Lord Canning in their official minutes traced the Great Rebellion of 1857 to the spread of disaffection against the British rule by those handwritten Urdu documents.
Narayanan stated, “In 1907 in the Golden Jubilee year of the Great Rebellion, a group of Urdu journalists formed a society called Bharat Mata Sabha which had as its objective completing the unfinished task of 1857”.
Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s paper Urdu-i-Mualla published addresses of the presidents of the Indian National Congress. He preceded the Indian National Congress in demanding full freedom for our country.
Adityanath should remember that Netaji Subhas Bose preferred Urdu words in his Indian National Army which aimed at freeing India from British rule through armed struggle. The Urdu term Sipah Salar denoting Supreme Commander was freely employed by him and the INA. Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj’s motto comprised three Urdu words: ‘Ittehad, itmad aur qurbani (unity, faith and sacrifice).’
Urdu represents a fusion of cultures and linguistic diversities of India. It affirms our composite culture and, therefore, is a medium of not just communication but also of communal harmony, national integration and social amity. In deriding Urdu, Adityanath has gone against the constitution and the linguistic diversity which defines India. In upholding Urdu, Indians can defeat the majoritarianism and Islamophobia represented by Adityanath.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.
