Hindi-Urdu controversy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Status change of languages
Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... replaces Persian Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...	1837
Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi... and Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... granted equal status	1900
Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... declared sole national language in Pakistan	1948
Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi... granted official precedence over Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... in the Republic of India	1950

The Hindi–Urdu controversy is an ongoing dispute—dating back to the 19th century—regarding the establishment of a single standard language

Standard language

A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...

in certain areas of north and northwestern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

; while the debate was officially settled by government order in 1950, some resistance remains. The present notion among Muslims about this dispute is that Hindus abandoned Urdu Language, whereas Hindus believe that Urdu is an artificially created Language during Muslim rule.

Hindi and Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

are literary register

In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...

s of the Khariboli
Khariboli
Khariboli , also Khari Boli, Khadiboli, Khadi Boli or simply Khari, is a Western Hindi dialect spoken mainly in the rural surroundings of Delhi, the northern areas of Western Uttar Pradesh and the southern areas of Uttarakhand in India...

dialect of the Hindi languages

Hindi languages

The Hindi languages, also known as Madhya and the Central Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages, is a subset of the varieties of Hindi spoken across northern India that descend from the Madhya prakrits, and includes the official languages of India and Pakistan, Hindi and Urdu...

spoken as a mother tongue by about 45% of India's population, mostly in modern North and Central India. A Persianized variant of Khariboli, known variously as Urdu, began to take shape during the Delhi Sultanate

Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...

(1206-1526 AD) and Mughal Empire

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire ,‎ or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...

(1526–1858 AD) in South Asia

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

. The British East India company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

replaced Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

with Urdu written in Perso-Arabic script

Perso-Arabic script

The Persian or Perso-Arabic alphabet is a writing system based on the Arabic script. Originally used exclusively for the Arabic language, the Arabic alphabet was adapted to the Persian language, adding four letters: , , , and . Many languages which use the Perso-Arabic script add other letters...

as the official standard of Hindi-speaking Northern provinces of modern day India in addition to English.

The last few decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the eruption of the Hindi–Urdu controversy in North-Western provinces

North-Western Provinces

The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India which succeeded the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and existed in one form or another from 1836 until 1902, when it became the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh .-Area:The province included all...

and Oudh with "Hindi" and "Urdu" protagonists advocating the official use of Hindustani with the Devanagari

Devanagari

Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

script or with the Persian script, respectively. Hindi movements advocating the growth of and official status for Devanagari were established in Northern India. Babu Shiva Prasad and Madan Mohan Malaviya

Madan Mohan Malaviya

Madan Mohan Malaviya was an Indian educationist, and freedom fighter notable for his role in the Indian independence movement and his espousal of Hindu nationalism...

were notable early proponents of this movement. This, consequently, led to the development of Urdu movements defending Urdu's official status; Syed Ahmed Khan

Syed Ahmed Khan

Javad-ud Daula, Arif Jang, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, KCSI , commonly known as Sir Syed, was an Indian educator and politician, and an Islamic reformer and modernist...

was one of its noted advocates.

In 1900, the Government issued a decree granting symbolic equal status to both Hindi and Urdu which was opposed by Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s and received with jubilation by Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

s. Hindi and Urdu started to diverge linguistically, with Hindi drawing on Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

as the primary source for formal and academic vocabulary, often with a conscious attempt to purge the language of Persian

Persian language

-derived equivalents. Deploring this Hindu-Muslim divide, Gandhi proposed re-merging the standards, using either Devanagari or Perso-Arabic script, under the traditional generic term Hindustani

Hindustani language

Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...

. Bolstered by the support received by Congress

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

and various leaders involved in the Indian Independence Movement

Indian independence movement

The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

, Hindi in Devanagari script along with English replaced Urdu as the official language of India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.

Background

The main cause of this divide may be attributed to the aspirations of both communities (Hindu

Hindu

and Muslim

Muslim

) to take their cultural inspiration which became open contention over the Language during Indian independence. Muslims has mostly looked towards their Muslim Ummah

Ummah

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...

for cultural inspiration whereas Hindus generally get inspiration from the ancient Vedic

Vedic

Vedic may refer to:* the Vedas, the oldest preserved Indic texts** Vedic Sanskrit, the language of these texts** Vedic period, during which these texts were produced** Vedic pantheon of gods mentioned in Vedas/vedic period...

