12-24-2007, 09:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-24-2007, 09:34 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
Proud "heritage" bestowed upon us by Urdu:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->UPROAR OVER URDU
The national demand for cow-protection and passing of processions before the mosques had challenged some unjust privileges which the residues of Islamic imperialism had continued to retain in the name of their �religion�. These demands, however, were not likely to damage their economic or social status in any manner. They could laugh in private at their strategy of trouncing the Hindus and seeking mass Muslim support, while pulling long faces in public. But the next thing that happened looked like hitting them where it could really hurt. That was the so-called Hindi Resolution passed by the Government of U.P. in April, 1900. The residues of Islamic imperialism now raised a howl as if heavens had fallen.
So long as Muslim rule had prevailed in many parts of the country, Persian had been the language of government and administration. All public services had been the monopoly of Muslims, mostly of foreign descent, except at the lowest levels where some Hindus were also allowed to serve after learning Persian. The ranks of the foreign Muslim fraternity had continued to be reinforced by fresh arrivals from all over the Islamic world. The vast majority of natives, Hindus as well as Muslim converts, had been helplessly dependent on scribes who knew Persian, whenever and wherever they came in contact with the administrative machinery.
The situation changed with the change of masters. The British replaced Persian by English in the higher echelons and by Urdu at the lower levels. The residues of Islamic imperialism had resented this change also but got reconciled to it because their privileged position in public services had not been affected. They began feeling uncomfortable only when Urdu also started getting replaced by local languages like Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, etc. Muslims were not in a majority in these provinces except in Bengal, where also there was hardly any Muslim middle class and the Muslim peasantry had never known any language other than its native Bengali.
Meanwhile, pressure of public opinion was building up in Bihar, the Central Provinces and U.P., where Hindi, the mother tongue of the common people, had all along received a step-motherly treatment. Urdu was replaced by Hindi in the Central Provinces in 1872, and in Bihar in 1881. But the Government of U.P. continued to cold-shoulder Hindi due to the influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his Aligarh lobby. It was only after 1894, when Antony MacDonell became the Lieutenant Governor, that a long-standing and just demand of the local people came up for an active review. But even a sympathetic Governor could not go the whole hog in favour of Hindi. He converted the language controversy into a competition of rival scripts. Nagari script was now placed on par with the Persian script, and both were made compulsory for all those who aspired for government service at certain levels where English was not essential.
It was only a small concession. The Muslims were still free to write Urdu in Persian script. But even this small concession to the common people was too much for the residues of Islamic imperialism. They raised a strong protest that their �lofty language� was being �brought down� to the level of �Hindî gandî. They pointed out that Hindus had been learning Urdu all these years, and that it was only their �hatred� for Islam and the Muslims which was leading them to neglect it in future. They added that next to Arabic and Persian, Urdu was the language of their �religion and culture�, and that Urdu could be written only in the Persian script. And they concluded that while the �prosperous and wily� Hindus had many avenues of employment, the �poor and simple� Muslims were solely dependent on government patronage.
MacDonell was not impressed. He told the Muslims that they already had their communal quota in terms of which a mere fourteen per cent of the provincial population had monopolised thirty-seven-and-a-half per cent of government jobs. But the Muslims were far from being mollified. They became extremely agitated under the leadership provided again by the Aligarh lobby. A pathetic couplet, composed by Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Secretary of the Aligarh College, now started circulating among the Muslims all over the province:
chal sãth ke hasrat dil-i-mahrûm se nikle,
ãshiq kã janaza hai zarã dhûm se nikle.
(Walk with [the bier] so that the longing [for love] may not linger in the hollowed heart. This is the funeral procession of your lover. Let it proceed with some song and dance.)
