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Friends,
I wish to thank Professor Akhtarul Wasey for having inviting me here
today. Jamia Millia is a prestigious Institution and I regard it a
great honour to be invited here to speak before you.
The topic for today’s talk is ‘What is
Urdu’? I have chosen this topic for a special reason which I would like
to mention.
Today our country, India, is facing great
difficulties, such as poverty, unemployment, price rise, casteism,
communalism, corruption, etc. It is, therefore, important for the
intellectuals to come forward now and show the correct path to the Indian
people for overcoming their difficulties.
Intellectuals are the eyes of society, and
without intellectuals a society is blind. You are a section of the
intellectuals of India, and therefore a heavy responsibility lies on you to
show to the Indian people the path by which they can overcome their problems
and advance forward. However, in order to do so, you first have to
clarify your own ideas and get a proper understanding about India and its
culture. How can you guide the people when you yourself are not clear
about these matters?
INDIA IS BROADLY A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS
I have mentioned in the recent judgment
given by me in Kailas & Others vs. State
of Maharashtra2011(1) JT 19 that India is broadly a country of
immigrants, and this explains its tremendous diversity. As I mentioned
in that judgment, while North America is a country of new immigrants where
people came mainly from Europe over the last four or five Centuries, India is
a country of old immigrants where people have been coming in for ten thousand
years or so. Probably about 92% people living in India
today are descendants of immigrants, who came mainly from the North-West, and
to a lesser extent from the North-East. Since this is a point of great
importance for the understanding of our country, it is necessary to go into
it in some detail.
People migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable areas. This is
natural because everyone wants to live in comfort. Before the coming of
modern industry there were agricultural societies everywhere, and India was a
paradise for these because agriculture requires level land, fertile soil,
plenty of water for irrigation etc. which was in abundance in India.
Why should anybody living in India migrate to, say, Afghanistan which has a
harsh terrain, rocky and mountainous and covered with snow for several months
in a year when one cannot grow any crop? Hence, almost all immigrations
and invasions came from outside into India (except those Indians who were
sent out during British rule as indentured labour, and the recent migration
of a few million Indians to the developed countries for job
opportunities). There is perhaps not a single instance of an invasion
from India to outside India.
India was a veritable paradise for pastoral
and agricultural societies because it has level & fertile land, hundreds
of rivers, forests etc. and is rich in natural resources. Hence for thousands
of years people kept pouring into India because they found a comfortable life
here in a country which was gifted by nature.
As the great Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri wrote:
“Sar zamin-e—hind par aqwaam-e-alam ke firaq
Kafile guzarte gae Hindustan banta gaya”
Which means –
“In the land of Hind, the Caravans of the peoples of
The world kept coming in and India kept getting formed”.
Who were the original inhabitants of India ?
At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original
inhabitants. However, this view has been considerably modified subsequently,
and now the generally accepted belief is that the original
inhabitants of India were the pre-Dravidian aborigines i.e. the
ancestors of the present tribals or adivasis (Scheduled Tribes).
It is for this reason that there is such
tremendous diversity in India. This diversity is a significant feature
of our country, and the only way to explain it is to accept that India is
largely a country of immigrants.
There are a large number of religions,
castes, languages, ethnic groups, cultures etc. in our country, which is due
to the fact that India is broadly a country of immigrants. Somebody is
tall, somebody is short, some are dark, some are fair complexioned, with all
kinds of shades in between, someone has Caucasian features, someone has
Mongoloid features, someone has Negroid features, etc. There are differences
in dress, food habits and various other matters.
We may compare India with China which is
larger both in population and in land area than India. China has a
population of about 1.3 billion whereas our population is roughly 1.15
billion. Also, China has more than twice our land area.
However, all Chinese have Mongoloid features; they have a common written
script (Mandarin Chinese) and 95% of them belong to one ethnic group, called
the Han Chinese. Hence there is a broad (though not
absolute) homogeneity in China.
On the other hand, as stated above, India
has tremendous diversity and this is due to the large scale migrations and
invasions into India over thousands of years. The various immigrants/invaders
who came into India brought with them their different cultures, languages,
religions, etc. which accounts for our tremendous diversity.
My friend Mr. Salman Khurshid, Hon’ble Union
Minister, has written a play ‘Babur Ki Aulad’ which was produced
recently. Now I request him to write another play which should be
called ‘Baahar ki aulad’, to depict India.
INDIAN CULTURE – CAN BROADLY BE CALLED THE SANSKRIT-URDU
CULTURE
As I have already mentioned, India is
broadly a country of immigrants, which explains its tremendous
diversity. The question now arises is whether these immigrants who came
into India have all preserved their original different identities, or a
common culture has emerged by their intermingling? In my opinion,
despite all our diversities, a common culture has emerged in India which may
broadly be called the Sanskrit-Urdu culture, which is the common culture of
India. This culture revolves around great two languages which our
country has produced, namely Sanskrit and Urdu.