Culture and other ancient past. During Muslim

Muslim

rule (whose founders were West Asians) people who converted to Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

readily adopted the culture they brought with them. Persian

Persian language

at that time was considered a prestigious and important language in many parts of Islamic world like Central Asia. The founder of Islamic rule in India were from different ethnic background viz. Turks, Mongols, Arabs, Afghans etc. and all of them used Persian

Persian language

as their lingua franca and court Language. Hindus considered these things as an alien culture. With the passage of time things like Sanskrit

Sanskrit

language, Dhoti

Dhoti

The dhoti or pancha is the traditional men's garment in the in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A similar garment is worn in some rural areas of Punjab province in Pakistan, but the use is fast declining...

, Ayurveda

Ayurveda

Ayurveda or ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to India and a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, words , meaning "longevity", and , meaning "knowledge" or "science". The earliest literature on Indian medical practice appeared during the Vedic period in India,...

etc. came to associated with Hindus, and Persian

Persian language

Language, Yunani Medicine with Muslims. There also came to be differences in the cuisine and culture of two communities. During pre-1971 Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Ayyub Khan

Ayyub Khan

Ayyub Khan was a ruler of Kypchak commonwealth. He was a grandfather of Andrew the Pious. There is some information about his war against Vladimir Monomach. Later Kypchak, still ruled by Ayyub, also attacked Volga Bulgaria in union with Kievan Rus....

once said that "...East Bengal

East Bengal

East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....

is... still are under considerable Hindu culture and influence. This is because the Bengali language is Sanskritized and uses Indic

Bengali script

The Bengali alphabet is the writing system for the Bengali language. The script with variations is used for Assamese and is basis for Meitei, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Kokborok, Garo and Mundari alphabets. All these languages are spoken in the eastern region of South Asia. Historically, the script has...

script" (see also Bengali Language Movement).

Urdu became the language of the courts of Muslim rulers who invaded the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

from the eighth century onwards. It developed from the Khariboli

Khariboli

Khariboli , also Khari Boli, Khadiboli, Khadi Boli or simply Khari, is a Western Hindi dialect spoken mainly in the rural surroundings of Delhi, the northern areas of Western Uttar Pradesh and the southern areas of Uttarakhand in India...

dialect of the Delhi area with an infusion of words from Arabic, Persian

Persian language

and Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

. As the Muslim invaders spread in the Northern India, Urdu interacted with various vernaculars and introduced Persian words into local languages and absorbed local vocabulary, and over a period of time developed into a distinct spoken language. Hindi also developed from Khariboli, albeit with the assimilation of words from local languages and Sanskrit

Sanskrit

.

Several factors contributed to the increasing divergence of Hindi and Urdu. The Muslim rulers chose to write Urdu in Persian script instead of Devanagari

Devanagari

Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

script. In time, Urdu in Persian script also became a literary language with an increasing body of literature written in the 18th and 19th century. A division developed gradually between Hindus who chose to write Hindi-Urdu in Devanagari script and Muslims and some Hindus who chose to write the same in Persian script. The development of Hindi movements in the late nineteenth century further contributed to this divergence.

Paul R. Brass, Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

notes in his book, Language, Religion and Politics in North India,

British language policy

In 1837, the British East India company replaced Persian with local vernacular in various provinces as the official and court language. However, in North India, Urdu in Persian script instead of Hindi in Devanagari script was chosen to replace Persian. The most immediate reason for the controversy is believed to be the contradictory language policy in North India in the 1860s. While the then government encouraged both Hindi and Urdu as a medium of education in school, it discouraged Hindi or Nagari script for official purposes. This policy gave rise to conflict between students educated in Hindi or Urdu for the competition of government jobs, which eventually took on a communal form.

Hindi and Urdu movements

In 1867, some Hindus in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh

United Provinces of Agra and Oudh

The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was a province of India under the British Raj, which existed from 1902 to 1947; the official name was shortened by the Government of India Act 1935 to United Provinces, by which the province had been commonly known, and by which name it was also a province of...

during the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

in India

India

began to demand that Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

be made an official language in place of Urdu

Urdu

. Babu Shiva Prasad of Banares was one of the early proponents of the Nagari script. In a Memorandum on court characters written in 1868, he accused the early Muslim rulers of India for forcing them to learn Persian. In 1897, Madan Mohan Malaviya

Madan Mohan Malaviya

Madan Mohan Malaviya was an Indian educationist, and freedom fighter notable for his role in the Indian independence movement and his espousal of Hindu nationalism...

published a collection of documents and statements titled Court character and primary education in North Western Provinces and Oudh, in which, he made a compelling case for Hindi.

