Urdu Needs Kiss of Life
Transcript of Urdu Needs Kiss of Life
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Mainstream Weekly
MAINSTREAM, VOL L, NO 33, AUGUST 4, 2012
Urdu needs Kiss of Life and not Myopic Policies
by Ather Farouqui
I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating Nusrat Zaheer on his excellent views on various
aspects of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in Mainstream (vol. L, no. 11, March 3, 2012) and
Abdul W. Qasmi in Whither National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language in Mainstream (vol. L, no.
19, April 28, 2012)
Though Zaheer has commented on the PWA, his letter seems to have gone unnoticed in the CPI and CPI-
M. This is owing largely to their well-known arrogance, which spells more bad news for the future of the
communist movement in India. Most parts of the world, Europe included, have seen the decline and
withering away of the local communist outfits because of their rigidity and obsolete thinking. The
exemplary defeat of the CPI-M in West Bengal is a case in point of a party, beset by intellectual hubris,
refusing to revise its thinking and learn from its mistakes.
This rigidity was particularly noticeable at a recent tamasha, namely, the technical conference of the
PWA in Delhi University held on April 12, 13 and 14, 2012 to fulfil the ritual of re-election of office-
bearers. It was more in the nature of a circus organised by the PWA office-bearers, mainly those who
work in the Urdu Department of the University and the helpless research scholars under their tutelage.
Most unfortunate is that no resolutions were passed, which is unique in the history of the PWA. I
checked on this on April 30, and was told that they had not yet been typed though the report was
available on the internet as it was quickly published in New Age to set the record straight before the
communist leadership! Worse, the conference was organised with the support of the corporate sector
which led to an unprecedented hullabaloo that ultimately forced the Secretary to withdraw his report
and announce that the advertisement money would not be collected. I seriously doubt this promise as
the PWA has for long now been an NGO kind of racket and not so long ago a huge grant for the Faiz
Centenary from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) along with a number of grants from the
corporate sector (as widely alleged by reliable sources) was shared between the PWA officer-bearers of
the Department of Urdu, Delhi University, and an agency to which the organising of the event was
outsourced. More than anything else the CPI will now have to check corruption which is a new
phenomenon in communist circles, particularly among office-bearers of the PWA. Coinciding with the
Delhi University conference was an event graced by Tariq Ali in New Delhithe Faiz Memorial Lecture,
of which no office-bearer of the PWA was aware. In fact, barring a few, most among the present PWA
leadership would not even have heard of him. And of course the conference has left no impact except to
fulfil the agenda of the office-bearers which is certainly not in the public domain. Unfortunately, Zaheer
has not commented on many important issues which apply to other organisations, particularly
government ones, which are the worst victims of the ideological confusion in the ranks of the Urdu and
Muslim intelligentsia as well as Muslim leadership. All of them have always rendered erroneous advice
to the government regarding Muslims issues since partition and all good-for-nothing government
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institutions and ill-conceived policies for the revival of Urdu can be attributed to them. They have reified
Urdu as a language only of Muslims, at the same time contributing to its decline as well as setting the
community apart from other Indians who speak regional languages.
Basically Urdu faces only one major handicap: its absence in the school curriculum. Fortunately, after
the Right to Education (RTE) Act and the recent landmark judgment of the Honble Supreme Court ofIndia, there is no need to define a school. But it is a matter of great shame (the mildest term in this
context) that Muslims have decided not to be a part of the great revolution by making a hue and cry
through their atavistic leadership to exclude madrasas from the provisions of the RTE Act. Nobody
seems to have remarked on this collective suicide by Muslims through their failure to cash in on this
historic opportunity to get their children decently educated!
Since it is the duty of the government to adhere to the spirit of Article 350A of the Constitution to
provide education to every child at the primary level in her/his mother tongue, if it so wishes, it can
easily extend this provision to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Thus all school-going children can study in the
medium of their respective mother tongues at least in government-run schools and those whose mother
tongue is Urdu will, at least up to the age of 14, benefit from this constitutional provision. Since this
ceiling of 14 years is open to challenge and is bound to be extended to 15 or 16 years, until these
children appear in the higher secondary examination, children whose mother tongue is Urdu (as well as
others who study in regional languages) can avail of the facility up to Class 10. So far the activists
concentration has been on the implementation of the provisions of the RTE; they can now turn to other
issues like reforms in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. As I have said, policymakers, ill advised by the Urdu
intelligentsia and Muslim leadership, have mistakenly come to the conclusion that Urdu is a language
only of culture. This is also a convenient excuse for the government to hide behind for not undertaking
the onerous task of providing education to children of a 20-million strong community. Once a language
does not remain a functional language and is exiled from the formal school system, it is bound tolanguish and eventually die. I have first-hand experience of this and my observation is that Delhi-based
institutions, by treating Urdu superficially as a language only of culture, are sounding its death knell.
