Great injustice to Urdu in India

Great injustice has been done in India to Urdu.

This great language, which has produced perhaps the best poetry in modern India, the immortal poetry of Mir, Ghalib, Faiz, Firaq and others, and which is a shining gem in the treasury of Indian culture, is today neglected, and by some people even looked at with suspicion. I cannot imagine a greater foolishness.

Urdu was a language created by combining 2 languages, Hindustani or KhadiboliThe dialect of the Delhi region, the base of both modern Hindi and Urdu. (i.e. simple colloquial Hindi) and Persian. That is why at one time it was called ‘RekhtaLiterally “scattered” or “mixed”: the old name for Urdu, especially Urdu poetry.’ which means hybrid.

In connection with Persian and Urdu 3 questions arise:

1. 1Why did the Moghuls make Persian their Court language, and not Turkish, their mother tongue?
2. 2Persian is the language of Persia, how come it landed up in India, and became the Court language in many parts of India for centuries?
3. 3What is the basic difference between Persian and Urdu, and how did Urdu come into existence?

I am giving the answers here.

01Why the Mughals chose Persian, not Turkish

The Moghuls made Persian their Court language, and not Turkish, their mother tongue, because a Court language must be highly sophisticated, graceful, elegant, and dignified. Persian had been made a highly sophisticated, elegant and polished language by great poets like Firdausi, Hafiz, Rumi, Saadi, Umar Khayyam, etc. Turkish was no match to Persian, and had no writers like the Persians abovementioned. That is why Persian spread in large parts of south east Asia, including India.

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 Shahjehannama).

02How Persian came to India

Some people may wonder how Persian landed up in India? After all, it is not a native language of India.

The answer is that the elite in society often want to distinguish themselves from the commoners, and hence speak a foreign language, e.g. the elite in India speak English.

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 up to the 19th Century. When a Russian aristocrat spoke to another Russian aristocrat, he often spoke in French, though with his servant he spoke in Russian. Similarly, when a German aristocrat spoke to another German aristocrat, he would often speak in French, though with his servant he spoke in German.

Thus in Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, we find that the Russian commanders (who were all Russian aristocrats) often spoke to each other in French, although their enemy, Napoleon, was French.

The Court language of the Delhi Sultanate was Persian, although most Delhi Sultans were Afghans, not Persians. Though their mother tongue was Pashto, they preferred Persian as their Court language, as it was much more sophisticated, elegant and graceful than Pashto.

Akbar’s finance minister Raja Todarmal got all the revenue and judicial records throughout the Mughal Empire written in Persian.

03The difference between Persian and Urdu

To know the difference between Persian and Urdu, one must first understand that to determine to which language a sentence belongs, one must find out to which language does the verb (called ‘kriya’ in Hindi and ‘feyl’ in Urdu) in that sentence belong.

Suppose I say “Mr Ram, aaiye to my house for dinner with your wife for dinner at 8 pm”. This sentence contains 16 words, of which 15 are from English, nevertheless it is a Hindustani (simple Hindi), not an English, sentence, because the verb ‘aaiye’ in it is of Hindustani.

Similarly, we may take any Urdu sher (couplet) of any Urdu poet, and we will find that the verb therein will be invariably in Hindustani (though the nouns and adjectives are often in Persian or Arabic). If the verb in the sher is Persian, it will become a Persian sher, and if the verb is in Arabic, it becomes an Arabic sher.

Take for example Ghalib’s sher:

Dekho mujhe jo deeda-e-ibarat nigaah hoMeri suno jo gosh-e-naseehat niyosh hai

We see here that the verbs in the sher ‘dekho’, ‘suno’, ‘hai’ are in simple Hindi, while many of the nouns and adjectives are in Persian or Arabic.

This demonstrates that Urdu is an indigenous (desi) language (because its verbs are all in Hindustani), and it must not be bracketed with Persian and Arabic, which are foreign languages.

04How Urdu came to the Mughal court

Why did the court language which was Persian in the reign of the strong Mughals (i.e. up to Aurangzeb) gradually 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 that of the common man. Why then did their court language not become Hindustani, which was the language of the common man in the cities? That was because these later Mughals, 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 Hindustani, this was not the Hindustani of the common man but of a special type, borrowing from the sophistication, polish and culture of the Persian language. In other words they spoke a Hindustani 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 humAur agar purshish na hogi, to palat aayenge hum

Even on judgment day I will go in styleAnd if not given respect, will turn back

05The 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 its foundation is Hindustani, the common man’s language. It is at the same time not the common man’s language, because there is a layer of an aristocratic language, Persian, superimposed on top of this foundation, and thus it 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. 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 (andaaz-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 of the common man. Hence his poetry is often highly Persianised, and he often expresses his thoughts not directly but indirectly, by metaphors, 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 metaphors, 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 verses difficult to understand (the great Urdu critic and biographer HaliAltaf Hussain Hali (1837–1914), poet, critic and Ghalib’s pupil, who wrote the first biography of Ghalib. 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.