Â
URDU HAD REMAINED A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Before we pass on to the storm raised over Urdu by the residues of Islamic imperialism, we should like to quote what Professor Aziz Ahmad has said about this language. He writes: �The poets of Delhi, proud of the �pure� Urdu of the imperial camp, rejected the Dakani principle and practice of borrowing extensively from the Indian languages, especially if these borrowings were related to Hindu religion, culture and world-view� In this process imagery was drawn exclusively from Persian precedents, i.e., from the unseen and unexperienced sights, sounds and smells of Persia and Central Asia, rejecting totally the Indian sights, sounds and sensuous experience as materials regarded not sublime enough for poetic expression� It was a desperate unconscious clinging to the origins of the symbols of Muslim India�s cultural experience which had begun abroad, and an instinctive fear of being submerged into the Hindu cultural milieu. These modes of aesthetic appreciation, rooted so deeply in the essence of universal Islamic culture, remained more or less incomprehensible to the Hindu mind. Its reaction has been summed up by [S.K.] Chatterjee: �Throughout the whole range of Urdu literature in its first phase� the atmosphere of this literature is provokingly un-Indian - it is that of Persia. Early Urdu poets never so much as mention the great physical features of India - its Himalayas, its rivers like the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Sindhu, the Godavari, etc; but of course mountains and streams of Persia, and rivers of Central Asia are always there. Indian flowers, Indian plants are unknown; only Persian flowers and plants which the poet could see only in a garden. There was a deliberate shutting of the eye to everything Indian, to everything not mentioned or treated in Persian poetry� A language and literature which came to base itself upon an ideology which denied on the Indian soil the very existence of India and Indian culture, could not but be met with a challenge from some of the Indian adherents of their national culture; and that challenge was in the form of highly Sanskritized Hindi�.�2
Â
YET URDU WON A VICTORY
This was the language which the residues of Islamic imperialism wanted to impose upon the common people, Hindus and Muslim converts, till the end of time. Some years earlier, they had organised a Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India. Mohsin-ul-Mulk converted this body into an Urdu Defence Association. It was decided to call a conference of leading Muslims from all over North India to discuss the Hindi Resolution and to draft a representation to the Lieutenant Governor. Meanwhile, leading Muslims had spread out in the district towns of U.P. to whip up a mass hysteria. The cries of �Islam in danger� were heard as far as Lahore in the Punjab, Dacca in Bengal, Bombay in Maharashtra, and Madras in South India. Finally, a conference was held at Lucknow in August, 1900. It was attended by 400 delegates from the Punjab, Bombay Presidency, Central Provinces, U.P. and elsewhere. The Mullahs, landlords, merchants, lawyers, journalists and others who had flocked to the conference called upon the �Muslim masses� to defend their �religion and culture� with all their might. Mohsin-ul-Mulk thundered: �Although we have not the might of the pen our hands are still strong enough to wield the might of the sword.�
Nothing came out of the Hindi Resolution of the government. MacDonell was soon succeeded by LaTouche who wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, that MacDonell �went too far in acknowledging Hindi as a language�. For a long time afterwards, no bilingual examinations were held and no government orders were issued in the Nagari script. In fact, the number of Muslims in government services increased in subsequent years.
The cat came out of the bag in October 1906 when the residues of Islamic imperialism, who had held another conference in Lucknow in the meanwhile, drew up a Memorandum to the Viceroy, Lord Minto. The Memorandum was presented by a delegation of 35 Muslim notables led by the Agha Khan. It was a prelude to the formation of the Muslim League, later on in the same year. The Memorandum reminded the British rulers that the Muslims had been the ruling class for a long time and requested that the government �give due consideration to the position that they [Muslims] occupied in India a little more than a hundred years ago�. It insisted that the �political importance� of the Muslim community be conceded. Political importance, in turn, was spelled out in the following words: �The political importance of a community to a considerable extent gains strength or suffers detriment according to the position that the members of that community occupy in the service of the State.�
Professor Francis Robinson sums up the situation when he says that �Aligarh College and the All India Muslim League were founded to preserve a strong position, not to improve a weak one� and that �It was the threat of becoming backward, rather than backwardness itself, which encouraged U.P. Muslims to organize for politics, and their power in the province helped them to do so with effect.�3 Backwardness in this context meant becoming equal to the rest of their countrymen - a prospect which the residues of Islamic imperialism have always dreaded as worse than death.
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/muslimsep/ch9.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To cite an example, listen to this newsanchor:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zBLCcyAmSkE
I understand Hindi quite well but besides a few words I can't understand nothing in what the anchor guy is saying.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->UPROAR OVER URDU
The national demand for cow-protection and passing of processions before the mosques had challenged some unjust privileges which the residues of Islamic imperialism had continued to retain in the name of their �religion�. These demands, however, were not likely to damage their economic or social status in any manner. They could laugh in private at their strategy of trouncing the Hindus and seeking mass Muslim support, while pulling long faces in public. But the next thing that happened looked like hitting them where it could really hurt. That was the so-called Hindi Resolution passed by the Government of U.P. in April, 1900. The residues of Islamic imperialism now raised a howl as if heavens had fallen.
So long as Muslim rule had prevailed in many parts of the country, Persian had been the language of government and administration. All public services had been the monopoly of Muslims, mostly of foreign descent, except at the lowest levels where some Hindus were also allowed to serve after learning Persian. The ranks of the foreign Muslim fraternity had continued to be reinforced by fresh arrivals from all over the Islamic world. The vast majority of natives, Hindus as well as Muslim converts, had been helplessly dependent on scribes who knew Persian, whenever and wherever they came in contact with the administrative machinery.
The situation changed with the change of masters. The British replaced Persian by English in the higher echelons and by Urdu at the lower levels. The residues of Islamic imperialism had resented this change also but got reconciled to it because their privileged position in public services had not been affected. They began feeling uncomfortable only when Urdu also started getting replaced by local languages like Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, etc. Muslims were not in a majority in these provinces except in Bengal, where also there was hardly any Muslim middle class and the Muslim peasantry had never known any language other than its native Bengali.
Meanwhile, pressure of public opinion was building up in Bihar, the Central Provinces and U.P., where Hindi, the mother tongue of the common people, had all along received a step-motherly treatment. Urdu was replaced by Hindi in the Central Provinces in 1872, and in Bihar in 1881. But the Government of U.P. continued to cold-shoulder Hindi due to the influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his Aligarh lobby. It was only after 1894, when Antony MacDonell became the Lieutenant Governor, that a long-standing and just demand of the local people came up for an active review. But even a sympathetic Governor could not go the whole hog in favour of Hindi. He converted the language controversy into a competition of rival scripts. Nagari script was now placed on par with the Persian script, and both were made compulsory for all those who aspired for government service at certain levels where English was not essential.
It was only a small concession. The Muslims were still free to write Urdu in Persian script. But even this small concession to the common people was too much for the residues of Islamic imperialism. They raised a strong protest that their �lofty language� was being �brought down� to the level of �Hindî gandî. They pointed out that Hindus had been learning Urdu all these years, and that it was only their �hatred� for Islam and the Muslims which was leading them to neglect it in future. They added that next to Arabic and Persian, Urdu was the language of their �religion and culture�, and that Urdu could be written only in the Persian script. And they concluded that while the �prosperous and wily� Hindus had many avenues of employment, the �poor and simple� Muslims were solely dependent on government patronage.
MacDonell was not impressed. He told the Muslims that they already had their communal quota in terms of which a mere fourteen per cent of the provincial population had monopolised thirty-seven-and-a-half per cent of government jobs. But the Muslims were far from being mollified. They became extremely agitated under the leadership provided again by the Aligarh lobby. A pathetic couplet, composed by Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Secretary of the Aligarh College, now started circulating among the Muslims all over the province:
chal sãth ke hasrat dil-i-mahrûm se nikle,
ãshiq kã janaza hai zarã dhûm se nikle.
(Walk with [the bier] so that the longing [for love] may not linger in the hollowed heart. This is the funeral procession of your lover. Let it proceed with some song and dance.)
