niaz
PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2006
- Messages
- 5,164
- Reaction score
- 211
- Country
- Location
One would have thought that after 70 years the argument about the choice of Urdu would have been settled, but don’t think Urdu haters would ever be satisfied. I have been involved with the argument about Urdu with the East Pakistani exchange students living at the Gov’t College New Hostel in the late 1950s where I was residing as well. Their argument was that based upon 1951 census (most recent until then), Bengali was spoken by 40 –million, whereas the population of all of West Pakistan was only 35-million, so why impose your language on us. (East Pakistanis considered all West Pakistanis as Urdu speakers & Punjabis, rest of the non-Bengalis were Biharies)
The defender from West Pakistan was an Urdu MA student also living at the hostel. He argued that Urdu was the natural and most suitable choice because it had been the most commonly spoken, understood and written by the native population of nearly all of the Northern subcontinent as well as of the northern part of Southern India.
Historically speaking; until 1835 official language of the country was Persian which was associated with the Muslim ruling class and not understood by the majority of the natives. Subjects of the Moghal empire which largely controlled the northern part of the subcontinent; spoke various dialects, common around the Capital being the ‘Khari Boli’ which metamorphosed into Urdu/Hindustani or Rekhteh. Amir Khusrow’s ‘Hinduvi’ poetry written in the late 13th /early 14th century can still be understood by the Urdu/Hindi speakers. Therefore it would be fair to say with certainty that Urdu is not really a new language but something that was indigenous and evolved over the centuries as the means of communication between the masses and the elite.
British lent their support to the Urdu /Hindustani language because they wanted to undermine the previous Muslim culture and were responsible for the publication of first Urdu book ‘Baagh –o- Bahaar’,” in 1803. The author, Mir Amman Dehlavi was employed by the Fort Wiliam College and he translated the Amir Khusrow classic tale “Qissa-e-Chahar Dervish” at the behest of Mr. John B Gichrist, a scholar of literature.
First Urdu weekly newspaper was published at Calcutta in 1822. It was called Jam-Jahan Numa, the founder was a Bengali journalist called Harihar Datta. Munshi Harsukh Raj started the weekly Kohi-Noor in 1850.
Urdu had replaced Persian in the Hyderabad State during the time of Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the 6th Nizam (1866-1911) at the Osmania University, founded in 1917 by Nizam Osman Ali Khan used Urdu as the teaching medium in all subjects.
The first full-fledged newspaper in Urdu started publication in 1837 in New Delhi where a description of the 1857 siege was published (https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/maul...uth-of-siege-of-delhi-bahadur-of-1857.557094/
Ram Chandra founded the first Urdu newspapers of Delhi, Fawaid-ul-Nazarin and Kiran-us-Sadai in 1852. Roznama –e-Punjab was started in 1858 from Lahore and Oudh Akhbar was founded by Munshi Nawal Kishore in Lukhnow also in 1858. Zameendar was started in Lahore in 1903. It was the first Urdu newspaper to subscribe to news agencies, which boosted its circulation to over 30,000 copies.
During a period of fewer than 100 years or so, Urdu/Hindustani had replaced Persian as the language of the educated as well as a means of communication between the masses. People who could speak and write in Persian in the whole of the subcontinent declined to a few thousand.
One must keep in mind at that time adult literacy on the subcontinent time was barely 5 to 6%. Ordinary natives of the subcontinent spoke their vernacular tongue. Hence, like the Persian, Urdu was the language of the urban literate class.
By the end of the of the nineteenth century; about 30 publications had made their debut from various parts of the country. At the time of partition, the number of Urdu newspapers had grown to 415 including all daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly magazines.
Since Newspaper is a commercial venture; this growth of Urdu journalism indicates that Urdu was read and understood from Peshawar to Calcutta and down to Hyderabad, Deccan by the end of the 19th century. Not only was the Urdu /Hindustani /Rekhta spoken and written by the Muslims but also by Hindus & Sikhs. No other native language of the continent had this many publications or readers.
In my opinion, Urdu/Hindi should have been the national language of Pakistan as well as of India. Arguably Indian version written in Devanagari script would have been called Hindustani.
Per my personal observation, a bazaar where with bookstores in most cities used to be called ‘Urdu Bazar’ with Lahore’s being really large; an indication that Urdu was linked to the literacy in the mind of the common folk.
Only a language that can be fully or at least partly understood all over Pakistan can qualify as the national language. The only practicable alternative to Urdu is & was English. However, our founding fathers had achieved independence after a long and arduous struggle, therefore quite rightly; they opted for Urdu. On March 19, 1948, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared Urdu as the state language of Pakistan.
This reality was also understood by most of the first generation Pakistanis and thus in the 1973 Constitution, Urdu was unanimously adopted as the national language.