The membership of these institutions is mostly made up of university teachers or political workers of the
ruling party. Most unfortunate in this regard is the attitude of Ms Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of
Delhi and Chairperson of the Delhi Urdu Academy. Her myopia and ignorance, when it comes to Urdu, is
there for all to see. Like other political leaders, she too has a superficial approach to Urdu, mouthing
clichs such as Urdu is the finest component of the composite culture of India and maintaining that the
culture of Delhi can only be saved by the Delhi Urdu Academy, which has been a dud from day one.
It, however, needs to be placed on record that the Honourable Chief Minister has never been well
advised on the subject of bringing about a change in official policy. Amazingly, Ms Dikshit is also ignorant
of the constitutional provisions relating to education as she feels that the mandate of the Urdu Academy
has nothing to do with Urdu education which is the responsibility solely of the Delhi Government
through various departments like the Directorate of Education and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
(MCD). Until now, Ms Dikshits attitude suggests that the role of the Delhi Urdu Academy is just to
cultivate appropriate Muslim leaders for the benefit of the ruling party.
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The shrewd politician that she is, whenever the issue of Urdu education in Delhi schools is raised, it is
forwarded to the Delhi Urdu Academy, even though it has no mandate in this regard, when it should
rightfully be tackled by the Directorate of Education which is completely indifferent to Urdu. As a result
there has been no improvement in the state of Urdu education in schools run by the Delhi Government
and the state of Urdu education in Delhis schools is far worse than that in UPs schools. The UP
Government is at least clear about the institutions and personnel that have to deal with Urdu education.
Let me make it clear here that my criticism extends only to Ms Dikshits Urdu policy and I will certainly
cast my vote for her in the next elections too, simply because the CPI is unlikely to come up with a
candidate!
Some six years back, I was nominated to the governing body of the Delhi Urdu Academy by virtue of my
article The Great Urdu Fraud, which exposed the underhand activities of the then Director of the
National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), Dr Hamidullah Bhat (who was recently
removed from the service permanently through contempt proceedings of the Delhi High Court). He lost
in a PIL for various frauds including remaining in service longer than he was actually appointed for and
was sent to jail via the CBI.
Because of my general cynicism, I have never been favoured for appointment to any committee which
has saved me from becoming a sarkari Musalman. Moreover, the governing body of the Academy has no
powers, except to assemble once or twice a year. The agenda at the first meeting during my tenure
included an item for the funding of Dini madaris. While all the other members of the governing body
kept quiet when Ms Dikshit referred to this issue, I asked for permission to speak, which was granted by
the Honourable Chief Minister, who was in the Chair. I inquired under which provision the grant to Dini
madaris was being provided as it was both illegal and unconstitutional. To this Ms Dikshit responded
with great surprise that if my contention that the matter was unconstitu-tional was correct, then how
was it that so many States were providing funding for the purpose. By way of reply, I just passed on to
her a copy of the Constitution in which Article 27 was flagged. On going through the appropriate section,
she and the Secretary, Culture, Ms Rina Ray, were duly stumped. At that point of time, I also gave them
a copy of a letter written by none other than Syed Shahabuddin and published in the Economic and
Political Weekly on December 11, 2004, p. 5274, in response to an article by Bikramjit Dey, a historian
from Oxford, against the NCPUL under the title Abuse of Urdu (EPW, November 27, 2004) It says that
the NCPUL was like a Shakha of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). I would, however, like to place
on record here that the present Secretary and Vice-Chairman of the Delhi Urdu Academy, Anis Azmi and
Professor Akhtarul Wasey, are most capable and deserving gentlemen, but in the absence of a mandate,
they are helpless to improve the state of Urdu education in Delhi and unless that is done, the Delhi Urdu
Academy has no relevance. When the aforesaid incident occurred, two highly incompetent gentlemen
were serving as the Secretary and Vice-Chairman of the Academy.
To hark back to Ms Dikshits outing at the Academy, she finally told me that she was not really aware of
the constitutional position, but given the political compulsions, it was difficult to discontinue the grant
to those madrasas which were already receiving it. But she promised that the Urdu Academy would not
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give any fresh grants to madrasas. I have never subsequently tried to verify whether she kept her
promise as I thought that there was no point in proceeding further in the matter. Till the time my term
expired, I did not attend the almost worthless and futile meetings thereafter.
