Knowledge Nugget: Urdu and the history behind it — All you need to know for UPSC

Why in the news?

Recently, the Supreme Court has upheld the use of Urdu on the signboard of a municipal council building in Maharashtra in Varshatai w/o Sanjay Bagade vs State Of Maharashtra case. The court has said that language is culture and must not become a cause for dividing people, and Urdu “is the finest specimen of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, or the Hindustani tehzeeb”.

“Language is not religion. Language does not even represent religion. Language belongs to a community, to a region, to a people, and not to a religion,” said the judgment.

Key Takeaways:

1. According to the Urdu Language experts, the origin of the Urdu language took place in India several centuries back, and the names of three places (all in India) are quoted in the historical references where this language had developed and flourished with different names.

2. It is generally believed that Urdu was born in the army camps of Delhi as a language that borrowed words from different languages so that soldiers from different parts could easily communicate with each other. Noted critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, however, disagrees and maintains that it is the language which was spoken by the inhabitants of a neighbourhood in Mughal Delhi, which, because of its elevated position, was called Urdu-e-Moalla-e-Shahjahanabad [Exalted City of Shahjahanabad].

3. Ameer Khusro, in his book ‘Ghurrat-ul- Kamal’ had written that Masood Lahori (Masood Saad Salman), a renowned poet who was born in Lahore in the 11th century, had composed poetry in Hindvi (Urdu), which is also called Dehlavi. This shows that it originated very much from Punjab, as Lahore was the part of greater Punjab only before partition, according to Prof. Ali Abbas of Punjab University. He said that before it was called Urdu, it was familiar with other names, including Hindustani, Hindavi, Dehlavi, and Rekhta.

4. Experts said that as per the historical references, after its origin in Punjab, Urdu developed and flourished in Delhi during the period of the ‘Delhi Sultanate.’ It also flourished in part of Haryana state and some states in the South, where it was developed in the form of ‘Dakhni (Deccani) language’.

5. “Even Golkonda ruler Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah, a great scholar of Urdu, Persian, and Telugu, has a credit of being the first Saheb-e-Dewan (Urdu Poet) and credited to develop ‘Hindustani’ into a new version,” he added.

6. Saif Mahmood wrote in a 2019 Indian Express article that “the spoken language of the people of the Urdu-Hindi belt has always been Hindustani — a mix of Urdu and Hindi. No one has ever used either Sanskritised Hindi words or Persianised or Arabicised Urdu words in their conversations; and till the mid-20th century, the language was written in both Nastalikh or Urdu script and Devanagri or Hindi script.”

Important facts:

📍The first Urdu newspaper, Jam-i-Jahan-Numa, was published on March 27, 1822. The weekly was launched by Harihar Dutta from Kolkata.

📍The Urdu press, the voice of revolution during colonial rule, was instrumental in the promulgation of the Vernacular Press Act, 1877. It coined the war cry of the freedom struggle,” Inqilab Zindabad”, which is still the slogan of dissent.

📍Maulvi Muhammad Baqir (1780-1857), a Urdu journalist, was the first to lay down his life for the nation. He started a Urdu newspaper, ‘Delhi Urdu Akhbar’, dedicated to the nationalist cause in the wake of the revolt of 1857. After the revolt broke out on 10 May 1857, Baqir renamed the paper as ‘Akhbar-us-Zafar’ (Paper of Zafar) to pay tribute to the leader of the revolt.

BEYOND THE NUGGET: Official Language

1. English, alongside Hindi, is one of the two official languages of the central government. Urdu is among the 15 Indian Languages written on the Indian Currency notes. It is one of the official languages in states and union territories like Kashmir, Telangana, UP, Bihar, New Delhi, and West Bengal. In Punjab, all old records in the Revenue Department are available in Urdu only.

2. According to the 2001 Census, India had a total of 122 major languages, including the 22 scheduled languages, and a total of 234 mother tongues. Urdu was the sixth most spoken scheduled language of India. It is spoken by at least a part of the population in all States and Union Territories, except perhaps in our North-Eastern States, said the judgement.

3. Articles 344(1) and 351 of the Constitution contain provisions relating to the Eighth Schedule. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution includes the following 22 official languages: (1) Assamese, (2) Bengali. (3) Gujarati. (4) Hindi. (5) Kannada; (6) Kashmiri; (7) Konkani; (8) Malayalam; (9) Manipuri; 10) Marathi; (11) Nepali; (12) Oriya; (13) Punjabi, (14 ) Sanskrit, (15) Sindhi, (16) Tamil, (17) Telugu, (18 )Urdu, (19) Bodo; (20) Santhali; (21) Maithili; and (22) Dogri.

4. Clause 1 of Article 343 (“Official language of the Union”) says “The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script”, and “The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals.”

5. Article 343(2) says that “for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement”. The Constitution of India commenced, or came into force, on January 26, 1950.

6. Under Article 343(3), “Parliament may by law provide for the use, after the said period of fifteen years, of— (a) the English language, or (b) the Devanagari form of numerals, for such purposes as may be specified in the law.”

Post read question

Consider the following languages :

1. Urdu

2. Kannada

3. Nepali

Which of the above is/are mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution?

(a) 1 and 3 only

(b) 3 only

(c) 2 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3

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