I ask those who dislike Urdu, a simple question; if not Urdu, what should be the national language of Pakistan? Will Punjabis accept the imposition of Pushto or Baluchi or Sindhi as their national language or vice versa or do you propose Arabic or Persian?
I hope that the above long discourse proves beyond doubt that Urdu may not have the vernacular language of the region but it was the right choice as the national language. We should finally end this debate and accept the choice of our founding father without quibble.
.
The defender from West Pakistan was an Urdu MA student also living at the hostel. He argued that Urdu was the natural and most suitable choice because it had been the most commonly spoken, understood and written by the native population of nearly all of the Northern subcontinent as well as of the northern part of Southern India.
Historically speaking; until 1835 official language of the country was Persian which was associated with the Muslim ruling class and not understood by the majority of the natives. Subjects of the Moghal empire which largely controlled the northern part of the subcontinent; spoke various dialects, common around the Capital being the ‘Khari Boli’ which metamorphosed into Urdu/Hindustani or Rekhteh. Amir Khusrow’s ‘Hinduvi’ poetry written in the late 13th /early 14th century can still be understood by the Urdu/Hindi speakers. Therefore it would be fair to say with certainty that Urdu is not really a new language but something that was indigenous and evolved over the centuries as the means of communication between the masses and the elite.
British lent their support to the Urdu /Hindustani language because they wanted to undermine the previous Muslim culture and were responsible for the publication of first Urdu book ‘Baagh –o- Bahaar’,” in 1803. The author, Mir Amman Dehlavi was employed by the Fort Wiliam College and he translated the Amir Khusrow classic tale “Qissa-e-Chahar Dervish” at the behest of Mr. John B Gichrist, a scholar of literature.
First Urdu weekly newspaper was published at Calcutta in 1822. It was called Jam-Jahan Numa, the founder was a Bengali journalist called Harihar Datta. Munshi Harsukh Raj started the weekly Kohi-Noor in 1850.
Urdu had replaced Persian in the Hyderabad State during the time of Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the 6th Nizam (1866-1911) at the Osmania University, founded in 1917 by Nizam Osman Ali Khan used Urdu as the teaching medium in all subjects.
The first full-fledged newspaper in Urdu started publication in 1837 in New Delhi where a description of the 1857 siege was published (https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/maul...uth-of-siege-of-delhi-bahadur-of-1857.557094/
Ram Chandra founded the first Urdu newspapers of Delhi, Fawaid-ul-Nazarin and Kiran-us-Sadai in 1852. Roznama –e-Punjab was started in 1858 from Lahore and Oudh Akhbar was founded by Munshi Nawal Kishore in Lukhnow also in 1858. Zameendar was started in Lahore in 1903. It was the first Urdu newspaper to subscribe to news agencies, which boosted its circulation to over 30,000 copies.
During a period of fewer than 100 years or so, Urdu/Hindustani had replaced Persian as the language of the educated as well as a means of communication between the masses. People who could speak and write in Persian in the whole of the subcontinent declined to a few thousand.
One must keep in mind at that time adult literacy on the subcontinent time was barely 5 to 6%. Ordinary natives of the subcontinent spoke their vernacular tongue. Hence, like the Persian, Urdu was the language of the urban literate class.
By the end of the of the nineteenth century; about 30 publications had made their debut from various parts of the country. At the time of partition, the number of Urdu newspapers had grown to 415 including all daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly magazines.
Since Newspaper is a commercial venture; this growth of Urdu journalism indicates that Urdu was read and understood from Peshawar to Calcutta and down to Hyderabad, Deccan by the end of the 19th century. Not only was the Urdu /Hindustani /Rekhta spoken and written by the Muslims but also by Hindus & Sikhs. No other native language of the continent had this many publications or readers.
In my opinion, Urdu/Hindi should have been the national language of Pakistan as well as of India. Arguably Indian version written in Devanagari script would have been called Hindustani.
Per my personal observation, a bazaar where with bookstores in most cities used to be called ‘Urdu Bazar’ with Lahore’s being really large; an indication that Urdu was linked to the literacy in the mind of the common folk.
Only a language that can be fully or at least partly understood all over Pakistan can qualify as the national language. The only practicable alternative to Urdu is & was English. However, our founding fathers had achieved independence after a long and arduous struggle, therefore quite rightly; they opted for Urdu. On March 19, 1948, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared Urdu as the state language of Pakistan.
This reality was also understood by most of the first generation Pakistanis and thus in the 1973 Constitution, Urdu was unanimously adopted as the national language.
I ask those who dislike Urdu, a simple question; if not Urdu, what should be the national language of Pakistan? Will Punjabis accept the imposition of Pushto or Baluchi or Sindhi as their national language or vice versa or do you propose Arabic or Persian?
I hope that the above long discourse proves beyond doubt that Urdu may not have the vernacular language of the region but it was the right choice as the national language. We should finally end this debate and accept the choice of our founding father without quibble.
.
Last edited:
