But this was not just a case about signage or statutory interpretation. It was about what place Urdu—and by extension, linguistic and cultural minorities—continue to hold in the Indian republic. Authored by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, who presided over the bench of the Supreme Court along with Justice K. Vinod Chandran, the judgment blends legal clarity with cultural wisdom, and reads as much like a constitutional essay as a judicial opinion. It situates the question of language within the broader context of Indian history, identity, and fraternity—invoking not only statutory text but the spirit of the Constitution, the debates of the Constituent Assembly, and the lived realities of India’s multilingual people.

What emerges is not just a dismissal of an exclusionary petition, but a powerful defence of linguistic harmony, cultural coexistence, and the right of every Indian language—especially those spoken by minorities—to be seen, heard, and respected.

The judgment begins with a line from Mouloud Benzadi that sets the tone for what follows:

“When you learn a language, you don’t just learn to speak and write a new language. You also learn to be open-minded, liberal, tolerant, kind and considerate towards all mankind.”

Facts of the case

The petition was filed by Mrs Varshatai, a former member of the Municipal Council, who objected to the use of Urdu in any form, including on signage. Her argument was that the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022, permitted only Marathi. The Municipal Council had earlier rejected her plea by a majority resolution dated February 14, 2020, noting that the use of Urdu had been longstanding—since 1956—and that a significant portion of the town’s population was Urdu-speaking.

The appellant then moved an application under Section 308 of the Maharashtra Municipal Councils Act, 1965, before the Collector, who allowed it, citing a government circular that mandated 100% use of Marathi in government proceedings. However, this was later set aside by the Divisional Commissioner, leading to a challenge before the Bombay High Court, which dismissed her petition. She then filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court.

During the pendency of the case, the 2022 Act came into force. In an earlier round, the Supreme Court disposed of the SLP, stating that the High Court order may not stand in light of the new law but leaving it open to the aggrieved party to seek appropriate remedy. The matter was then heard afresh by a division bench of the High Court, whose ruling in favour of the Municipal Council was challenged once again—bringing the issue back before the Supreme Court.

The final decision, delivered on April 15, 2025, rejected the challenge and upheld the High Court’s ruling.

The legal position and the Court’s reasoning

The Supreme Court first dealt with a procedural infirmity in how the challenge to the Municipal Council’s resolution was brought about. The appellant had approached the Collector under Section 308 of the Maharashtra Municipal Councils Act, 1965, seeking suspension of the Council’s decision to retain Urdu on its signboard. However, a crucial amendment to Section 308 in 2018 had changed the law: after this amendment, the Collector can no longer act on complaints made by individuals or councillors, even if they were former members. The power to bring a resolution to the Collector’s attention rests solely with the Chief Officer of the Municipal Council.

The Court made this limitation clear:

“After the amendment… the Collector can exercise powers only when the Chief Officer of the Municipal Council brings it to the Collector’s notice… In this case, the application was admittedly not made by the Chief Officer… which should not have been entertained in the first place.” [Para 11]

In other words, the entire chain of proceedings initiated by the petitioner before the Collector was legally untenable from the outset, as she had no standing under the amended law to invoke the Collector’s jurisdiction. This aspect alone could have disposed of the case. However, given the persistence of the challenge and the deeper constitutional concerns it raised, the Court moved to examine the substance of the matter as well.

At the heart of the substantive issue was the interpretation of the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022—a law that declares Marathi as the official language for all local government bodies in the state. The petitioner’s argument hinged on a narrow and rigid reading of this Act—that once Marathi was declared the official language, the use of any other language, including Urdu, became impermissible.

The Court decisively rejected this interpretation, emphasising that the Act mandates the use of Marathi for official communication, but does not prohibit the use of additional languages for supplementary or public-facing purposes, such as signboards. It quoted the High Court’s clear reading of the law:

“All that [the Act] does, is to ensure that the business and affairs of the Council, are to be conducted in Marathi language… it does not prohibit use of an additional language… the use of an additional language… would not indicate any violation of the provisions of the Act of 2022.” [Para 14]

The Supreme Court agreed with this view, observing:

“The High Court to our mind rightly concluded that the 2022 Act, on which the appellant placed significant reliance, does not prohibit the use of an additional language, which is Urdu in the present case, on the signboard of the Municipal Council building.” [Para 15]

This distinction—between mandating a language and prohibiting others—is constitutionally important. The 2022 Act ensures that Marathi is used, but does not insist that it be used exclusively. As such, Urdu can co-exist on a signboard without violating the law.

Further, the Court reframed the debate entirely by shifting attention from legality to constitutional purpose. Why use Urdu at all? The Court’s answer was simple but deeply rooted in the values of inclusivity and effective governance:

“The purpose here for the use of Urdu is merely communication. All the municipal council wanted to do was to make an effective communication.” [Para 19]

This clarity of purpose is crucial. The use of Urdu on the signboard was not a political gesture or an assertion of religious identity. It was a functional, inclusive, and locally appropriate decision, intended to reach and welcome a section of the population that reads Urdu. The Court highlighted that this was neither new nor radical—Urdu had been used on the Patur Municipal Council’s signage since 1956.

Finally, in what is arguably the most important paragraph in terms of grounding the decision in the lived realities of governance and citizenship, the Court stated:

“Coming to the present case, it must be stated that a Municipal Council is there to provide services to the local community of the area and cater to their immediate day-to-day needs. If people or a group of people, residing within the area covered by the Municipal Council are familiar with Urdu, then there should not be any objection if Urdu is used in addition to the official language i.e. Marathi, at least on the signboard of the Municipal Council. Language is a medium for exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division.” [Para 46]

This is where the Court moved beyond a narrow legal resolution and reminded the petitioner—and the country—that language, at its best, is a bridge, not a barrier. The Municipal Council exists to serve the community—not to assert a singular linguistic identity at the cost of alienating others. If part of the community reads Urdu, there is no reason—legal, moral, or constitutional—to exclude it from a signboard.

By recognising this, the Court reclaimed the space of local governance as one that is responsive to local needs, identities, and realities, not one dictated by abstract notions of linguistic nationalism.

A powerful history lesson

Where this judgment truly shines is in its cultural, historical, and constitutional depth. The Court does not stop at interpreting a statutory provision or addressing procedural irregularities. It goes much further—into the idea of language as identity, as history, and as belonging. In doing so, it delivers a clear and courageous rebuke to the growing communalisation of Urdu and the false binaries that have been constructed around it.

The Court directly confronts the widespread tendency to associate Urdu with Islam, and to treat it as a foreign or sectarian language. It challenges this prejudice head-on by making a series of powerful and clarifying declarations. Perhaps the most quoted and impactful of them is this:

“Let our concepts be clear. Language is not religion. Language does not even represent religion. Language belongs to a community, to a region, to people; and not to a religion.” [Para 17]

This simple but profound line dismantles the politicised narrative that seeks to conflate Urdu with a religious identity. It restores to language its proper meaning—not as a marker of religious belonging, but as a tool of expression, identity, memory, and connection. Language, the Court reminds us, cannot be confined to a single group or cast as exclusive to one faith.

The Court deepens this point by offering a civilisational and cultural defence of Urdu, recognising it as a product of the ganga-jamuni tehzeeb—India’s long-standing tradition of cultural syncretism, particularly in the northern and central plains.

“Language is culture. Language is the yardstick to measure the civilizational march of a community and its people. So is the case of Urdu, which is the finest specimen of ganga-jamuni tahzeeb, or the Hindustani tahzeeb, which is the composite cultural ethos of the plains of northern and central India. But before language became a tool for learning, its earliest and primary purpose will always remain communication.” [Para 18]

By invoking this shared cultural history, the Court reclaims Urdu as Indian, not just linguistically but emotionally and historically. It reminds us that Urdu is not a cultural intruder—it is a civilisational creation, a language born out of coexistence, shared spaces, and mutual exchange. The judgment acknowledges that Urdu’s elegance, refinement, and poetic tradition are the legacies of this syncretic past, which the Constitution was meant to preserve, not erase.

The Court also situates this discussion in constitutional history, tracing how Hindi and Urdu were not seen as oppositional or incompatible during the freedom movement and in the early years of the republic. Instead, they were regarded as two forms of the same evolving language—Hindustani—that could serve as a common national medium. The Court draws on the work of Granville Austin, whose scholarship on the Constituent Assembly debates and post-independence linguistic compromise is widely regarded as authoritative.

Referring to the language debates before and after Partition, the Court notes:

“Partition killed Hindustani and endangered the position of English and the provincial languages in the Constitution.” [Para 34]

This line, taken from Austin, captures the tragic turning point at which a shared language—Hindustani, made up of both Hindi and Urdu—was discarded, and its components polarised. Urdu, in particular, bore the brunt of this rupture. The judgment acknowledges that post-Partition nationalism rejected Urdu not because of linguistic reasons but because of political and communal ones—a move that was neither just nor historically accurate.

The Court quotes Jawaharlal Nehru, who had been a staunch advocate of Hindustani as the people’s language—a bridge between Hindi and Urdu, and a language capable of uniting India’s many regions:

“Hindustani (Hindi or Urdu)… is bound to become the all-India medium of communication, not displacing the great provincial languages, but as a compulsory second language.” [Para 31]

This vision—of Hindustani as an inclusive, flexible, people’s language—was derailed by Partition, but the judgment shows that it remains constitutionally relevant even today. By citing Nehru, the Court not only restores this vision but places its ruling in a long constitutional arc that includes freedom movement ideals, the Constituent Assembly’s balancing act, and post-independence compromises.

The judgment also brings in Mahatma Gandhi, who warned against linguistic purism and the dangers of reducing language to a narrow, communal identity. Gandhi understood language as dynamic and inclusive, and his approach to Hindustani reflected this. The Court quotes him with quiet force:

“To confine oneself exclusively to Hindi or Urdu would be a crime against intelligence and the spirit of patriotism.” [Para 36]

Gandhi’s words underscore that linguistic plurality was never seen as a threat to national unity—it was the foundation of it. In quoting both Nehru and Gandhi, the Court implicitly argues that today’s efforts to banish Urdu from public spaces are not just unconstitutional—they are a betrayal of the nation-building vision of those who fought for India’s independence.

Together, these references and insights make this portion of the judgment a masterclass in cultural constitutionalism. It does not approach the question of language as a dry administrative matter, but as a living symbol of India’s diversity—something that must be protected not just by law, but by respect, memory, and a shared sense of belonging.

By restoring Urdu to its rightful place—as an Indian language, a people’s language, and a constitutional language—the Court reaffirms that inclusion, not exclusion, is the heart of our constitutional identity.

Debunking the myth that Urdu is alien

One of the most important contributions of this judgment is the way it confronts and dismantles the deep-rooted prejudice against the Urdu language—a prejudice that has been allowed to flourish in public discourse, often unchallenged. The Court recognises that the hostility towards Urdu is not grounded in linguistic fact, but in a political fiction, born out of Partition-era anxieties and perpetuated by majoritarian narratives.

In a critical passage, the Court squarely addresses and rebuts the idea that Urdu is somehow foreign or un-Indian:

“The prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India… Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. It is a language which was born in this land.” [Para 27]

This statement is not only accurate in terms of linguistic classification—Urdu, like Hindi and Marathi, evolved from Prakrit and Apabhramsha and belongs to the same Indo-Aryan family—but also essential in its rejection of the false notion that Urdu is inherently Islamic. The Court affirms what should be a basic and accepted truth: that Urdu is Indian in its origins, Indian in its development, and Indian in its usage.

It goes further to remind us that Urdu arose from real, lived interactions among people in India—particularly in the north and centre of the country—where different communities needed to communicate across linguistic and cultural lines. Over centuries, this led to the development of a sophisticated, inclusive, and adaptable language, enriched by multiple traditions and serving as a lingua franca in many regions. In fact, it was not born out of exclusivism, but out of coexistence.

The Court then makes a subtle but powerful observation about the everyday presence of Urdu, especially in the speech of people who may not even recognise its origins:

“Even today, the language used by the common people of the country is replete with words of the Urdu language, even if one is not aware of it.” [Para 37]

This insight challenges the idea that Urdu is used only by a particular religious or social group. On the contrary, the vocabulary of Urdu has become so woven into the fabric of everyday Hindi and Indian speech that it is impossible to separate the two without distorting both. From the language of friendship and affection to politics and cinema, Urdu has left a profound mark.

The Court also offers a striking example of how deeply entrenched Urdu is in the Indian legal system. It lists several key legal terms that are of Urdu origin and are still widely used in courts across the country—even in the Supreme Court, where the official language is English. The judgment notes:

“Urdu words have a heavy influence on Court parlance… Adalat, halafnama, peshi, vakalatnama, dasti…” [Para 38]

These are not minor or incidental terms. They are core procedural and functional terms used in both civil and criminal proceedings, known to every lawyer, judge, and litigant across India. ‘Adalat’ (court), ‘halafnama’ (affidavit), ‘peshi’ (appearance), ‘vakalatnama’ (power of attorney), and ‘dasti’ (by hand)—these are foundational building blocks of legal vocabulary.

This point is underscored further in the next line:

“Even though the official language of the Supreme Court… is English, yet many Urdu words continue to be used in this Court till date.” [Para 38]

In making this observation, the Court underlines an important irony: Urdu is being spoken, written, and relied upon at the highest levels of India’s judiciary, even as efforts continue in some quarters to stigmatise it. This lived reality gives lie to the claim that Urdu is somehow alien or inappropriate for official or legal use.

Together, these points form a comprehensive and compelling rebuttal of the misconceptions surrounding Urdu. The Court not only reaffirms that Urdu is as Indian as any other regional language, but also that it remains active, visible, and essential—not just culturally, but administratively and judicially.

Language as a bridge—not a weapon

In one of the segments of the judgment, the Court engages deeply with linguistic scholarship to challenge the idea that Hindi and Urdu are separate languages. This part of the judgment goes beyond the immediate question of signage and moves into the realm of intellectual history and sociolinguistics, showing how the binary between Hindi and Urdu was not a natural evolution but a consciously created political divide.

To support this, the Court draws on the works of prominent scholars such as Gyan Chand Jain, Amrit Rai, Ram Vilas Sharma, and Abdul Haq—all of whom have extensively studied the origins, development, and mutual influence of Hindi and Urdu.

“It is absolutely clear that Urdu and Hindi are not two separate languages… Even though Urdu literature and Hindi literature are two different and independent literatures, Urdu and Hindi are not two different languages.” [Para 41]

“Hindi-Urdu are not two separate languages; they are basically one and the same… There are no two other languages in the world whose pronouns and verbs are one hundred per cent the same.” [Para 42]

This is an emphatic and almost scientifically framed observation—what unites Hindi and Urdu is not merely poetic sentiment but the structural bedrock of language. The judgment notes that while their scripts differ (Devanagari for Hindi, Perso-Arabic for Urdu), and while each has drawn vocabulary from different classical sources (Sanskrit for Hindi, Persian and Arabic for Urdu), their spoken forms remain nearly indistinguishable in everyday use across north India.

In referencing Amrit Rai’s influential work, the Court aligns itself with the understanding that Hindi and Urdu emerged from the same linguistic root—Hindavi or Hindustani—and that the divide between them was sharpened over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not by natural evolution but by colonial language policies and post-Partition communal politics. Amrit Rai’s thesis, A House Divided, showed how political forces came to assign communal identities to languages that had once coexisted fluidly.

The judgment does not stop at historical analysis—it goes further to expose the consequences of this artificially constructed divide. By making language a marker of religious identity, a shared cultural and linguistic inheritance was fractured. Urdu came to be falsely viewed as “Muslim”, and Hindi as “Hindu”—a split that ignored centuries of shared grammar, mutual influence, and bilingual expression in the public sphere.

These scholarly citations give the judgment a rare academic depth. It is unusual—though deeply welcome—for the judiciary to cite literary historians and linguists so prominently. And yet, in doing so, the Court performs a vital task: it returns the conversation about language to the terrain of fact, scholarship, and nuance, rather than leaving it to be defined by prejudice and politicised emotion.

