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Hindi–Urdu controversy

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The Hindi-Urdu controversy is an ongoing dispute—dating back to the 19th century—regarding the establishment of a single standard language in certain areas of north and northwestern India; while the debate was officially settled by government order in 1950, some resistance remains.

Hindi and Urdu are literary registers of the Khariboli dialect of the Hindi languages spoken as a mother tongue by about 45% of India's population, mostly in modern North and Central India. A Persianized variant of Khariboli, known variously as Hindustani or Urdu, began to take shape during the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526 AD) and Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD) in South Asia.[1] The British East India company replaced Persian with Hindustani/Urdu written in Perso-Arabic script as the official standard of Hindi-speaking Northern provinces of modern day India in addition to English.

The last few decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the eruption of the Hindi-Urdu controversy in North-Western provinces and Oudh with "Hindi" and "Urdu" protagonists advocating the official use of Hindustani with the Devanagari script or with the Persian script, respectively. Hindi movements advocating the growth of and official status for Devanagari were established in Northern India. Babu Shiva Prasad and Madan Mohan Malaviya were notable early proponents of this movement. This, consequently, led to the development of Urdu movements defending Urdu's official status; Syed Ahmed Khan was one of its noted advocates.

In 1900, the Government issued a decree granting symbolic equal status to both Hindi and Urdu which was opposed by Muslims and received with jubilation by Hindus. Hindi and Urdu started to diverge linguistically, with Hindi drawing on Sanskrit as the primary source for formal and academic vocabulary, often with a conscious attempt to purge the language of Persian-derived equivalents. Deploring this Hindu-Muslim divide, Gandhi proposed re-merging the standards, using either Devagari or Persian script, under the traditional generic term Hindustani. Bolstered by the support received by Congress and various leaders involved in the Indian Independence Movement , Hindi in Devanagari script along with English replaced Urdu as the official language of India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.

 Background

The main cause of this divide may be attributed to the way both communities Hindu and Muslim took inspirations.During Muslim rule (whose founder were West Asians) people who converted to Islam readily adopted the culture they brought with them. Persian at that time was considered a well developed language and inspirational language in whole of West and Central Asia (see also Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire). Hindus considered these things as an alien culture.So with passage of time things like Sanskrit language, Dhoti, Ayurveda etc. came to associated with Hindus and things like Yunani medicine, Persian Language with Muslims[2]. There came even difference in food culture of two communities. During pre-1971 Pakistan, Ayub Khan once told "East Bengalis... still are under considerable Hindu culture and influence. This is because Bengali language is Sanskritized and uses Indic script (see also Bengali Language Movement).

Urdu became the language of the courts of Muslim rulers who invaded the Indian subcontinent from the eighth century onwards. It developed from Khari boli of the Delhi area with infusion of words from Arabic, Persian and Turkish. As the Muslim invaders spread in the Northern India, Urdu interacted with various vernaculars and introduced Persian words into local languages and absorbed local vocabulary, and over a period of time developed into a distinct spoken language. Hindi also developed from Khari boli albeit with assimilation of words from local languages and Sanskrit.

Several factors contributed to the increasing divergence of Hindi and Urdu. The Muslim rulers chose to write Urdu in Persian script instead of Devanagari script. In time, Urdu in Persian script also became a literary language with an increasing body of literature written in the 18th and 19th century. A division developed gradually between Hindus who chose to write Hindi-Urdu in Devanagari script and Muslims and some Hindus who chose to write the same in Persian script. The development of Hindi movements in the late nineteenth century further contributed to this divergence.[3]

Paul R. Brass, Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Washington notes in his book, Language, Religion and Politics in North India,

The Hindi-Urdu controversy by its very bitterness demonstrates how little the objective similarities between language groups matter when people attach subjective significance to their languages. Willingness to communicate through the same language is quite a different thing from the mere ability to communicate.[3]

 Controversy

 British language policy

In 1837, the British East India company replaced Persian with local vernacular in various provinces as the official and court language. However, in North India, Urdu in Persian script instead of Hindi in Devanagari script was chosen to replace Persian.[3][4] The most immediate reason for the controversy is believed to be the contradictory language policy in North India in the 1860s. While the then government encouraged both Hindi and Urdu as a medium of education in school, it discouraged Hindi or Nagari script for official purposes. This policy gave rise to conflict between students educated in Hindi or Urdu for the competition of government jobs, which eventually took on a communal form.[5]

 Hindi and Urdu movements

In 1867, some Hindus in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during the British Raj in India began to demand that Hindi be made an official language in place of Urdu.[6] Babu Shiva Prasad of Banares was one of the early proponents of the Nagari script. In a Memorandum on court characters written in 1868, he accused the early Muslim rulers of India for forcing them to learn Persian. In 1897, Madan Mohan Malaviya published a collection of documents and statements titled Court character and primary education in North Western Provinces and Oudh, in which, he made a compelling case for Hindi.[5][7]