I have tried to explain the true meaning of some ghazals:

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.

06How Urdu replaced Persian

As long as there were strong Mughal Emperors in India (i.e. up to 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, as it was regarded as an inferior language. Instead, it found its haven or sanctuary in South India and Gujarat (where it was the language of the elite in the Sultanates there).

Urdu, though a north Indian language, developed in South India and became popular there, receiving patronage in the Southern Sultanates (kingdoms with Muslim rulers) 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, Kannada, 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). Urdu was given patronage by the southern Indian sultans, and poetry, to flourish, requires patronage (since a poet too has a stomach).

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 DakhkhiniWali Mohammed Wali (c. 1667–1707) of the Deccan, among the first major poets to write ghazals in Urdu. 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 very gradually.

For instance, Ghalib who lived at the time of the Mutiny of 1857, 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 digShort for the Latin “infra dignitatem”: beneath one’s dignity., and all respectable writers at that time wrote in Persian.

I may give another example. My ancestor who came from Kashmir around 1800, Pandit Mansa Ram Katju, has made an entry in the register of the pandaA priest at a Hindu pilgrimage site who keeps registers of the families who visit, often going back generations. 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 heyday 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 ZafarThe last Mughal emperor (1775–1862), himself an Urdu poet. The British exiled him to Rangoon after 1857..

Right up to 1947 Urdu was the language of the courts, and of the educated people (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, etc.) in large parts of India. At the same time, due to its dual nature, it was also (as Hindustani) 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. Thus Akbar Allahabadi’s poetry has many English words in it.

07Urdu 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 often 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 ‘PyaasaGuru Dutt’s 1957 film about a poet nobody reads, with lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi.’). 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 jahaanchali hai rasm ki koi na sar utha ke chalejo koi chahnewala tawaaf ko niklenazar 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 KabirThe 15th-century weaver-poet of Benares whose verses mocked the rituals of Hindus and Muslims alike.’s poetry, though of course it is much more sophisticated). Thus Ghalib writes:

Nahin kuch subha-o-junnaar ke phande mein geerayiwafadaari mein sheikh-o-barhaman ki aazmaaish hai

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 tokashka kheencha dair mein baitha kab ka tark islaam kiya

Similarly Ghalib writes:

Imaan mujhe roke hai to kheenche hai mujhe kufrkaaba mere peeche hai, kaleesa mere aage

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 saaqiAzal se zahen-e-insaan bastaa vaham hai saaqi

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 jahaanSaudagaraan-e-din ki saudagari ki khair

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 ranjmushkilen itni pari mujhpar ki aasaan ho gayeen

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.

08Partition 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, the word ‘zila’ (i.e. district) was changed to ‘janapad’. In a case which I was hearing in the Allahabad High Court an application titled “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 Hindustani 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 down where in English it was written ‘Selection Centre’. In my opinion the words used 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 Hindustani and replacing them by Sanskrit words which are not in common use was a consequence of the British divide and rule policy which propagated (through bigoted local British agents) that Hindi (or Sanskritized Hindustani) was the language of Hindus, while Urdu was the language of Muslims (when the truth was that Urdu was the common language of the educated class, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh).

No doubt many Persian and Arabic words had come into Hindustani and became of common usage. But it is a misconception that one’s language becomes weaker if foreign words come into it. In fact it becomes stronger. For instance, many words from French, German, Arabic, Urdu, etc. came into English, but this made English stronger, not weaker.

I remember I once went on a ricksha, and when I paid the fare, the ricksha driver said “wajib hai” i.e. it is appropriate. Now here was an illiterate man using a pure Persian word, because it had come into common usage. Why should such a word be replaced by ‘upyukt’?

The bigoted policy of hatefully removing Persian and Arabic words which had become of common usage in Hindustani resulted in creating an unnecessarily Sanskritized Hindi which the common man in India often finds 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 in India.

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 in India. 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 ‘mushairasGatherings at which poets recite their verse before an audience.’ 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.

09What can be done for Urdu

I suggest that the DevanagriThe script in which Hindi, Sanskrit and Marathi are written. 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 poet 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 (as many persons knowing Urdu will get jobs), and also, our children will get a foundation of this great cultural language, which they can later build upon if they wish.

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 Indian and Pakistani 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 aristocrats and the educated elite. In the modern age Urdu writers must write for the masses, and for that they must use simpler language.

10The greatest poetry in the world

Before concluding, I would like to say something about Urdu poetry.

I have read the poetry of several countries — England, America, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, the Latin American countries, Persia, etc. — and also much of the poetry of India, such as Hindi, Sanskrit, Bengali, Tamil, etc. In no language does the voice of the human heart emerge with such power and elegance (andaz-e-bayan) as it does in Urdu. In that respect, Urdu poetry is the greatest in the world. (See my article “What is Urdu?” on my blog: justicekatju.blogspot.in). In a marvel of condensation, an Urdu sher (couplet) can describe a powerful idea or a whole historical era.