I do not mean to denigrate or disparage the
other languages of India. Great literature has been written in several
of our languages. For example, in my opinion, the best prose in modern
India is in Bengali (particularly the works of the great Bengali writer
Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya). There has been also great literature in
Tamil (the ‘Tiruppavai’ of Andal is reminiscent of the poetry of Surdas and
Mirabai), Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayalam,
Kashmiri (see the verses of Habba Khatoon), etc. All languages in our
country deserve equal respect.
However, having said that, we must
understand that Sanskrit and Urdu stand on a different footing from these
other languages. Sanskrit and Urdu are our two great national cultural
languages (while other languages are regional).
There is a great misunderstanding about both Sanskrit and Urdu. Sanskrit is
often regarded as a language of rituals and Pooja Paath among Hindus,
although I have shown in my speech entitled ‘Sanskrit as a Language of
Science’ delivered in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as well as
in Banaras Hindu University (which you can see on Google under that caption)
that 95% of Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion or religious
rituals, and instead deals with philosophy, science, mathematics, medicine,
literature, grammar, interpretation, etc.
Similarly, there have been a lot of misconceptions about Urdu e.g. that it is
a foreign language or it is a language of Muslims alone.
I will speak on Sanskrit on some other day which Professor Akhtarul Warsey
may fix for that purpose. Today I will be speaking on Urdu.
As I have already mentioned, our country’s culture is the Sanskrit-Urdu Culture.
We have, therefore, to understand Urdu in order to understand our country.
TWO FALSE NOTIONS ABOUT URDU
Two false notions were propagated,
particularly after 1947 about Urdu by certain vested interests (1) that Urdu
is a foreign language, and (2) that Urdu is a language of Muslims alone.
The first idea is palpably false.
Arabic and Persian are no doubt foreign languages (though I have great
respect for them also, as I have great respect for all languages). But
Urdu is a language which is totally indigenous. It was born here in
India as the language of the Lashkar (camp) and of the market. In its
simplified form (as Khariboli or Hindustani) it is the language of the common
man in large parts of urban India. Its prominent figures all lived in
India, and they have made an outstanding contribution to our culture, dealing
with the problems of the people, sympathizing in their sorrows, and touching
the human heart. Only ignorant people can call Urdu a foreign language.
The second notion, that Urdu is a language
of Muslims alone, is also false. In fact upto the last generation in
our country Urdu was the language of all educated people, whether Hindu,
Muslim, Sikh or Christian, in large parts of urban India. In my own
family upto my father everyone was highly proficient in Urdu. It is
only from my generation that Urdu has disappeared, which I regard as unfortunate.
The notion that Urdu is a language of Muslims alone can only be attributed to
the policy of `divide and rule’. Certain vested interests wanted Hindus
and Muslims to fight with each other, and hence they give birth to the false
notion that Hindi is the language of Hindus while Urdu is the language of
Muslims. As a matter of fact the spoken language of the common man (in
urban areas) is Khariboli (or Hindustani), Urdu being Persianized Khariboli,
and Hindi being Sanskritized Khariboli.
Urdu has a national following in our country
as it is spoken in 13 States of the country, and is in the 8th Schedule to
the Constitution.
WHAT IS URDU ?
All of you gathered here today would be
lovers of Urdu poetry. In my opinion the best poetry in modern India is
in Urdu (the best prose, in my opinion, being in Bengali). But what is
Urdu?
I am sure that even many Professors in Urdu
Department or Urdu Poets will not be able to give the correct answer to this
question. Therefore, I will attempt to do so.
Urdu is the language which was created by the superimposition of some
features and vocabulary of the Persian language on a Hindustani (Khariboli)
foundation. Thus, Urdu is a language created by the combination of
two languages, Persian and Hindustani. It is for this reason that at
one time it was called `Rekhta’ which means hybrid*.
Since Urdu was created by the combination of
Persian and Hindustani, the question arises
whether Urdu is a special kind of
* Ghalib calls Urdu rekhta.
“Rekhta ke tumhi to ustaad nahin ghalib
Kahte hain agle zamaana me koi Mir bhi tha”
Persian or a special kind of Hindustani? The answer is that it is a
special kind of Hindustani, not a special kind of Persian. This needs
to be explained.
