I am surprised by the attack on Urdu as the national language by some of my compatriots. Being one of the oldest members of this august forum, I have like to post my views on the choice of Urdu as our national language.
I formally studied Urdu only at the elementary level at the St Mary’s Rawalpindi which means ‘Not a lot’. In the F.Sc. my optional subject was Persian and it was not until I moved into the New Hostel of Gov’t College Lahore and started attending Mushairas and debates held at the Open Air Theatre of the Gov’t College that I had interaction with the Urdu poets and writers. Since that time I have been in love with the Urdu language and the Urdu poetry by the likes of Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz and Ahmed Faraz. Without demeaning the local languages and their dialects; IMO Urdu language has finesse and civility which is not found in the other spoken languages of Pakistan. That could be the reason why so many Punjabi speaking poets and prose writers elected to write in Urdu instead.
However, one must wonder that even though more than 90% of Pakistanis do not speak Urdu as their mother tongue; why was it chosen as the national language of Pakistan? To answer this question one needs to delve into the history.
Understand at the time of Muslim invasion of the tenth century by the Mahmud Ghaznavi, the spoken language of present-day Punjab & Northern India was a dialect of Prakrit known as Shauraseni Prakrit.
Urdu is derived from the old Turkish word “Ordu” which means the army / the army camp. As the name suggests, Urdu evolved as a mean of communication between the Muslim soldiers and the native population; hence origins of Urdu language is linked with the invading Muslim soldiers.
I have come across three theories on the origin of Urdu language. One is that it developed by the amalgamation of Turkish/Persian with the ‘Khari Boli’ (the language of Delhi/Mathura region).
The second claims that Urdu was a result of the first contact between Muslim & Hindus at the time of Mahmud Ghaznavi when a large number of Turks, Persians & Afghans settled in Punjab & Multan (then a separate state ruled by the Ismailis).
The third advanced by Dr Mahmud Hussein of Aligarh postulates that the Urdu language evolved through grafting of Persian language on the Hariani, the language of the natives of Delhi in the early days of the Sultanate.
Regardless of how the Urdu originated, the fact remains that it has always been irrevocably associated with the Muslims of the sub-continent.
Before the partition, Muslim Hyderabad State was the only one to adopt Urdu as their official language and where the only university to teach all subjects including Sciences in Urdu; the Osmania University was located. Nevertheless, to Muslims of Northern and Western India, Urdu had become an integral part of the political identity and communal separatism and the political cause of Urdu became a core issue at the heart of the Two Nation Theory.
All India Muslim League and the Jamaat Islami projected Urdu as essential for the political & cultural unity of the subcontinent Muslims. Muslim politicians like Sir Mohammed Iqbal, Liaqat Ali Khan, Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar & Maulana Shaukat Ali used Urdu as the symbol of Muslim heritage and political identity.
Let us be clear, Urdu was never “IMPOSED” on Pakistanis. Since Urdu had been associated with the Pakistan movement since the beginning and was the only language understood by the educated classes of all of the four provinces; the Founding Fathers and the political leaders of the time including Quaid-e-Azam, whose mother tongue was Gujarati; freely adopted Urdu as the national language of Pakistan after independence.
Looking at the matter totally dispassionately, since the adoption of Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto or Baluchi as the national language, would imply linguistic hegemony of one province over another; only neutral option available to the Founding Fathers was to choose either English or Urdu as the national language.
For precisely the same reason, political leaders from all the four provinces of Pakistan once again unanimously adopted Urdu as the national language of Pakistan in 1973 Constitution.
Association of Urdu with the Muslims of the subcontinent is also evident from the fact that only Muslim majority state of India; the occupied Kashmir, has also adopted Urdu as their national language.
Can one honestly say that Punjabi would be acceptable to Pashtuns, Sindhis or the Baluchs? Or would Punjabis & Sindhis freely accept Pashto as the National language of Pakistan?
Finally, for better or for worse and whether you like it or not, Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and I humbly request all Pakistanis to avoid denigrating it.