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

[Andhadhun]

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.

The Mughals were uneducated illiterate thugs who ruled over an educated civilized people.

They needed educated people they could trust and the only people they found were the Persians.

So Persian migrants became the backbone of Mughal courts and the trusted bureaucrats of the Mughals.

Similar to the role of Europeans or Indian skilled manpower in the Middle east.

But Persian remained limited to the courts, the vast public still spoke the local languages (Hindustani) and local schools taught local languages and Sanskrit. Especially since the Mughals never did set up any schools or colleges. From the 13th to the 18th century "urdu" was known as "Hindi" or "Hindustani" or "hindavi".

Its only in the early 18th century, the common language around Delhi began to be referred to as Zaban-e-Urdu, a name derived from the Turkic word ordu (army) or orda and is said to have arisen as the "language of the camp", or "Zaban-i-Ordu" or natively "Lashkari Zaban"

Urdu was promoted in colonial India by the British. Urdu was chosen as the language of East India Company rule across northern India in 1837 when the Company chose it to replace Persian, the court language of the Indo-Islamic empires.

 

[Maula Jatt]

The Mughals were uneducated illiterate thugs who ruled over an educated civilized people.

They needed educated people they could trust and the only people they found were the Persians.

So Persian migrants became the backbone of Mughal courts and the trusted bureaucrats of the Mughals.

Similar to the role of Europeans or Indian skilled manpower in the Middle east.

But Persian remained limited to the courts, the vast public still spoke the local languages (Hindustani) and local schools taught local languages and Sanskrit. Especially since the Mughals never did set up any schools or colleges. From the 13th to the 18th century "urdu" was known as "Hindi" or "Hindustani" or "hindavi".

Its only in the early 18th century, the common language around Delhi began to be referred to as Zaban-e-Urdu, a name derived from the Turkic word ordu (army) or orda and is said to have arisen as the "language of the camp", or "Zaban-i-Ordu" or natively "Lashkari Zaban"

Urdu was promoted in colonial India by the British. Urdu was chosen as the language of East India Company rule across northern India in 1837 when the Company chose it to replace Persian, the court language of the Indo-Islamic empires.

which script was Hindi written in during those times?

 

[Andhadhun]

which script was Hindi written in during those times?

Official document was in arabic script, Hindus used the devnagari script for literature.

 

[Maula Jatt]

Official document was in arabic script, Hindus used the devnagari script for literature.

Farsi script not Arabic script- you probably cant differentiate
And I am not to sure many famous hindi/hindu writers wrote literature in farsi/urdu script, much of our old Punjabi literature is written in shahmukhi- including some of the Sikh holy literature too - later translated into Gurmukhi for wider consumption

 

[Andhadhun]

Farsi script not Arabic script- you probably cant differentiate
And I am not to sure many famous hindi/hindu writers wrote literature in farsi/urdu script, much of our old Punjabi literature is written in shahmukhi- including some of the Sikh holy literature too - later translated into Gurmukhi for wider consumption

You mean the Perso-Arabic script.

Under british rule, Perso-Arabic script was taught in school after the british shut down ALL Indian schools. Bringing down Indian literacy rate from near 100% to 12% in 100 years.

So many Indian wrote Hindi in nastaliq script since that is what they were taught in school. Munshi Premchand comes to mind. Which is why even today in UP "style" is pounced as "Estyle", "smile" as "Esmile" etc.

Sikh gurus made it mandatory to use Gurumukhi from the 16th century onwards.

 

[Maula Jatt]

You mean the Perso-Arabic script.

Under british rule, Perso-Arabic script was taught in school after the british shut down ALL Indian schools. Bringing down Indian literacy rate from near 100% to 12% in 100 years.

So many Indian wrote Hindi in nastaliq script since that is what they were taught in school. Munshi Premchand comes to mind. Which is why even today in UP "style" is pounced as "Estyle", "smile" as "Esmile" etc.

Sikh gurus made it mandatory to use Gurumukhi from the 16th century onwards.

There was barely any Arabic influence in SC, you can easily read Farsi or some centeral Asian Turkic but not that easy to read Arabic
So the Arabic influence is highly exadurated in culture of SC or it's muslim populace- persio-turckic script

Nearly 100% is hella Bs- I hope you can think through the reasons, of the top of my head not everyone was allowed to or expected learn in that society, most of it was rural society with work expected out of young people- learning is luxury
And hindutavas are not the only one who peddle this lie against Brits, it's islamists too
Of 100% literacy

 

[Andhadhun]

There was barely any Arabic influence in SC, you can easily read Farsi or some centeral Asian Turkic but not that easy to read Arabic
So the Arabic influence is highly exadurated in culture of SC or it's muslim populace- persio-turckic script

Nearly 100% is hella Bs- I hope you can think through the reasons, of the top of my head not everyone was allowed to or expected learn in that society, most of it was rural society with work expected out of young people- learning is luxury
And hindutavas are not the only one who peddle this lie against Brits, it's islamists too
Of 100% literacy

Islamist are not only who lie and exaggerate, but also those who deny history too.

Macaulay’s deliberate programme led to the dismantling of the traditional system of village schools which had provided near-universal literacy to the people.

Foreigners migrated to India for education for thousands of years.

In pre british India 35% to 50% of village lands were revenue free and that revenue was utilised for running schools and local affairs.

The British in their greed brought down the revenue free lands down to 5%. When people protested, the British promised to set up an " Education Board" to destroy the intiative of the people.

By 1820, the British had already destroyed the financial resources that supported our educational system- a destruction that they had been carrying out for nearly twenty years. But still the Indians persisted in continuing with their system of education. So, the British decided to find out the intricacies of this system. Therefore a survey was ordered in 1822 and was conducted by the British district collectors. In the survey it was found that the Bengal presidency had 1 lakh village schools, in Madras there was not a single village without a school, in Bombay, if the village population was near 100, the village had a school. Teachers as well as students of all castes were in these schools. The Brahmins accounted 7% to 48% of the teachers, and the rest of the teachers in any district, came from other castes. Further all children had their education in their mother tongue.

One Mr.Bell, a Christian missionary in Madras took the Indian system of education back to England, and introduced it there. Until then, only the children of the nobles were given education there and he started education for the masses in England.

You can continue to peddle you ignorance.

 

[jamahir]

The Mughals were uneducated illiterate thugs who ruled over an educated civilized people.

These "educated civilized people" were educated a bit by Greeks but I don't know what to say to you about many of these people who forwarded the caste system, misogyny and other wrongs.