What determines the language to which a
sentence belongs is the verb used in it (and not the noun,
adjective, etc.). For example, if I say : “Mr. Ram, you and your wife aaiye tomorrow
night for dinner at my home at 8 p.m.” this sentence is a Hindi sentence and
not a English sentence, although 15 out of the 16 words used in it are in
English. Why? Because the verb (aaiye) used in it is a
Hindi word, not an English word.
In Urdu all verbs are in
simple, colloquial Hindi (which is called Hindustani or
Khariboli). Many of the nouns and adjectives in Urdu
are from Persian (or Arabic**), as are many of the forms of poetry e.g.
** Arabic words came into the Persian language after the conquest of Persia
by the Arabs. The great Persian poet Firdausi (author of Shahnama)
sought to remove Arabic words from Persian but he failed. In fact by
accepting foreign words a language becomes stronger, not weaker. For
example, English has become stronger by accepting many foreign words.
ghazal, masnavi, qaseeda, masriya, etc. but
the verb will always be from Hindustani. If the verb
is from Persian it would become a Persian sentence, not an Urdu sentence, and
if the verb is Arabic it would become an Arabic sentence.
We may take any Urdu sher (couplet) of any
Urdu poet and we will find that the verb is always in
simple Hindi (though many nouns and adjectives may be Persian or Arabic).
Thus Urdu is a special kind of Hindustani (or Khariboli), not a special kind
of Persian. I am emphasizing this because had Urdu been a special kind
of Persian it would have been a foreign language. The fact that it is a
special kind of Khariboli (or Hindustani) shows that it is a desi or
indigenous language. This answers the criticism of those who call Urdu
a foreign Language.
Arabic and Persian are foreign languages,
but Urdu is an indigenous language.
We must, now, first understand something
about Khariboli (or Hindustani) which is the foundation on which Urdu was
built.
WHAT IS KHARIBOLI ?
Khariboli is simple or spoken Hindi, as
contrasted to literary Hindi which is used by many writers and public
speakers***.
Khariboli is an urban language.
It is the first language of the common man in the cities of what is known as
the Hindi speaking belt (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, etc.) and is the second language in the
cities of many parts of the non-Hindi speaking belt, not only in India but
also in Pakistan.****
How did Khariboli come into existence?
***For instance, in Khariboli (or Hindustani) we say “udhar dekhiye”, while
in Hindi we say “udhar avlokan keejiye”.
****I may relate a personal
experience. I was traveling in a taxi from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh
to Gulbarga in Karnataka where I had to attend a function. The taxi
driver was a Telugu speaking person while the Professor of Gulbarga
University who came to fetch me was a Kannada speaking gentleman, but they
spoke to each other in Hindi. I was surprised, since both these persons
were South Indians, and I asked them why they were speaking in Hindi.
They said that that was because Hindi was the link language for them both.
Almost all cities in the world originated as market places (mandis).
This was only possible when the productive forces had developed to an extent
that people were producing more than they could themselves consume, and hence
the surplus had to be sold or exchanged. In other words, commodities
(i.e. goods for sale or exchange, and not for
self consumption) began to be produced.
Since the seller and the purchaser had to have a known place where the
transaction of sale and purchase could take place, market places (mandis)
were created, which later became cities.
Now the seller and purchaser must have a
common language, otherwise the transaction of sale would not be
possible. Hence Khariboli arose as that common language of the market.
To give an illustration, in Allahabad (where
I have mostly lived) Khariboli is spoken in the city, but in the rural areas
around Allahabad city the dialect spoken is Avadhi (in which Tulsidas wrote
his Ramcharitmanas). In Mathura city Khariboli is spoken, but in the
rural areas around Mathura Brijbhasha (the language of Surdas) is
spoken. In Benaras city or the other eastern cities of U.P. Khariboli
is spoken, but in the rural areas around these cities Bhojpuri is
spoken. In parts of northern Bihar Maithili is the rural dialect (in
which the great poet Vidyapati wrote) but in the cities there also Khariboli
is spoken. In Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh Khariboli is spoken in the
cities, but in the rural areas local dialects (e.g. Mewari amd Marwari in
Rajasthan) are spoken which an outsider cannot understand.
This shows that in vast areas of north India
the rural population speaks different dialects, but the urban
population had a common language, Khariboli. How did this
happen?
This happened because a vast common market had
been created in India (due to the development of the productive forces) even
before the coming of the Mughals. A trader traveling from Bihar or Madhya Pradesh could easily
sell his goods in a city in Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan or Punjab because
there was a common language, Khariboli, which both seller and purchaser knew
(apart from knowing their local dialects). Thus Khariboli is the common
language of the cities in large parts of India. Even in many parts of
the non-Hindi speaking belt Khariboli is understood and spoken as a second
language. Thus, if one goes to Kolkata or Bangalore or Gujarat or
Lahore or Karachi or even in many parts of south India he can converse in
Khariboli with people living in the cities (though there might be difficulty
in rural areas).
