Right-Wing is Wrong, Urdu Belongs to Hindustan

Islamophobia has one more target in contemporary India, the language of love and poets, Urdu. In the weaponising of Ideology, it is being portrayed almost as a slur by some right-wing leaders. The misconceptions and disregard for history are on par with a narrative that repeatedly tries to dismiss the country’s past journey without which the present is an empty shell.

Take for instance the recent statements by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over a demand that house proceedings be translated into Urdu which is the second official language of the state, ‘they say teach them Urdu, they want to make these children maulvis.

They want to take the country towards fanaticism (kathmulla-pan).’ Not only are the leader’s uneducated comments far removed from reality, but he is also trivialising Indian history in which legendary men from his home state, erstwhile United Provinces in the British Raj, played a key role.

Ironically, Urdu originated in the Uttar Pradesh’s city of Meerut which left an indelible mark on history books by being the garrison town where the 1857 mutiny against the British, originated.

This is considered one of the most prominent uprisings against British rule and is also referred to as the First War of Independence. Urdu’s eminence in the Indian sensibility, however, goes as far back as 1837 when the British replaced Persian with it as the official language of administration.

Distinctly inclusive language

Soon, Urdu also became the language of dissent against the Raj by growing into a composite cultural bridge of a people oppressed. In pre-independent India Urdu was a distinctly inclusive language — uniting Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs under its umbrella. Subhas Chandra Bose, whom the ruling BJP has attempted to appropriate inscribed ‘Ittehad, Itmad, Qurbani’ as his army’s motto, and Urdu’s influence was far-flung.

The Urdu press — run predominantly by Hindu editors showed a mirror and defiance to the Raj. Among the flagbearers was Pratap, my family newspaper that was launched in 1919, barely days before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre — the most heinous of acts by the colonialists — in Lahore. Within days it was suspended by the British. Its reach was unprecedented, and its nationalist tenor communicated in Urdu, found a universal echo.

From the North-West Frontier Province (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan) to the Roshanara club in Delhi where in the words of poet Gulzar, ‘the elders would gather every morning and discuss the headlines in great detail’ the Urdu newspaper was a thread that sutured a restless nation. The paper and its impact have been documented in the recently released book Pratap, A Defiant Newspaper.

Most Hindu owners of Urdu newspapers migrated from Pakistan, however, not many Urdu newspaper proprietors went to Pakistan during Partition — of about 450 Urdu newspapers before Independence, 350 chose to stay back in India.

Despite that, the language stands marginalised and is read predominantly in Muslim households. In a polarised, misinformed environment, it is repeatedly ghettoised by a section that considers the language itself to be antinational.

Lingua franca

And yet, if there was a lingua franca that fought for India’s independence, it was Urdu. Our passage to freedom is also the journey of Urdu literature through which poets, journalists and revolutionaries mobilised their angst into powerful words.

Urdu became the voice; its poetic activism buried the romantic prose as it not only called out atrocities but also invigorated the masses. The romantic phase gradually gave way to social consciousness, the genesis of the idea of revolt through poetry and literature. The beauty of this language was used for the movement and rebellion was spoken about poetically,

‘Inquilab Zindabad’, ‘long live the revolution’, coined by poet Hasrat Mohani, became the battle cry for freedom. Names from the highest pantheon of sacrifice, martyrs Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev, shouted the slogan while being taken to the gallows in an act that defined bravery in the annals of India’s freedom movement. Today’s version of courage involves flagging those beliefs.

Bismil Azimabadi’s ghazal that poet Ramprasad Bismil recited audaciously before his hanging in the Kakori Conspiracy Case is immortal, ‘Sarfaroshi ki tammana ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil mein hai.’ The desire for sacrifice is in our hearts, let us see how much strength there is in the arms of the killer.

Incidentally, the famous Kakori Case — when Indian revolutionaries daringly raided a train carrying treasury money near Kakori village to finance their activities — happened on the outskirts of Lucknow, Yogi Adityanath’s present-day capital of governance which is still nostalgically referred to as the City of Nawabs. Don’t get taken in by the crudeness of India’s political class in the present, Tehzeeb still holds in many pockets in this historical land.

India’s Partition was not kind to the language; it flickers, and, despite its cultural generosity, it burns predominantly in Muslim homes in India where Urdu adds to an identity already under question. The freezing out of Urdu plays to a gallery attempting to rewrite history pages, including the foundational journey of India’s independence and its primary stakeholders.

Mahatma Gandhi coined the colloquial ‘Hindustani, i.e., a correct mixture of Hindi and Urdu’, which — according to him — was for Hindustan. Today, when the great Mahatma’s pedestal is itself shaky, it is not surprising that the gravitas of his words and actions will almost be scorned.

Instead, from streets named after Mughal rulers to a language, as divisive rhetoric dismantles one brick of India’s history at a time, American writer Maya Angelou’s words remain timeless, ‘If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.’