12-27-2007, 07:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-27-2007, 08:04 PM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Urdu: Misrepresenting Indian Muslims
By Meenakshi Jain
The Mulayam Singh governmentâs approval of the proposed Muhammad Ali Jauhar Urdu, Persian & Arabic University at Rampur appears to be prompted more by considerations of electoral gain than national weal. It also betrays scant awareness of Indiaâs linguistic history. Not one of the three languages selected for patronage has historically enjoyed wide usage among the Muslim masses, the vote bank targeted for appeasement. While Arabic and Persian were languages of the religious and administrative classes during the heydays of Muslim rule, even Urdu, a language of the subcontinent, had an elitist tag and was not the lingua franca of ordinary Muslims.
Several surveys conducted by the British attest to the limited base of these languages. William Adams in his report on the state of education in Bengal in the 19th century noted that the number of Hindus studying Persian (for government employment) in the province was 50 per cent higher than that of Muslims. The 1901 Census revealed that in the North-West Provinces and Punjab, just over one lakh of a total Muslim population of 63 lakhs was Urdu-literate. The quinquennial survey on educational progress for 1907-12 concluded that âUrdu is the recognised lingua franca of the Mohammedans of India. But it does not follow that it is everywhere the vernacular commonly used by themâ. Indeed before separatist politics compelled Muslim leaders to proclaim Urdu as the language of the entire community, Arabic, Persian and Urdu were markers of elite hegemony.
The language of the populace was Hindi/Hindavi, a mixed language which evolved naturally from local speech forms in Hindiâs immediate region such as Braj, Bundeli, Khariboli, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, and also drew from the Persian and Arabic languages introduced by Muslim rulers.
A stream of religious leaders from Gorakhnath and the Nathpanthi yogis to Sufis like Baba Farid and sants like Kabir and Nanak used this language to disseminate their teachings. It also travelled south, where it was called Deccani. As a common language, it was written in both the Devanagari and Persian scripts.
Indeed before separatist politics compelled Muslim leaders to proclaim Urdu as the language of the entire community, Arabic, Persian and Urdu were markers of elite hegemony.
The mingling of the Sanskritic and Persian language streams in Hindavi continued for over 600 years, till the decline of Mughal power in the 18th century. Then, in a major intervention, the Muslim elite began systematically replacing Hindi words with Persian words, resulting in the birth of modern Urdu. This link between political decline and the rise of Urdu is crucial to understanding the genesis of the language. Faced with impending loss of status, Amrit Rai observed that the Muslim elite created Urdu to carve out an exclusive cultural domain to retain its distinctive position.
Urduâs origins in Hindi were acknowledged even by Abdul Haq, a prominent leader of the Urdu movement, who said: âThe language we speak and write and call by the name âUrduâ today is derived from Hindi and constituted of Hindi.â A.M.A. Shushtery described Urdu as Hindi which had been âIranised during Muslim ruleâ, and regretted that Urdu poets in imitating the Iranians had neglected âthe original and natural source of enriching Urdu through Sanskrit literature.â
Noted scholar Muham-mad Sadiq concurred that Urdu poetry was cut off from its native land in infancy and fed from a foreign source. When, following the decline of Persian in India, Persian poets switched to Urdu, they imposed on it the forms, metrical system, imagery and figures of speech of Persian poetry. Urdu poetry was thus a mere extension of Persian poetry, unlike Hindi, Punjabi and Sanskrit poetry which grew from the soil and absorbed its social environment.
The âceaseless importation from Persianâ caused Urdu to be wholly identified as the language of Muslims even though it was an elite phenomenon. Syed Insha claimed that âwhat we mean by the idiom of Urdu is that it is the language of the Muslimsâ. Syed Ahmad Khan described Zaban-i-Urdu and the Persian script as âthe insignia of the Muslimsâ.
The growing communal association forced several Hindu writers to abandon Urdu, most notably Premchand (1880-1936). Though he began his literary career as an Urdu writer and wrote his first five novels in that language, he began publishing Hindi translations of his Urdu short stories in 1915 and from then onwards wrote in Hindi alone.
