What's new

Why does India’s Hindu right-wing hate the Urdu language so much ?

May not be popular opinion. But hindi/urdu are indeed two sides of same coin and i dont like both. They have always been lanugages of power and to invent/establish a identity. They are never the voice of people like punjabi or sindhi or tamil or bengali are. When urdu fought with bengali - urdu lost because it never fought for the soul of the people.
 
Urdu language is extinct in India. It was language of the foreigners, the Turkic Mongols who came with the invaders from beyond the Indus basin.

The language took a political turn during the peak and demise of colonial rule in what is known as a sub continent.
 
A shared language is a key component of any people and historically oppressive groups have tried to eliminate a language to strip a cultural or national identity. The European invaders of North America, Americas in general and in Australia eliminated all native languages and forced people to "assimilate" by speaking English, Spanish and Portuguese. India before the Muslim invasions had no lingua franca and the Mughal firstly used Persian of Farsi as the court and official language.

Persian was the language of Mughal intellectual life. Since the Ghaznavid occupation of Lahore in the beginning of the eleventh century, Persian had been the official language of the Muslim government and the literary language of the higher classes, but with the advent of the Mughals it entered a new era. India became essentially Persianized and transferred the Persian literary and high culture to South Asia, thus forming the base for the Indo-Persian culture and the Spread of Islam in South Asia. later on with the advent of Urdu which basically retained a large vocabulary of Persian words and script took over as the key language of Indian governance. The British colonialists had particularly targeted Urdu as well to weaken Muslim intellectual and cultural supremacy in India.

Urdu is now very well enshrined as the state language of Pakistan and that as also upset the Hindu extremists. I personally think considering the geographical, cultural, ethnic, and religions links, Persian or Farsi as a second language taught in schools would be beneficial for Pakistan as Farsi/Dari is still the national official language of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and widely understood in almost all of central Asia.


 
Urdu language is extinct in India. It was language of the foreigners, the Turkic Mongols who came with the invaders from beyond the Indus basin.

The language took a political turn during the peak and demise of colonial rule in what is known as a sub continent.
Urdu is not exactly extinct in India, but it depends on what one considers Urdu. I find the PTV news kind of Urdu difficult to understand fully, while I can fully understand what the average Pakistanis speaks. Similarly Pakistanis will find Doordarshan or official government Hindi difficult but not what the average North Indian speaks. North Indians like me speak something between these 2 extremes and subconsciously use a lot of Urdu words. It doesn't even remotely occur to us that these are Urdu words.

Bollywood used a lot of Urdu initially but of late there is an attempt to make movies which reflect the lives of the average people, hence the lingo has also changed.

Besides this, as far as literature goes, both Hindi and Urdu have collapsed. In general, the market for non-English books is very small individually (though all of them put together might not be so bad).

I still remember the conversation I had with my mother when I was about to get married. I was firm that we will have a court marriage as both me and my wife are against extravagance. My mother said 'Jab tak jashn ka maahaul nahin hoga, lagega hi nahin ki shaadi hui hai. Aakhir reeti-riwaaj bhi koyi cheez hoti hai'. Note the number of Urdu words. This is a normal conversation in a Hindu household.
 
Urdu is not exactly extinct in India, but it depends on what one considers Urdu. I find the PTV news kind of Urdu difficult to understand fully, while I can fully understand what the average Pakistanis speaks. Similarly Pakistanis will find Doordarshan or official government Hindi difficult but not what the average North Indian speaks. North Indians like me speak something between these 2 extremes and subconsciously use a lot of Urdu words. It doesn't even remotely occur to us that these are Urdu words.

Bollywood used a lot of Urdu initially but of late there is an attempt to make movies which reflect the lives of the average people, hence the lingo has also changed.

Besides this, as far as literature goes, both Hindi and Urdu have collapsed. In general, the market for non-English books is very small individually (though all of them put together might not be so bad).

