Last week, several new public signboards came up in Jammu carrying area names in a third script, alongside the usual Devanagari for Hindi and Roman for English.
This was “Namey Dogra Akhar” — the script of the Dogri language, primarily spoken in Jammu.
Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language, a major branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi, and belongs to the Western Pahari group, a cluster of related languages found mainly in the western Himalayas.
Dogri is primarily spoken by the Dogras, the original inhabitants of Jammu and Kashmir’s Jammu division, besides smaller groups in the adjoining states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
According to the 2011 census, Dogri was the primary language of nearly 2.6 million people in India. It was recognised as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India under the Eighth Schedule in 2003 and declared one of the official languages of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir in 2020.
What is Namey Dogra Akhar?
Namey Dogra Akhar is a modified version of Takri, the original Dogri language script that had been used until the reign of Maharaja Gulab Singh.
The alphabet of the original Takri script.
Gulab Singh was the first Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, which, at the time, also included areas such as Gilgit, Skardu and Hunza that are in present-day Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. As he devoted his energies to expanding the boundaries of his empire up to Tibet, he found little time to promote and develop the Takri script. He abdicated the throne owing to poor health in 1846.
How did Namey Dogra Akhar come into being?
Gulab Singh’s son, Ranbir Singh, who ascended the throne in 1856, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian languages.
Known for his cordial relations with the British, he introduced several reforms including the compilation of the civil and criminal laws into the famous Ranbir Penal Code.
During his rule, it was felt that transcription of official orders and other documents in Takri script was not possible owing to the absence of vowel signs. To rectify this, he asked writers to borrow the vowels from Devenagari.
The Dogri alphabet. The vowels are grouped at the top.
This led to the emergence of the Namey Dogra Akhar — literally, new Dogri script — in administrative work, apart from Persian, which was already in use, said Archana Kesar, former dean of Research Studies and of the Arts Faculty of Jammu University. Kesar has also headed the university’s post graduate departments of Dogri and Punjabi.
When did the use of this new script start declining?
After the death of Maharaja Ranbir Singh on September 12, 1885, his son Pratap Singh came to power.
Pratap Singh was known for implementing a wide range of reforms — education, connectivity infrastructure, farm, land, labour and health.
He also took a fateful decision that would begin the decline of the script. Much of the official work then used to be done in Persian and Namey Dogra Akhar. To simplify administrative work, he replaced Persian with Urdu as the official language of Jammu & Kashmir as it was widely used among the local population. The Dogri script, however, continued to be used by many locals for several years.
The next blow
Maharaja Pratap Singh died issueless, and his nephew Hari Singh became the next ruler of Jammu and Kashmir in 1926.
Hari Singh, too, introduced several reforms, such as creating a written constitution for the state, making primary education compulsory, prohibiting child marriage and opening up places of worship to people considered to be low caste.
Amid these reforms, the British pushed for English in official work, while people in the Dogra heartland wanted Hindi to be used. Hari Singh sought to balance these competing demands by promoting the Devanagari and Roman scripts alongside the Perso-Arabic script used for Urdu.
Revival of language, rather than script
In 1944, the Dogri Sanstha, a literary organisation, adopted the Devanagari script to popularise Dogri literature. While this helped Dogri gain recognition from the Sahitya Akademi in 1969, it also contributed to the eventual decline of Namey Dogra Akhar.
Subsequent years saw efforts to popularise the language, but not the script.
In 1971, the University of Jammu established a Dogri Research Cell which later got upgraded into a full fledged Dogri department with Master of Arts and PhD courses. The language was introduced as a formal subject in degree colleges affiliated with the university in 1987. At all these places, the language has been taught in Devanagari script.
In 1990, a Dogri Action Committee led by Dogri poet Ved Pal Deep held demonstrations to get Dogri introduced in schools. Two years later, an umbrella group called Dogri Sangharsh Morcha formally launched an agitation to get Dogri included in the Eighth Schedule.
After years of struggle, it was introduced at the primary level as a third language in 2002. In December the following year, the Union government included the language in the Eighth Schedule. Its script, however, remained Devanagari.
Campaign for the script
The move to revive Namey Dogra Akhar was started a few years ago by civil society members in Jammu such as Dr Kasturi Lal Gupta, the former principal of the Government Medical College, Jammu. After retirement, Dr Gupta led an initiative to promote the Dogri language and its script.
He began displaying, on his own, boards written in Namey Dogra Akhar at religious places and cremation grounds nearly three years ago. He later approached the Jammu Municipal Corporation and got signboards written in Namey Dogra Akhar installed at various places. One cannot survive without one’s own language and its own script, Dr Gupta said, adding that they would soon start holding classes in Dogri script.
A signboard at Jammu Tawi railway station displays its name in Namey Dogra Akhar script. (Arun Sharma) 
The alphabet of the original Takri script.
The Dogri alphabet. The vowels are grouped at the top.
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