Premchand confessed that the move was dictated by cultural circumstances rather than personal choice. His fifth novel, Bazar-e-Husn (The Brothel) could find no publisher despite his considerable reputation as an Urdu writer, but its Hindi version was eagerly accepted and there was a demand for more works. Premchand discussed the situation in a letter to his friend, Dayanarayan Nigam, âI am now practicing to write in Hindi as well. Urdu will no longer do. Has any Hindu ever made a success of writing in Urdu, that I will?â
Premchandâs contention that the few Hindu writers in Urdu before him had never been fully accepted by Urdu readers was confirmed by Grahame Bailey. In his History of Urdu Literature, published in 1928, he listed about 250 authors, of whom only eight excluding Premchand were Hindus, the rest Muslims. Muhammad Sadiqâs subsequent and more extensive work could list only 17 Hindu writers in Urdu, including journalists. Confirming Premchandâs feeling of communal bias in Urdu, Sadiq conceded that Muslims treated Premchand âmore or less as an outsiderâ.
Though it is conventional wisdom to accuse the British of fermenting the Hindi/Hindavi divide into the separate languages of modern Hindi and modern Urdu, the fact, as Amrit Rai pointed out, is that Fort William College, the alleged centre of this activity, was established only a century after the Muslim elite had initiated the drive. Fort William College also played no role in the creation of modern Urdu by the Aligarh School after the revolt of 1857 and its preoccupation with issues of separate identity. Once again, the concerns and interests of the Muslim elite masqueraded as the aspirations of the entire community. Mulayam Singh seems to be perpetuating a similar misrepresentation.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...&pid=79&page=36<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reaction as we can see was the Shudh Hindi movement among Hindus, it must also be remembered that inspite of the long Muslim rule most of the Hindi dialects remained largely Sanskrit derived (especially in villages).
Even Punjabi would at least be 70% Sanskrit derived as it is spoken today in Bharat (religious speeches being much more Sanskritised), the village speech is also more pure in Punjab as my mitra told me, he said in his village they use trikaal for evening and not sham or chitha for remember not yaad.
So it would be interesting to know why a more foreign heavy Khariboli was picked as the official language, I am guessing it must be due to Nehru and his love for all things Muslim and hatred for anything to do with Hindus, Savarkar championed Sanskritised Hindi as the connective language and was quite instrumental in getting rid of Urdu dominance in the Andamans during his imprisonment, even the Hindus were fawning over Urdu before he impressed upon them the need to give priority to their mother tongue and shudh Hindi. This is related in his book "The Story of My Transportation for Life" available here:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/b6d4f584-ddd7-46...tation-for-Life
As for myself, I am quite emphatic that besides English which today is needed because of it's dominant position in the world mother tongue and Sanskrit need to be taught (more than writing or reading Sanskrit, teaching people to speak should be a priority).
By Meenakshi Jain
The Mulayam Singh governmentâs approval of the proposed Muhammad Ali Jauhar Urdu, Persian & Arabic University at Rampur appears to be prompted more by considerations of electoral gain than national weal. It also betrays scant awareness of Indiaâs linguistic history. Not one of the three languages selected for patronage has historically enjoyed wide usage among the Muslim masses, the vote bank targeted for appeasement. While Arabic and Persian were languages of the religious and administrative classes during the heydays of Muslim rule, even Urdu, a language of the subcontinent, had an elitist tag and was not the lingua franca of ordinary Muslims.
Several surveys conducted by the British attest to the limited base of these languages. William Adams in his report on the state of education in Bengal in the 19th century noted that the number of Hindus studying Persian (for government employment) in the province was 50 per cent higher than that of Muslims. The 1901 Census revealed that in the North-West Provinces and Punjab, just over one lakh of a total Muslim population of 63 lakhs was Urdu-literate. The quinquennial survey on educational progress for 1907-12 concluded that âUrdu is the recognised lingua franca of the Mohammedans of India. But it does not follow that it is everywhere the vernacular commonly used by themâ. Indeed before separatist politics compelled Muslim leaders to proclaim Urdu as the language of the entire community, Arabic, Persian and Urdu were markers of elite hegemony.
The language of the populace was Hindi/Hindavi, a mixed language which evolved naturally from local speech forms in Hindiâs immediate region such as Braj, Bundeli, Khariboli, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, and also drew from the Persian and Arabic languages introduced by Muslim rulers.
A stream of religious leaders from Gorakhnath and the Nathpanthi yogis to Sufis like Baba Farid and sants like Kabir and Nanak used this language to disseminate their teachings. It also travelled south, where it was called Deccani. As a common language, it was written in both the Devanagari and Persian scripts.
Indeed before separatist politics compelled Muslim leaders to proclaim Urdu as the language of the entire community, Arabic, Persian and Urdu were markers of elite hegemony.