Having understood the nature of Khariboli,
we can now proceed to understand Urdu.
As I have already mentioned, Urdu is the
language created by Persian superimposition on a Khariboli foundation.
This, too needs to be explained.
ABOUT PERSIAN
For centuries Persian was the court language
of India. This was because Persian had been highly developed in Persia
by writers like Firdausi, Hafiz, Sadi, Roomi, Umar Khayyam, etc. as a
language of culture, grace and sophistication, and it spread to large parts
of the oriental world. Persian poets developed highly sophisticated
forms of poetry e.g. ghazal, qaseeda, masriya, rubaiyat, etc. Urdu
poetry is in a sense continuation of Persian poetry but in a totally
different setting and a different language.
Of all these forms, the ghazal is the most popular. It is in fact a
marvel of condensation, and most Urdu writers have used it in most of their
poetry. It is characterized by qaafiya, radeef, matla and maqta (see
their meanings on Google).
To explain, let us take the following verses
of the great Urdu poet Firaq :
“Har zarre par ek kaifiyat-e-neemshabi hai
ai sake-e-dauran yeh gunahon ki gharee hai
maaloom hai sairabiye sar chashma-e-haivan
bas tashnalabi tashnalabi tashnalabi hai”
Here ‘hai’ is the radeef, and neemshabi, gharee etc. are qaafiya. Thus
qaafiya precedes radeef. Radeef is the last word (or words) at the end
of a sentence, and is repeated, qaafiya is not a repetition but a rhyming
word.
The Mughals were Turks, not Persians, but
though their mother tongue was Turkish, they accepted Persian as the
court language as
it was more developed than Turkish.***** Thus, though Babar wrote his
autobiography, Tuzuk-e- Babri, in Turkish, his grandson Akbar got it
translated into Persian and called it Babarnama. His own biography,
Akbarnama, written by Abul Fazl is in Persian, and so is the autobiography of
his son Jehangir (called Jahangirnama) and the biography of Shahjehan (called
Shahjehanama).
This phenomenon of a foreign language being
accepted as the language of the upper class or the court is nothing
unique. For instance, French was the language of the Russian and German
(and
indeed much of European) aristocracy upto the 19TH Century. Thus
in Tolstoy’s `War and Peace’, we find that the Russian commanders (who were
all aristocrats) often spoke to each other in French, although their enemy,
Napoleon’s army, was French. Similarly English is the language of the
elite in India even today.
***** Akbar’s finance minister Raja Todarmal got all the revenue records
throughout the Mughal Empire written in Persian.
Persian was the court language of India for
several centuries, and hence it exerted its influence on the common language
of the cities, which as already mentioned above, was Khariboli.
How, then was Urdu created? This is a
fascinating question, and I will try to answer it.
CREATION OF URDU
While the Mughal Emperors from Akbar to Aurangzeb were strong rulers, having
control over large parts of India, their successors, the later Mughals, who
ruled from 1707 (when Aurangzeb died) to 1857 (when the last Mughal Emperor,
Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed), were mere phantoms or
shadows of the
departed glory of their ancestors.
Thus it is said :
“Saltanat-e-Shah Alam
Az Dilli ta Palam”
i.e. “the Empire of Shah Alam extends from
Delhi to Palam”.
These later Mughals were Emperors only in
name, they were in fact pauperized, they had lost their Empire to the
Britishers, the Marathas, and their Governors, who had really became
independent rulers (like the Nawabs of Awadh or Nizam of Hyderabad). In their
reign the court language gradually ceased to be Persian and instead became
Urdu.
Why did the court language which was Persian
in the reign of the great Mughals become Urdu in the reign of the later
Mughals? This was because the later Mughals were not real Emperors but
had become nearer to commoners or paupers with all the difficulties of the
common man. Hence they had to take recourse to a language nearer the
common man. Why then did their court language not become Khariboli,
which was the language of the common man in the cities? That was
because these later Mughals, and their Lieutenants, the Nawabs and Wazirs,
while having become pauperized retained their dignity, culture and self
respect. They still prided themselves in being Shahzade-Timuria i.e.
descendants of Timur, the great conqueror, (who was Babar’s grand father’s
great-grandfather) and descendants of the great Mughals. Thus despite
having become paupers they were not prepared to be treated as
commoners. Hence while they gave up Persian and adopted Khariboli, this
was not the Khariboli of the common man but Khariboli of a special type,
borrowing from the sophistication, polish and culture of the Persian language.
In other words they spoke a Khariboli which was coupled with the graceful
features, sophistication and some vocabulary of Persian.