And then, poetry

The judgment ends with a poetic flourish, quoting Iqbal Ashhar’s nazm where Urdu speaks for itself:

““urdu hai mirā naam maiñ ‘Khusrav’ kī pahelī

kyuuñ mujh ko banāte ho ta.assub kā nishāna

maiñ ne to kabhī ḳhud ko musalmāñ nahīñ maanā

dekhā thā kabhī maiñ ne bhī ḳhushiyoñ kā zamāna

apne hī vatan meñ huuñ magar aaj akelī

urdu hai mirā naam maiñ ‘Khusrav’ kī pahelī” [Para 48]

“Urdu is my name, I am the riddle of ‘Khusrav’

Do not hold me for your prejudices

I never considered myself a Muslim

I too have seen happier times

I feel like an outsider in my homeland today

Urdu is my name, I am the riddle of ‘Khusrav’”

The Court then reflects:

“Let us make friends with Urdu and every language. If Urdu was to speak for herself, she would say…” [Para 48]

A verse that speaks of belonging, alienation, and identity—reminding the reader that Urdu, like any other Indian language, asks not for supremacy, but for space to exist.

Why this judgment is important

This is more than a legal ruling—it is a profound affirmation of India’s constitutional soul. It reasserts that the Constitution protects not only freedom of religion, but freedom of language, identity, and culture. India’s commitment to pluralism is not merely symbolic—it is embedded in its constitutional text and historical experience. This judgment operationalises that commitment with clarity and courage.

It is important because:

• It clarifies the law, confirming that there is no legal bar on using additional languages like Urdu on public signboards under the 2022 Act.
• It safeguards linguistic and cultural rights, especially of minority communities, and affirms that state recognition does not require the exclusion of others.
• It dispels the myth that Urdu is alien, asserting its deep roots in India’s linguistic heritage and constitutional imagination.
• It confronts majoritarian narratives, refusing to allow language to be communalised or weaponised.

This judgment stands out for its clarity, depth, and conviction. It does not merely interpret a statute or settle a procedural flaw—it reaffirms foundational constitutional values. By recognising the legitimacy of linguistic diversity and rejecting efforts to erase or marginalise a language rooted in India’s soil, the Court has underscored that governance must serve all, not just the dominant voice. In doing so, it reminds us that the Constitution protects not just rights in the abstract, but the dignity of communities, cultures, and the many languages in which India speaks.

The complete judgment may be read here.

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The post “Urdu Is Not Alien”: Supreme Court reclaims the language’s place in the Indian Constitutional fabric appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The title suggests something profound.

The plural, co-existence between India’s two major religious communities of the country is receiving heavy blows, kind of dying, has reached an all-time low, is on the verge of a tragic fading away, a death, this plural co-existence is being brought to its end the way dawn reaches dusk. And then the lighting of lamps is required to fight the evil of darkness.

While reading this powerful, gripping story, I recalled a passage from Qurratulain Hyder’s Urdu language family saga (autobiographical novel), Kaar-e-Jahaan Daraaz Hai (1977, p. 76). The excerpt depicts north Indian society after 1857. Discerning people may comment upon it and expand.  An interplay of caste, religious communities and colonialism can be seen here.

“Sporadic Hindu-Muslim strife has begun to happen, which was almost completely absent during Mughal rule. But, despite new politics and policy (the two words are quite comprehensive), thankfully, the two communities are living in harmony as usual. Our Hindu brethren, despite close friendships do observe some kinds of social distancing and segregation, untouchability, chhut chhaat. Yet, inherent prejudice is certainly not to be found in them. We too respect their custom of segregation. It is not considered as bad and offensive. Since centuries, in my own family this is a tradition that when we invite Hindu friends at lunch or dinner, we call a Brahman to cook for them. Tolerance and mutual love is an outstanding Indian tradition. All this however may not survive the colonial onslaught”.

Apparently, if at all I have adequately comprehended the import of the story, Diya Baati Ki Bela, the responsibility (onus) is put more on the young bahu Ambika to overcome the darkness and spread light. The story is woven and embellished with all kinds of conversations, deriving much from histories and various representations of histories.