Several Hindi movements were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century; notable among them were Nagari Pracharini Sabha formed in Banaras in 1893, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad in 1910, Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha in 1918 and Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti in 1926.[7] The movement was encouraged in 1881 when Hindi in Devanagari script replaced Urdu in Persian script as the official language in neighboring Bihar. They submitted 118 memorials signed by 67,000 people to the Education Commission in several cities.[3][7] The proponents of Hindi argued that the majority of people spoke Hindi and therefore introduction of Nagari script would provide better education and improve prospects for holding Government positions. They also argued that Urdu script made court documents illegible, encouraged forgery and promoted the use of complex Arabic and Persian words.

Organisations such as Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu were formed for the advocacy of Urdu.[3] Advocates of Urdu argued that Hindi scripts could not be written faster, and lacked standardisation and vocabulary. They also argued that the Urdu language originated in India, asserted that Urdu could also be spoken fluently by most of the people and disputed the assertion that official status of language and script is essential for the spread of education.

Communal violence broke out as the issue was taken up by firebrands. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had once stated, "I look to both Hindus and Muslims with the same eyes & consider them as two eyes of a bride. By the word nation I only mean Hindus and Muslims and nothing else. We Hindus and Muslims live together under the same soil under the same government. Our interest and problems are common and therefore I consider the two factions as one nation." Speaking to Mr. Shakespeare, the governor of Banaras, after the language controversy heated up, he said "I am now convinced that the Hindus and Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life was quite distinct from one and other."

In the last three decades of 19th century the controversy flared up several times in North-Western provinces and Oudh. The Hunter commission, appointed by the Government of India to review the progress of education, was used by the advocates of both Hindi and Urdu for their respective causes.

 Gandhi's idea of Hindustani

Hindi and Urdu continued to diverge both linguistcally and culturally. Linguistically, Hindi continued drawing words from Sanskrit, and Urdu from Persian, Arabic and Turkish. Culturally Urdu came to be identified with Muslims and Hindi with Hindus. This wide divergence in 1920s was deplored by Gandhi who exhorted the re-merging of both Hindi and Urdu naming it Hindustani written in both Nagari and Persian scripts.[3] Though he failed in his attempt to bring together Hindi and Urdu under the Hindustani banner, he popularised Hindustani in other non-Hindi speaking areas.[7]

 Muslim separatism

It has been argued that the Hindi-Urdu controversy sowed the seeds for Muslim separatism in India. However, other historians dispute this, pointing to the development of Muslim separatism in Bengal where Urdu was not spoken. Some also argued that Syed Ahmad had expressed separatist views long before the controversy developed.[3]

 Urdu to Hindi

On April 1900, the colonial Government of the North-Western Provinces issued an order granting equal official status to both Nagari and Perso-Arabic scripts. This decree evoked protests from Urdu supporters and joy from Hindi supporters. However, the order was more symbolic in that it did not provision exclusive use of Nagari script. Perso-Arabic remained dominant in North-Western provinces and Oudh as the preferred writing system until independence.[5]

C. Rajagopalachari, chief minister of Madras Presidency introduced Hindustani as a compulsory language in secondary school education though he later relented and opposed the introduction of Hindi during the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965.[8] Bal Gangadhar Tilak supported Devanagari script as the essential part of nationalist movement. The language policy of Congress and the independence movement paved its status as an alternative official language of independent India. Hindi was supported by religious and political leaders, social reformers, writers and intellectuals during independence movement securing that status. Hindi along with English was recognised as the official language of India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.[7]


HINDI LANGUAGE RESOURCES

  1. Hindi - A General Introduction
  2. Hindi-Urdu Grammar
  3. Standard Hindi
  4. Hindi Languages
  5. Devanagari (Hindi Script)
  6. Hindi Belt
  7. Hindi–Urdu phonology
  8. National Library at Kolkata romanization
  9. Khariboli
  10. Acharya Ramlochan Saran
  11. Hindustani orthography
  12. Awadhi language
  13. Bambaiya Hindi
  14. Braj Bhasha
  15. Fiji Hindi
  16. Urdu
  17. Hindi–Urdu controversy
  18. Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word etymology
  19. Hindustani orthography
  20. Hindi-Urdu Grammar
  21. India
  22. Hobson-Jobson
  23. Languages with official status in India
  24. Linguistic history of India
  25. List of English words of Hindi or Urdu origin
  26. List of English words of Sanskrit origin
  27. Prakrit
  28. Sanskritisation
  29. Devanagari transliteration
  30. Indian Script Code for Information Interchange
  31. Hindi phrasebook - Wikitravel
  32. Learning Devanagari

 


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