TRAGEDY OF URDU IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

Pakistan Journal of History and Culture Vol. 32: No. 2: 2011: 1-40

This article describes how Urdu became a language of schooling and, to a lesser extent, vocational training during British rule in India. The areas focused upon are the present-day Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab. The teaching of Urdu as well as Hindi facilitated the mobilization of the antagonistic Muslim and Hindu communal identities which led eventually to the partition of India. One part of education was the creation of pedagogical literature in Urdu which attempted to supplant the existing textual material which came to be regarded as decadent, erotic or frivolous. The new reformist canonical Urdu prose was reformist and its aim was to create a sober, puritanical, responsible and religious Muslim character imbued with Victorian values.

This article describes how Urdu became a language of schooling and, to a lesser extent, vocational training during British rule in India. The areas focused upon are the present-day Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab. The teaching of Urdu as well as Hindi facilitated the mobilization of the antagonistic Muslim and Hindu communal identities which led eventually to the partition of India. One part of education was the creation of pedagogical literature in Urdu which attempted to supplant the existing textual material which came to be regarded as decadent, erotic or frivolous. The new reformist canonical Urdu prose was reformist and its aim was to create a sober, puritanical, responsible and religious Muslim character imbued with Victorian values.

The Anthropology and Sociology Journal VIRAJES, 2022

The Urdu language, alternatively known as Hindustani, enjoyed the status of a lingua franca in the Indian subcontinent due to the fact that it was a common medium of expression used by Indians regardless of their faith. However, around the mid-nineteenth century, mutations on the Indian scene were to pose a challenge to this status which rendered this language an exclusively Islamic one. Therefore, this paper seeks to highlight the process of this transition-that is, from a common language used by all to a communal one-as well as the motivating forces behind such a change which, ultimately, led to the fragmentation of the country by the mid-twentieth century.

PalArch's Journal of Archeology of Egypt / Egyptology, 2020

The Urdu speaking populace's linguistic aspiration backed by Articles 29 and 30 of India's Constitution of India, 1950. The protection of the linguistic minority was ensured through the National Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities. Urdu was recognized as one of the languages under the eighth schedule of India's Constitution, 1950. It is recognized as an official language in many states of India. There is no research in identifying the gap between the constitutional ideal and reality in inculcating Urdu languages officially and non-officially in India among the spoken linguistic minority. But the Indian Constitution is not a self-enforcing document and requires the executive action and substantive infrastructure for compulsory educations in the Urdu language and mother tongue. However, despite the rise of the Muslim population, the Urdu speaking population did not rise proportionately over the last six decades. The paper takes a legal stance on the constitutional status of Urdu in India.

2017