Urdu is thus the language of aristocrats who
had become pauperized, but who retained their dignity, pride and respect.
The well known story of Urdu’s greatest poet
Ghalib is that despite being in great financial distress he refused a job
simply because when he went to offer his services no one was there to receive
him.
The dignity of Urdu speaking people is best
exemplified in the following lines of Josh :
“Hashr mein bhi khusrawana shaan se jaayenge hum
Aur agar purshish na hogi, to palat aayenge hum ”
(Even on judgment day I will go in style
And if not given respect, will turn back)
DUAL NATURE OF URDU
Thus Urdu is both an aristocratic
language as well as the commoner’s language. It is the commoner’s
language because in fact the later Mughals had become almost (though not
quite) commoners, having lost their Empire. It is at the same time not
the common man’s language, since the common man’s language is Hindustani, not
Urdu. The later Mughals, despite being pauperized refused to be treated
like paupers and insisted on being treated with respect as aristocrats. Urdu
has the graces, polish and sophistication of an aristocratic language.
Thus Urdu has a dual nature; it is both the common man’s
language (aawaam ki zubaan) and also the aristocrat’s language (the common
man’s language being Hindustani or Khariboli). This may sound a
paradox, but it is true, and in fact this is the beauty of Urdu, that while
it is the language of the common man, expressing all the problems, worries,
sorrows and hopes of the common man, it is also a language of grace, polish,
sophistication and dignity.
It has been mentioned above that Urdu is
basically a combination of two languages, Hindustani (or simple Hindi) and
Persian, the former being the common man’s language, while the latter being
the aristocrat’s language. It has also been mentioned that Urdu is a
special kind of Hindustani, not a special kind of Persian (because the verbs
in it are all in Hindustani). Continuing this analysis it may be stated
that the content of Urdu i.e. the feelings and ideas
expressed therein are that of the common man, but its form of
expression is aristocratic. In other words, Urdu expresses the
troubles, sorrows, anxieties and hopes and aspirations of the common man, but
its style (andaz-e-bayan) is not that of a common man but that of an
aristocrat.
For instance, the greatest Urdu poet Ghalib
had a horror of the commonplace in the mode of expression in poetry.
Regarding himself an aristocrat, he had an intense desire to be different
from the common masses, and his poetry is marked by its originality and
unconventionality. Ghalib was of the firm view that the language of
poetry should not be the same as the spoken language. Hence he often
expresses his thoughts not directly but indirectly, by hints and suggestions.
The same is true of many other Urdu
poets. They often express their thoughts and feelings not in simple,
direct language but by insinuations, allusions, indications, and in a
roundabout way, the aim being to appear sophisticated and elitist, instead of
being common place. This sometimes makes the work difficult to
understand (the great Urdu critic and biographer Hali regarded one-third of
Ghalib’s verses too recondite to be regarded as being in Urdu), and sometimes
several meanings can be attributed to the same verse.
However, the aristocratic style and
sophistication (andaaz-e-bayan) of Urdu is what makes it powerful, and
enables the emotion and thoughts of the common man to be expressed forcefully
and robustly. Hindi does not have that power as it lacks that degree of
sophistication.
REPLACEMENT OF PERSIAN BY URDU
As long as there were strong Mughal Emperors
in India (i.e. upto 1707 when Aurangzeb died), Persian was the court
language, and such was its domination that Urdu was never given
respectability, and could never become the court language in North India, but
instead found its haven or sanctuary in South India and Gujarat (where it was
the language of the elite). In a sense Urdu originated in South India
and became popular there during the reign of the great Mughals, receiving
patronage in the Southern kingdoms of Golkunda, Bijapur, Ahmednagar, etc.
where it became the court language. Thus it is interesting to note that
Urdu became the court language in South India and Gujarat during the reign of
the Great Mughals but it could never displace Persian in the North as long
there were strong Mughals.
Urdu got respect in South India because there it was a foreign language (the
local languages being Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, etc.). And as I have
already mentioned, the elite in a society often prefers to speak a foreign
language (to distinguish itself from the common people).
In fact at that time Urdu was frowned upon
in the North and looked down upon as an inferior language, the ideal language
being regarded Persian, while in South India and Gujarat it became widespread
(among the elite) and got patronage. In this connection it is
interesting to note that when the great South Indian Urdu poet Vali
Dakhkhini****** came to Delhi in 1700 A.D. in the reign of Aurangzeb, he
found that his fame had preceded him and he was very popular in Delhi because
his poetry could be understood as it was written in Urdu which the common man
of Delhi could understand, while the Delhi poets were all writing in Persian,
which the common man could not understand. Vali, though a South Indian
is often regarded as the father of Urdu because he revealed to the Delhi
poets the possibility of writing poetry in Urdu, a language which the common
man could understand, and he made Urdu respectable in North India.