The mingling of the Sanskritic and Persian language streams in Hindavi continued for over 600 years, till the decline of Mughal power in the 18th century. Then, in a major intervention, the Muslim elite began systematically replacing Hindi words with Persian words, resulting in the birth of modern Urdu. This link between political decline and the rise of Urdu is crucial to understanding the genesis of the language. Faced with impending loss of status, Amrit Rai observed that the Muslim elite created Urdu to carve out an exclusive cultural domain to retain its distinctive position.
Urduâs origins in Hindi were acknowledged even by Abdul Haq, a prominent leader of the Urdu movement, who said: âThe language we speak and write and call by the name âUrduâ today is derived from Hindi and constituted of Hindi.â A.M.A. Shushtery described Urdu as Hindi which had been âIranised during Muslim ruleâ, and regretted that Urdu poets in imitating the Iranians had neglected âthe original and natural source of enriching Urdu through Sanskrit literature.â
Noted scholar Muham-mad Sadiq concurred that Urdu poetry was cut off from its native land in infancy and fed from a foreign source. When, following the decline of Persian in India, Persian poets switched to Urdu, they imposed on it the forms, metrical system, imagery and figures of speech of Persian poetry. Urdu poetry was thus a mere extension of Persian poetry, unlike Hindi, Punjabi and Sanskrit poetry which grew from the soil and absorbed its social environment.
The âceaseless importation from Persianâ caused Urdu to be wholly identified as the language of Muslims even though it was an elite phenomenon. Syed Insha claimed that âwhat we mean by the idiom of Urdu is that it is the language of the Muslimsâ. Syed Ahmad Khan described Zaban-i-Urdu and the Persian script as âthe insignia of the Muslimsâ.
The growing communal association forced several Hindu writers to abandon Urdu, most notably Premchand (1880-1936). Though he began his literary career as an Urdu writer and wrote his first five novels in that language, he began publishing Hindi translations of his Urdu short stories in 1915 and from then onwards wrote in Hindi alone.
Premchand confessed that the move was dictated by cultural circumstances rather than personal choice. His fifth novel, Bazar-e-Husn (The Brothel) could find no publisher despite his considerable reputation as an Urdu writer, but its Hindi version was eagerly accepted and there was a demand for more works. Premchand discussed the situation in a letter to his friend, Dayanarayan Nigam, âI am now practicing to write in Hindi as well. Urdu will no longer do. Has any Hindu ever made a success of writing in Urdu, that I will?â
Premchandâs contention that the few Hindu writers in Urdu before him had never been fully accepted by Urdu readers was confirmed by Grahame Bailey. In his History of Urdu Literature, published in 1928, he listed about 250 authors, of whom only eight excluding Premchand were Hindus, the rest Muslims. Muhammad Sadiqâs subsequent and more extensive work could list only 17 Hindu writers in Urdu, including journalists. Confirming Premchandâs feeling of communal bias in Urdu, Sadiq conceded that Muslims treated Premchand âmore or less as an outsiderâ.
Though it is conventional wisdom to accuse the British of fermenting the Hindi/Hindavi divide into the separate languages of modern Hindi and modern Urdu, the fact, as Amrit Rai pointed out, is that Fort William College, the alleged centre of this activity, was established only a century after the Muslim elite had initiated the drive. Fort William College also played no role in the creation of modern Urdu by the Aligarh School after the revolt of 1857 and its preoccupation with issues of separate identity. Once again, the concerns and interests of the Muslim elite masqueraded as the aspirations of the entire community. Mulayam Singh seems to be perpetuating a similar misrepresentation.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...&pid=79&page=36<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reaction as we can see was the Shudh Hindi movement among Hindus, it must also be remembered that inspite of the long Muslim rule most of the Hindi dialects remained largely Sanskrit derived (especially in villages).
Even Punjabi would at least be 70% Sanskrit derived as it is spoken today in Bharat (religious speeches being much more Sanskritised), the village speech is also more pure in Punjab as my mitra told me, he said in his village they use trikaal for evening and not sham or chitha for remember not yaad.
So it would be interesting to know why a more foreign heavy Khariboli was picked as the official language, I am guessing it must be due to Nehru and his love for all things Muslim and hatred for anything to do with Hindus, Savarkar championed Sanskritised Hindi as the connective language and was quite instrumental in getting rid of Urdu dominance in the Andamans during his imprisonment, even the Hindus were fawning over Urdu before he impressed upon them the need to give priority to their mother tongue and shudh Hindi. This is related in his book "The Story of My Transportation for Life" available here:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/b6d4f584-ddd7-46...tation-for-Life
As for myself, I am quite emphatic that besides English which today is needed because of it's dominant position in the world mother tongue and Sanskrit need to be taught (more than writing or reading Sanskrit, teaching people to speak should be a priority).