When subsequently the search for a new Vice-Chairman of the Academy was initiated, I received a
phone call to the effect that the Chief Minister would like to see me. I sensed something amiss, as theChief Minister could not possibly remember a person whom she had met only once. However after
checking and reconfirmation, I put in an appearance at her residence at the appointed hour. Five
minutes after being ushered in, the Honble Chief Minister appeared in her nicely done up drawing
room. Though she welcomed me warmly, I could make out that she could not recollect who I was. My
premonition was turning out to be correct. As a cultured person, she tactfully started a conversation to
gauge why an unusual person like me was there. After about five minutes or so of this, she abruptly said:
But you do not look like an Urduwala. My fault perhaps was that I was sporting corduroy trousers and
a formal shirt with appropriate footwear; moreover I didnt have a beard and was not chewing paan.
This obviously did not quite fit in with the mental image Ms Dikshit had of a pucca Urduwala, an image
shared by most of the English-speaking class.
For this stereotypical image and its damaging implications in the minds of the English-speaking elite, the
credit goes to Anita Desais novel In Custody, a Booker Prize winner of 1994, and a film by the same
name based on the novel by Merchant Ivory directed by Ismail Merchant. Both the novel and film
project the Muslim community and Urdu litterateurs in a highly objectionable manner and caricatured
light. As Faizs poetry was freely usedrather misusedin the movie, the non-Urdu audience could
have assumed, among other things, that the film was based on Faizs life, a great disservice to Faiz. Our
elite seem to be drawing upon precisely such representations of the Urdu-speaking community while
forming their views and opinions.
In case of Ms Dikshit, who undoubtedly falls in the category of the English-speaking elite, the victim was
policy. Anyway, I politely asked about the business at hand and she told me that two very eminent
people for the first time had strongly suggested my name so I had reasons to feel privileged. Then she
added that the Secretary, Culture (I owe my thanks to Ms Rina Ray), was of the view that I would be a fit
candidate for Vice-Chairmanship of the Delhi Urdu Academy. I sensed though that she felt to the
contrary. She asked me to send a note about myself and my priorities if I became Vice-Chairman and
said that if she did not find another suitable (read incompetent) person, she would consider my name
favourably for some other assignment for which I am more suitable.
She indicated her priority that Chairmanship of a college will be the best proposition which to me was
more shocking as she has mostly nominated most incompetent Muslims as Chairmen of different
colleges. The only exception is Zakir Husain College for the simple reason of the Khurshids successful
political life but this is, unfortunately, not the case of Shafiq Memorial School. She was at least honest in
saying this. I told her that I was not interested in any kind of political affiliation or nomination but
nevertheless I thanked her very sincerely for her consideration and a nice cup of tea. It was very clear
from this meeting that for Ms Dikshit, Urdu was only an instrument for the preservation of the Culture
of Delhi and I am sure that her idea of the same is not different from that of In Custody. My name was
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included in the new committee as a Special Invitee, which I thought was most disgraceful and
meaningless. I, therefore, did not put in an appearance at any of the iftaar parties organised by the
Academy to prove that Urdu is Muslim! To conclude, I would say that there is a crying need to change
the official approach towards Urdu, which is not possible unless the functioning of Urdu institutions is
subjected to proper public scrutiny. I sincerely believe that Urdu is the language of both Hindus and
Muslims and has served the cause of cultural integration between them for centuries which is not the
case anymore because of the myopic policies of each and every government in all the States and at the
Centre, and more importantly the communal Muslim politics. I hope that my views presented here
serves to nudge policy in this direction and I hope that Mainstream will publish articles examining the
approach and functioning of all the major Urdu institutions.
The author is a pioneer scholar in the field of Urdu language and its education and has for long been
arguing that instead of modernising dini madrasas, the government should provide Urdu education as
part of the secular curriculum of school education. He has written his M.Phil and Ph.D dissertations from
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His recent book, Muslims and Media Images, (OUP 2009)
presents a frank and no-holds-barred discussion on an important theme that has become a victim ofoversimplification. The paperback edition (2010) of the authors book, Redefining Urdu Politics in India,
with a new Introduction argues how the once-secular Urdu language has now been relegated to only
Muslims and confined within the realm of madrasas. It is a timely intervention in the wake of the Right
to Education Act, 2010.