It was only when the era of the later
Mughals began (after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707) that Persian was
gradually displaced by Urdu as the Court language
(for the reason already mentioned above), though this was done very
grudgingly,******* and an example
****** Some people regard him as the father or founder of Urdu. There
is a dispute about his place of origin, some regarding him as Gujarati.
******* The firmans of the Mughal Emperors, including those of the later
Mughals, were always in Persian, never in Urdu. Thus, when I went to
Chamba in Himachal Pradesh and visited the museum there, which was the former
palace of the Hindu Kings, I found the firmans of the Mughal Emperors
recognizing the Chamba kings all in Persian, not Urdu.of this is Ghalib who
preferred his Persian poetry and looked down upon his Urdu poetry (though his
greatness is entirely due to the latter). Thus, in a letter to his
friend Munshi Shiv Narain Aram Ghalib writes “My friend, how can I write in
Urdu? Is my standing so low that this should be expected of me?”
Thus, writing in Urdu was regarded infra dig, and all respectable writers at
that time wrote in Persian.
I may give another example. My
ancestor who came from Kashmir around 1775, Pandit Mansa Ram Katju, has made
an entry in the register of the Panda of Kurukshetra which reads :
“batalaash-e-maash-aamadam
which means “I have come in quest
of bread” i.e. looking for employment (which he got in the
court of the Nawab of Jaora in Western Madhya Pradesh).
The interesting thing is that he has written
in Persian, not Urdu.
It was Persian which was used by the
educated class in those days for writing. Urdu may have been the spoken
language, but the written language was Persian.
Ghalib who prided himself in his Turkish ancestry, was very reluctant to
write in Urdu, and preferred Persian. Even his early Urdu poetry is
highly Persianized and hence difficult to understand, and his best verses are
his later ones when he began using more Khariboli.
The collapse of the Mughal Empire on the
death of Aurangzeb in 1707 was a blessing in disguise for Urdu, for only then
could it displace Persian as the Court language. The heydays of Urdu
was in the days of the later Mughals, and the high noon was in the time of
the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Right upto 1947 Urdu was the language of the
courts, and of the educated people in large parts of India. At the same
time, due to its dual nature, it was also (as Khariboli) the common man’s
language in urban areas.
Being the common man’s language in large
parts of urban India Urdu borrowed from every language, and never objected to
words of other languages.
URDU IS LOVED BY THE COMMON MAN IN INDIA
Since Urdu was the common man’s language it
was loved by the common man, and is loved even today.
This can be demonstrated by three facts :
(1) Even today Hindi film songs are in Urdu, for the voice of the heart will
be in one’s own language, however, much some people may try to suppress
it. I remember when I was young my generation used to sing -
“ae
dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho”
or
“dil
dhoondata hai phir wahi fursat ke raat din”
and we never realized at that time that these film songs are verses from the
great poet Ghalib.
We also sang ‘Jinhe naaz hai hind
par wo kahaan hain’ which is the simplified form of Sahir
Ludhianvi’s verse ‘Sanaa khwaan-e-taqdees-e-mashrik kahaan hain’ (song in the
Hindi film ‘Pyaasa’). Today the young generation sings ‘Munni
badnaam hui’ and ‘Sheela ki jawaani’, which I regard as
nonsense.
(2) In railway bookstalls the books which get sold are works of Ghalib,
Mir, Faiz, Josh, Firaq, Hali, Dag, Majaz, Zauq, etc. (nowadays in Devnagri
script) and not the works of Hindi poets.
We are told that Hindi, not Urdu, is the language of the people. Then
why are works of Hindi poets like Mahadevi Verma or Sumitra Nandan Pant not
sold in railway bookstalls, where the common people buy books, and instead
Hindi speaking people buy Urdu poetry books?
(3) Hindi writers who have an Urdu background e.g. Premchand, Kishan Chand,
Rajender Singh Bedi, Prof. Gopi Chand and Malik Ram are most accepted even in
the Hindi world.
Urdu is loved by the people of India because
it has grown among the people. Urdu literature is a literature of
protest, protest against the afflictions of the common man and against
injustice. We may consider this poem of Faiz (who, with Ghalib, is my
favourite Urdu poet):
“Nisaar main teri galiyon pe ae watan ki jahaan
chali hai rasm ki koi na sar utha ke chale
jo koi chahnewala tawaaf ko nikle
nazar chura ke chale jism-o-jaan bachaa ke chale”
The above is an example of protest against
despotism and tyranny during martial law in Pakistan.