Â
URDU HAD REMAINED A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Before we pass on to the storm raised over Urdu by the residues of Islamic imperialism, we should like to quote what Professor Aziz Ahmad has said about this language. He writes: �The poets of Delhi, proud of the �pure� Urdu of the imperial camp, rejected the Dakani principle and practice of borrowing extensively from the Indian languages, especially if these borrowings were related to Hindu religion, culture and world-view� In this process imagery was drawn exclusively from Persian precedents, i.e., from the unseen and unexperienced sights, sounds and smells of Persia and Central Asia, rejecting totally the Indian sights, sounds and sensuous experience as materials regarded not sublime enough for poetic expression� It was a desperate unconscious clinging to the origins of the symbols of Muslim India�s cultural experience which had begun abroad, and an instinctive fear of being submerged into the Hindu cultural milieu. These modes of aesthetic appreciation, rooted so deeply in the essence of universal Islamic culture, remained more or less incomprehensible to the Hindu mind. Its reaction has been summed up by [S.K.] Chatterjee: �Throughout the whole range of Urdu literature in its first phase� the atmosphere of this literature is provokingly un-Indian - it is that of Persia. Early Urdu poets never so much as mention the great physical features of India - its Himalayas, its rivers like the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Sindhu, the Godavari, etc; but of course mountains and streams of Persia, and rivers of Central Asia are always there. Indian flowers, Indian plants are unknown; only Persian flowers and plants which the poet could see only in a garden. There was a deliberate shutting of the eye to everything Indian, to everything not mentioned or treated in Persian poetry� A language and literature which came to base itself upon an ideology which denied on the Indian soil the very existence of India and Indian culture, could not but be met with a challenge from some of the Indian adherents of their national culture; and that challenge was in the form of highly Sanskritized Hindi�.�2
Â
YET URDU WON A VICTORY
This was the language which the residues of Islamic imperialism wanted to impose upon the common people, Hindus and Muslim converts, till the end of time. Some years earlier, they had organised a Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of Upper India. Mohsin-ul-Mulk converted this body into an Urdu Defence Association. It was decided to call a conference of leading Muslims from all over North India to discuss the Hindi Resolution and to draft a representation to the Lieutenant Governor. Meanwhile, leading Muslims had spread out in the district towns of U.P. to whip up a mass hysteria. The cries of �Islam in danger� were heard as far as Lahore in the Punjab, Dacca in Bengal, Bombay in Maharashtra, and Madras in South India. Finally, a conference was held at Lucknow in August, 1900. It was attended by 400 delegates from the Punjab, Bombay Presidency, Central Provinces, U.P. and elsewhere. The Mullahs, landlords, merchants, lawyers, journalists and others who had flocked to the conference called upon the �Muslim masses� to defend their �religion and culture� with all their might. Mohsin-ul-Mulk thundered: �Although we have not the might of the pen our hands are still strong enough to wield the might of the sword.�
Nothing came out of the Hindi Resolution of the government. MacDonell was soon succeeded by LaTouche who wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, that MacDonell �went too far in acknowledging Hindi as a language�. For a long time afterwards, no bilingual examinations were held and no government orders were issued in the Nagari script. In fact, the number of Muslims in government services increased in subsequent years.
The cat came out of the bag in October 1906 when the residues of Islamic imperialism, who had held another conference in Lucknow in the meanwhile, drew up a Memorandum to the Viceroy, Lord Minto. The Memorandum was presented by a delegation of 35 Muslim notables led by the Agha Khan. It was a prelude to the formation of the Muslim League, later on in the same year. The Memorandum reminded the British rulers that the Muslims had been the ruling class for a long time and requested that the government �give due consideration to the position that they [Muslims] occupied in India a little more than a hundred years ago�. It insisted that the �political importance� of the Muslim community be conceded. Political importance, in turn, was spelled out in the following words: �The political importance of a community to a considerable extent gains strength or suffers detriment according to the position that the members of that community occupy in the service of the State.�
Professor Francis Robinson sums up the situation when he says that �Aligarh College and the All India Muslim League were founded to preserve a strong position, not to improve a weak one� and that �It was the threat of becoming backward, rather than backwardness itself, which encouraged U.P. Muslims to organize for politics, and their power in the province helped them to do so with effect.�3 Backwardness in this context meant becoming equal to the rest of their countrymen - a prospect which the residues of Islamic imperialism have always dreaded as worse than death.
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/muslimsep/ch9.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To cite an example, listen to this newsanchor:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zBLCcyAmSkE
I understand Hindi quite well but besides a few words I can't understand nothing in what the anchor guy is saying.