Several Hindi movements were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century; notable among them were Nagari Pracharini Sabha

Nagari Pracharini Sabha

The Nagari Pracharini Sabha was an organization founded in 1893 at the Queen's College, Varanasi for the promotion of the Devanagari script.Dictionaries are among the many scholarly publications by the Sabha. The Hiṅdi-śabdasāgara by Śyāmasundara Dāsa was first published 1916-1928, with a new...

formed in Banaras in 1893, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad

Allahabad

Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...

in 1910, Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha in 1918 and Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti in 1926. The movement was encouraged in 1881 when Hindi in Devanagari script replaced Urdu in Persian script as the official language in neighboring Bihar

Bihar

Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....

. They submitted 118 memorials signed by 67,000 people to the Education Commission in several cities. The proponents of Hindi

Hindi

argued that the majority of people spoke Hindi and therefore introduction of Nagari script would provide better education and improve prospects for holding Government positions. They also argued that Urdu script made court documents illegible, encouraged forgery and promoted the use of complex Arabic and Persian words.

Organisations such as Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu were formed for the advocacy of Urdu. Advocates of Urdu

Urdu

argued that Hindi scripts could not be written faster, and lacked standardisation and vocabulary. They also argued that the Urdu language originated in India, asserted that Urdu could also be spoken fluently by most of the people and disputed the assertion that official status of language and script is essential for the spread of education.

Communal violence broke out as the issue was taken up by firebrands. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan

Syed Ahmed Khan

Javad-ud Daula, Arif Jang, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, KCSI , commonly known as Sir Syed, was an Indian educator and politician, and an Islamic reformer and modernist...

had once stated, "I look to both Hindus and Muslims with the same eyes & consider them as two eyes of a bride. By the word nation I only mean Hindus and Muslims and nothing else. We Hindus and Muslims live together under the same soil under the same government. Our interest and problems are common and therefore I consider the two factions as one nation." Speaking to Mr. Shakespeare, the governor of Banaras

Varanasi

-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...

, after the language controversy heated up, he said "I am now convinced that the Hindus and Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life was quite distinct from one and other."

In the last three decades of 19th century the controversy flared up several times in North-Western provinces

North-Western Provinces

and Oudh. The Hunter commission, appointed by the Government of India to review the progress of education, was used by the advocates of both Hindi and Urdu for their respective causes.

Gandhi's idea of Hindustani

Hindi and Urdu continued to diverge both linguistically and culturally. Linguistically, Hindi continued drawing words from Sanskrit, and Urdu from Persian, Arabic and Turkish. Culturally Urdu came to be identified with Muslims and Hindi with Hindus. This wide divergence in 1920s was deplored by Gandhi who exhorted the re-merging of both Hindi and Urdu naming it Hindustani written in both Nagari and Persian scripts. Though he failed in his attempt to bring together Hindi and Urdu under the Hindustani banner, he popularised Hindustani in other non-Hindi speaking areas.

Muslim separatism

It has been argued that the Hindi–Urdu controversy sowed the seeds for Muslim separatism in India. However, other historians dispute this, pointing to the development of Muslim separatism in Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

where Urdu was not spoken. Some also argued that Syed Ahmad had expressed separatist views long before the controversy developed.

Urdu to Hindi

On April 1900, the colonial Government of the North-Western Provinces issued an order granting equal official status to both Nagari and Perso-Arabic scripts. This decree evoked protests from Urdu supporters and joy from Hindi supporters. However, the order was more symbolic in that it did not provision exclusive use of Nagari script. Perso-Arabic remained dominant in North-Western provinces and Oudh as the preferred writing system until independence.

C. Rajagopalachari

C. Rajagopalachari

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari , informally called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, independence activist, politician, writer and statesman. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India...

, chief minister of Madras Presidency

Madras Presidency

The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...

introduced Hindustani as a compulsory language in secondary school education though he later relented and opposed the introduction of Hindi during the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965

Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965

The Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 are a series of agitations that happened in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1965...

. Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Lokmanya Tilak –, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and independence fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called the great leader "Father of the Indian unrest"...

supported Devanagari script as the essential part of nationalist movement. The language policy of Congress and the independence movement

Indian independence movement

paved its status as an alternative official language of independent India. Hindi was supported by religious and political leaders, social reformers, writers and intellectuals during independence movement securing that status. Hindi along with English was recognised as the official language of India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.

External links

South Asia Analysis Group: Hindi-Urdu controversy
Mahatma Gandhi and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu)
A century of dedicated service: Anjuman Tarraqqi-i-Urdu, from Dawn Newspaper
Dawn (newspaper)
Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and...

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