Urdu is also the language of
patriotism. Everyone knows the famous lines of Ram Prasad Bismil :
“Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai”
Urdu poetry has protested against ritualism,
formalism, and oppressive or antiquated social customs (in this sense it can
be said to be a successor to Kabir’s poetry, though of course it is much more
sophisticated). Thus Ghalib writes :
“Nahin kuch subha-o-junnaar ke phande mein geerayi
wafadaari mein sheikh-o-barhaman ki aazmaaish hai”
i.e. “The amulet (of a Muslim) or the sacred
thread (of the Hindu) is not very material. The test of a Sheikh or
Brahman is his loyalty (to his ideals or principles)”.
We may here also refer to the short stories
of Saadat Hasan Manto, particularly about the horrors of partition e.g.
`Thanda Gosht’, ‘Tithwaal ka kutta’, ‘Khol do’, etc.
Being the language of the common man in
modern India Urdu is almost entirely secular. Some of the greatest Urdu
poets are almost anti-religious.
Thus the great poet Mir writes :
“Mir ke deen-o-mazhab ko tum poonchte kya ho unne to
kashka kheencha dair mein baitha kab ka tark islaam kiya”
Similarly Ghalib writes :
“Imaan mujhe roke hai to kheenche hai mujhe kufr
kaaba mere peeche hai, kaleesa mere aage”
i.e. “Faith is stopping me, while atheism is
pulling me forward. Kaaba is behind me, the Church is in front.”
Here the word `Kaleesa’ only ostensibly
means `Church’, but its real meaning is modern civilization. Thus
Ghalib, like many Urdu writers, is opposed to feudal civilization and
commends modernism.
Urdu literature has Sufi influence.
The Sufis were the liberals among the Muslims, and not the bigoted.
They spread the message of universal love among all humans, whatever their
religion, caste, etc. Also since Sufis communicated with the laity in
the common man’s language, they contributed to the growth of Urdu.
Among the modern Urdu poets Sahir Ludhianvi
is outspokenly atheistic. Consider the following lines :
“Aqaayad vaham hai mazhab khyaal khaam hai saaqi
Azal se zahen-e-insaan bastaa vaham hai saaqi
which means :
“Creeds are a delusion and religions merely false notions; From the
beginning man’s mind has been a slave to superstitions”
and again:
“bezaar hai kanisht-o-kaleesa se ek jahaan
Saudagaraan-e-din ki saudagari ki khair
which means :
“The world is sick of temples and churches;
pray for the safety of the traffickers in religion”
I venture to submit that no poetry
in the world has expressed the voice and sorrows of the human heart in a manner
Urdu has done. Consider the sheer pathos in these simple words of
Ghalib :
“Ranj se khoogar hua insaan to mit jaata hai ranj
mushkilen itni pari mujhpar ki aasaan ho gayeen”
i.e. “When a person is habituated of sorrows
Then sorrows disappear So many difficulties fell upon me
That everything became easy”.
Some of the Urdu writers like Mir and Nazir
have written beautiful poems on Holi, Diwali, Raakhi and other Hindu
festivals and customs, which shows that Urdu was not the language of any
particular religion. A large number of Hindus have made their names in
the front ranks of Urdu literature e.g. Firaq, Chakbast, Ratan Lal Sarshar,
Ram Prasad Bismil, etc. In Vali’s poetry the words Ganga, Jamuna,
Krishna, Ram, Saraswati, Sita, Lakshmi, etc. appear frequently.
PARTITION OF INDIA AND URDU
The greatest damage to Urdu was done by the
Partition of India in 1947. Since then Urdu was branded in India as a
foreign language, as a language of Muslims alone, so much so that even
Muslims stopped studying Urdu to show their `patriotism’ and solidarity with
their Hindu brethren. After 1947 Persian words which were in common
usage were systematically sought to be replaced by Sanskrit words which were
not in common use. For example ‘zila’ was changed to ‘janapad’.
In a case which I was hearing in the Allahabad High Court an application
entitled “Pratibhu Avedan Patra” was moved before me. I asked the
learned counsel what is the meaning of this word “Pratibhu”. He said it
meant a bail application. I told him he should have used the words
`bail’ or `zamanat’ which all understand instead of the word ` Pratibhu’
which no one understands, not even Khariboli speakers. On another
occasion when I was on a morning walk I saw a board on which were written the
words “Pravaran Kendra”. I could not understand the meaning, and I
looked further up where in English it was written `Selection Centre’.
In my opinion the words used in Hindi should have been `Bharti Daftar’ or
`Rozgar Daftar’ instead of “Pravaran Kendra” which nobody understands.