I still remember the conversation I had with my mother when I was about to get married. I was firm that we will have a court marriage as both me and my wife are against extravagance. My mother said 'Jab tak jashn ka maahaul nahin hoga, lagega hi nahin ki shaadi hui hai. Aakhir reeti-riwaaj bhi koyi cheez hoti hai'. Note the number of Urdu words. This is a normal conversation in a Hindu household.

Urdu is more than extinct in India. What remains is her legacy. The language formed itself through oral traditions and administrative needs of running an empire.

She was never a language of the masses in India. Formed to counter Persian aristocracy, Urdu was seen as a rebellion of the bureaucracy against aristocracy. The same idea saw evolution with the colonial British.
This is a normal conversation in a Hindu household.

I am not denying Urdu and her pedigree as a language of resistance. The very nature of her formation is a testimony to that.

Ordu in Turkic means place of military encampment or a fort.
 
Last edited:
She was never a language of the masses in India. Formed to counter Persian aristocracy, Urdu was seen as a rebellion of the bureaucracy against aristocracy. The same idea saw evolution with the colonial British.

You got it right. And so is hindi by the way - its counter revolutionary language essentially based on urdu to establish a hindi brahmin bureacracy in india. How you see them depends on your morals and attitude.

I despise both of them - as they are languages of power not people.
Besides this, as far as literature goes, both Hindi and Urdu have collapsed. In general, the market for non-English books is very small individually (though all of them put together might not be so bad).

Languages which dont give voice to people cannot flourish literally. In the process or hindi/urdu imposition all the real languages of subcontinent were also stunted - ranging from sindhi in pakistan to tamil in india.
 
You got it right. And so is hindi by the way - its counter revolutionary language essentially based on urdu to establish a hindi brahmin bureacracy in india. How you see them depends on your morals and attitude.

I despise both of them - as they are languages of power not people.


Languages which dont give voice to people cannot flourish literally. In the process or hindi/urdu imposition all the real languages of subcontinent were also stunted - ranging from sindhi in pakistan to tamil in india.
Hindi was written in farsi script till early 1900s - fomous Hindi writers have Thier literary work written in farsi script
Than the hindi movement started
More Sanskrit words, devanagari script

Basically a religious beef of Hindustani people showing up in language
 
those dimwits dont understand the beauty of this language.
those dimwits associate urdu with islam.
 
A shared language is a key component of any people and historically oppressive groups have tried to eliminate a language to strip a cultural or national identity. The European invaders of North America, Americas in general and in Australia eliminated all native languages and forced people to "assimilate" by speaking English, Spanish and Portuguese. India before the Muslim invasions had no lingua franca and the Mughal firstly used Persian of Farsi as the court and official language.

Persian was the language of Mughal intellectual life. Since the Ghaznavid occupation of Lahore in the beginning of the eleventh century, Persian had been the official language of the Muslim government and the literary language of the higher classes, but with the advent of the Mughals it entered a new era. India became essentially Persianized and transferred the Persian literary and high culture to South Asia, thus forming the base for the Indo-Persian culture and the Spread of Islam in South Asia. later on with the advent of Urdu which basically retained a large vocabulary of Persian words and script took over as the key language of Indian governance. The British colonialists had particularly targeted Urdu as well to weaken Muslim intellectual and cultural supremacy in India.

Urdu is now very well enshrined as the state language of Pakistan and that as also upset the Hindu extremists. I personally think considering the geographical, cultural, ethnic, and religions links, Persian or Farsi as a second language taught in schools would be beneficial for Pakistan as Farsi/Dari is still the national official language of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and widely understood in almost all of central Asia.


My parents generation from Shah era used to take farsi courses but after revolution things turned cold on cultural exchange front
Not that they know farsi, just se words, numbers, days etc
 
You got it right. And so is hindi by the way - its counter revolutionary language essentially based on urdu to establish a hindi brahmin bureacracy in india. How you see them depends on your morals and attitude.

I despise both of them - as they are languages of power not people.

So which people's language you speak of ?
 
They hate Urdu the same reason we dislike Hindi. So there is not much of a difference, both sides are extremist, bigot and intolerant at the same level.
 

Back
Top Bottom