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Communal Hysteria Eating Away Urdu’s Homeland

The prophets of communalism started to play politics even on the language which is not good sign for plural culture of the country.

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Recently a scuffle broke out between the members of BJP and BSP in Aligarh while the newly elected Mayor Mohammed Furqan was taking oath. Another BSP newly elected corporator Musharraf Hussain was thrashed by BJP councilors while he was taking oath. Later, Hussain was booked too by the police for “malicious intent of outraging religious sentiment”. All hell broke loose since both of the BSP corporators were taking oath in Urdu.

However, this pandemonium over oath-taking in Urdu is not new phenomena in UP but in March, UP Protem Speaker Fateh Bahadur invalidated the oath of SP MLA Nafees Ahmed and made him to retake oath only because he had taken oath in Urdu. On the other hand, he allowed taking oath BJP MLAS in Sanskirit. Earlier, RSS-affliated Sikhsha Sanskirti Utthan Nyas recommended to remove Urdu words and Mirza Ghalib couplets from NCERT text books. Nathu Ram Godse, assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, vehemently condemned him for favoring Hindustani language because it is a blend of Hindi and Urdu.

Given the reality that Urdu is the second official language in UP and the state was once fosterage of the Urdu civilization, these political uproars are the biggest blot on its syncretic culture. Anyone who is aware of the golden era of Urdu can understand the significance of Urdu in the UP culture and the significance of UP in Urdu culture. The history of Urdu is incomplete without UP and similarly the history of UP is incomplete without Urdu. Many celebrated Urdu poets and writers, who left their profound imprints on the society and the whole country, were born in UP. World-renowned and pre-eminent Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib and the king of Urdu Ghazal were born in UP, Agra and eminent fiction writer of Urdu Prem Chand was from Varansi of UP. there is a long list of such prominent personalities belonging to UP who are remarkably contributed to the society through Urdu.

In addition to that, Urdu is purely India-born language which is blend of Hindi, Sansakirit, Punjabi, Persian and other vernacular languages and according to the census, it is one of the most spoken Indian languages. It has nothing to do with any religion and community in particular. India’s formidable film industry Bollywood is very much contingent on Urdu. Bollywood songs are particularly a genre of Urdu ghazals, in fact previously it was Urdu ghazal which used to be literally Bollywood film songs. Most celebrated script writers of Bollywood Javed Akhtar and Gulzar are artistically Urdu poets.

Seeing such a bright and marvelous role of Urdu in Indian culture, the acrimonious and antagonist behaviors shown by some politicians towards Urdu actually stem from ascribing the language to a particular religion and community. Giving the language a communal colour undermines the long-lasting pluralism and diversity of the country which is a bedrock of Indian culture.

Language plays instrumental part in the growth of a civilization. It has nothing to do with politics but the prophets of hatred and communalism started to play politics even on the language which is not good sign for plural culture of the country.

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