This policy of hatefully removing Persian
words which were in common use in Khariboli and replacing them by Sanskrit
words which are not in common use resulted in creating an unnecessarily
Sanskritized Hindi which the common man often finds it difficult to
understand. In our Courts of law it is often difficult to understand
the Hindi used in Government Notifications. Also this policy of hatred
for Persian words resulted in almost genocide for Urdu.
The famous Urdu critic, Shamshur Rahmaan
Farooqui, in an interview to Dr. Athar Farooqui, said “It is a sad thing for
me, just as it is for others like me, that Urdu literature has ceased to be a
living reality for our generation. It has become dead and buried in
books.”
With respect, I cannot agree.
Despite all hostile efforts the language
which speaks the voice of the heart can never be stamped out as long as
people have hearts. The evidence that Urdu lives in the hearts of
Indians even today can be seen from the surprisingly large crowds which
`mushairas’ attract, from all sections of society and in all parts of the
country, north, west, south and east. If Urdu is a foreign language it
is very surprising that the people of India love it so much, they buy Urdu
poetry books, sing Urdu songs, etc.
I suggest that the Devanagri script be also
used in publication of works of Urdu poets, (as was done by Prakash Pandit
and others) since that will enable those who do not know the Persian script
to read it. In my opinion one should not be too rigid about the script.*******
Some ‘Progressive’ writers wanted that
all Urdu should be written in Devanagri script, but I do not agree with this
view. A flexible approach should be adopted leaving it to the
individual to choose whatever script he wants.
What can be done is that in the left hand page the text can be published in
the Persian script, while on the right hand page it can be published in the
Devanagri script, with meanings of difficult words explained below in simple
Hindi (Hindustani).
The great Urdu writer Josh once said that Urdu suffered badly after 1947
because it was cut away from bread and butter. This is true. One
main reason why people stopped learning and reading Urdu was because it would
not help them in their livelihood (as it did before 1947).
In this connection I have a suggestion to
make. While a Judge of Allahabad High Court I had given a judgment,Ramesh
Upadhyaya vs. State of U.P., Writ Petition
No.29290 of 1990 decided on 18.1.1993 in which I recommended that Sanskrit
and Urdu, our two great cultural languages, be made compulsory in all schools
for five years (from class 3 to class 8). As yet this recommendation
has not been accepted, but if it is accepted it will mean that thousands of
people knowing Urdu will get jobs in schools in many parts of India. In
this way Urdu will get connected to bread and butter, and also, our children
will get a foundation of this great cultural language, which they can later
build upon if they wish. They will thereby also learn the Persian
script.
All lovers of Urdu can request the Central
and State Governments to implement my recommendations. I am attaching
that judgment to this paper.
I would like to appeal to Urdu (and Hindi)
writers to use simple language. Often on reading some Hindi or Urdu
work one finds it difficult to understand it. But if what is written is
not even understandable what use is there of such literature ? Today
the Indian people are facing terrible problems like poverty, unemployment,
price rise etc. Literature must contribute to the people’s struggles in
the face of these problems, and that it can do by using simple language which
the people can understand, like the war time speeches of Winston Churchill,
or the stories of Premchand and Sharat Chandra.
It must be remembered that Mir and Ghalib
wrote for select gatherings comprising of aristocrats and the educated
elite. In the modern age Urdu writers must write for the masses, and
for that they must use simpler language.
I also appeal to my brother Judges in all
Court in India to quote Urdu poets on appropriate occasions in some of their
judgments, as this will give encouragement to Urdu.
In this connection I may mention that Mr.
Justice Mahmood, the celebrated Judge of the Allahabad High Court of the 19th
Century often quoted from Urdu poetry e.g.
“Jo chup rahegi zubaan-e-khanjar
Lahoo pukarega aasteen ka”
He used the above couplet in a judgment
while deciding a murder appeal.
Why cannot our other brother and sister
Judges do the same? I sometimes hear shairi in Parliamentary speeches,
but never in Court judgments.
In the end I would like to quote a sher
(couplet) from one of my favourite Urdu poets, Faiz :
“Gulon mein rang bhare bade-naubahar chale
Chale bhi aao ki gulshan mein kaarobar chale”
What does this sher mean?
Ostensibly it means :
“Among the flowers the coloured breeze of a new spring is
blowing,
Come forward, so that the garden may function.”
In Urdu poetry, however, many shers have an
inner meaning, apart from the ostensible one.
In my opinion the above sher really means
that the objective conditions in our country are inviting the patriotic
people in India to come forward now, so that the country, which is facing
huge problems, may move forward.
********
******* Urdu is
written in the Persian (not Arabic) script. There are some differences
between the Persian and Arabic scripts, but it is not necessary to go into
this here.
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