Sidra Fatima | Clarion India
GONE are the days when the languages were not associated with a particular religion when they were not nationalised, nor marginalised. In recent years, Urdu has found itself at the crossroads of aesthetic fervor, and systematic marginalisation.
The language Urdu has been linked to the Muslim community despite belonging to the Indo-European language family and ironically having some of its origins in Sanskrit. Over the centuries, Sanskrit underwent significant transformations, evolving into several Middle Indo-Aryan languages, leading to the development of Urdu.
Recently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan has directed the state police to replace Urdu and Persian words used in policing terminology with Hindi. The police department has been directed to collect information about such Urdu words and their possible replacement in Hindi.
This transition is being conducted after Minister of State (MoS) Home Department Jawahar Singh Bedham, earlier in the year 2024, wrote a letter to Rajasthan Deputy General of Police (DGP) Utkal Ranjan Sahoo in this regard.
“Words of Urdu, Farsi, and Arabi (Arabic) started to be used since the Mughal era. During and after the Mughal era, the Urdu language continued to be spoken and was also taught in schools. But after independence, improvements and changes have taken place in the education policy,” Bedham stated in his letter.
Explaining the reason behind this transition, Bedham said, “At present, Hindi is in greater use, and Sanskrit is used as a third language. Since Hindi is in use, recruits and officers in the police force don’t know much about Urdu. I spoke with officials, and they too said this should be changed. After a plan of action is presented, I will discuss it with the chief minister and ensure that in police action, investigation, and letters, ‘shudh’ (pure) Hindi is used”.
In response to Bedham’s directive, DGP Sahoo issued a letter on November 22 to the Additional Director General of Police (ADG) Training, instructing him to create a list of commonly used Urdu words and suggest their Hindi alternatives. The letter also called for new police recruits to be briefed on these changes and for Urdu to be eliminated from training materials, a report in The Wire said.
“According to the desire of the state government, collect information about Urdu words used in police stations. What could be the Hindi words that can be used in place of Urdu words? All trainees should be informed about the new Hindi words. Urdu should be removed from training material. Information about new words should be given to all ongoing trainers,” read DGP Sahoo’s letter.
Meanwhile, Sarfaraz Bazmi, an active member of the Urdu Bachao Movement, says, “Urdu has been understood as the language of Muslims, whereas a language does not belong to any religion,”
The Urdu Bachao Movement is a cultural and linguistic initiative focused on safeguarding and promoting the Urdu language in India. It emerged in response to growing concerns over the diminishing use of Urdu, especially among younger generations and within educational institutions.
Bazmi believes that discrimination against Urdu has increased in Rajasthan since the BJP came to power in the state.
“The issue of Urdu discrimination is ongoing throughout India, and since the BJP government came to power, it has been increasing,” Bazmi stated.
This is not the first time when the government has targeted the Urdu language; the usage of the Urdu language in the education sector was significantly curtailed in 2019.
For instance, as reported by the web portal The Mooknayak, Urdu education for students in grades one to five has been discontinued since 2019 in Congress MLA Amin Kagzi’s Kishanpole constituency. This decision has adversely affected several educational institutions. Likewise, in the Hawamahal constituency, represented by MLA Mahesh Joshi, Urdu education has been discontinued in several schools. Similarly, in the Adarsh Nagar area, represented by MLA Rafiq Khan, Urdu teaching has been stopped.
Meanwhile, an article titled ‘Rajasthan’s school mergers have dealt a blow to Urdu teaching, and its speakers allege a conspiracy,’ by Shreya Roy Chowdhury, Scroll.in dated May 04, 2017, reveals that, in the year 2014, the Urdu-medium primary school in Jaipur city was reportedly merged with a Hindi-medium senior secondary school that functioned at the same premises in the morning shift.
Since 2014 till May 2017, the Rajasthan government has merged more than 17,000 public schools with other institutions, promising that this consolidation of teaching and resources would enhance the overall quality of education.
According to Shreya Roy Chowdhury, as part of this process, schools that used minority languages as mediums of instruction have been integrated into Hindi-medium institutions, sparking widespread resentment among the communities that speak these languages.
Since the year 2005-06, the supply of books to Urdu medium schools has been halted due to numerous reasons. Meanwhile, since 2015, the combination of mergers of Urdu teaching with Hindi has resulted in a significant decline in the number of Urdu medium schools in the state.
Societal markers such as clothing or language have a significant effect on how certain people are perceived. The erasure of a particular language plays the role of systematic oppression of a larger community and people. The perception of the ‘other’ makes it easier for governments to make schemes against such languages, or educational institutions. It doesn’t just stop at policy changes, but also at societal attitudes. Its future hinges on identity amidst political landscapes.
The question remains: Can efforts like those of Urdu Bachao Movement manifest into recognition and respect for linguistic heritage, or will it continue to be looked at through the tainted lens of political agendas? Does the future remain standing on societal or political shifts or a sense of pride and heritage?
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Sidra Fatima is a multimedia journalist based in New Delhi. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India may not necessarily agree with them. She can be contacted at sidrabintrais@gmail.com