Despite different culinary practices and dietary habits, previous generations did exchange food and dine together, notwithstanding the culture of certain inhibitions and restraints. The mutually observed restraints cemented the co-existence rather than pulling the two communities apart. Some of the conversations in the story hint at the need for the Muslims to rethink their own ways of looking at the pre-colonial histories of Muslim rule in India and everyday exchanges, attitudes and conducts.

The story is very forthright about Hindu liberals having helped Muslim communalists in retaining their communal-divisive ways. Ambika’s husband, Atul, is depicted as that kind of liberal. Atul has been brought up in a liberal, tolerant, conservative, religious, yet a largely secularist family. Their pluralism derives much from their superstition too, so to say.

On the contrary, his wife, Ambika has grown up in a family insulated from Muslim culture. She therefore harbours many anti-Muslim stereotypes. She is pursuing her PhD on Kabir. Yet, she is unable to internalise the pluralistic thoughts and teachings of Kabir. Despite pursuing PhD on Kabir, she is unable to look into many social evils of Hindu society. But she is quick in finding out flaws in Muslim lives; most of the stereotypes are unreasonably fabricated and perpetuated. She assumes, no Muslim litterateur, except, Ali Sardar Jafri, ever claimed Kabir. She does not approve of widow remarriage nor does she stand against child marriage of Hindu girls. Her question against superstition among Hindu society is concerned only when this has to do with an intermingling with Muslim culture. Atul’s foster mother (a virgin widow; a victim of child marriage, a lifelong sufferer) deep regard for the tazia of Muharram is unwelcome for Ambika, even though, the five years old baby Atul could begin to speak only after he was passed under a Duldul horse.

A Hindu exclusive superstition (not associated with Muslim culture) is acceptable for Ambika.

Ambika is enlightened on Kabir by a liberal Muslim professor of Botany, fond of Cactus plants, Mannan, a retired academic, whose personal library contains every kind of creative literature, in various Indian and European languages (Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Urdu, English, German), besides the books on life sciences. Mannan’s and Atul’s remote ancestry converge. One of the three Kayastha brothers (engaged in legal battle for land disputes) happened to have been ostracised for having saved his life with water & food (dry gram) from a Muslim. The ostracised brother was therefore left with no choice but to convert and become Muslim. The ostracisation had also to do with a litigation battle among the three brothers for landed property. The conversion was not out of coercion or lure by Muslim society or a Muslim ruler/aristocrat. It had rather to do with the politics of real estate disputes among the three Kayastha brothers. Thus, Shamsher Jung Bahadur had to become Sheikh Shamsher Ali.  Professor Mannan is a descendent of Shamsher.

Both (Atul and his Mannaan Chacha) are descendants of the said Kayastha family, having worked for the Muslim aristocracy of Magadh, who was fiercely against the Muslim League. Yet, he eventually migrated to Pakistan, in the wake of the communal violence. Before leaving for Pakistan, an issue-less  widow of the Muslim family bequeathed her part of (proprietary share in) the haweli almost free of cost to Atul’s ancestors, where Atul, his father, uncles, grandfather, all were born/brought up. The haweli has an imambara. This had to be preserved, as per the will of the Muslim widow. Two generations of the women of the Kayastha inheritors do honour their promise tenaciously. Now, Ambika (the third generation inheritor of the haweli) sees no worth in preserving a Muslim heritage. She thinks, her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law are unwise and un-Hindu to be committed to the cause of preserving this symbol Muslim heritage.

The conversations in the story are crafted with intellectual depth with the best of creative skills. Muslim rulers (the Lodis) having demolished mandirs as well as masjids (of Sharqi Sultans, Jaunpur) has been brought out in objective and dispassionate ways.

Jinnah’s hostage (yarghamaal) theory to justify his idea of Pakistan has been rebuked in a brilliant manner. The greed of grabbing assets of any issueless couples, by their kith and kin –being a deep-rooted problem in both communities – has also been brought out very well. “Yeh log giddhon ki tarah hamaarey marney ka intezaar kar rahey hain; like vultures they are waiting for my death to prey upon” (p. 29).

Pride of place and authority to the foster mother over a biological mother and the psychological dilemmas and conflicts running in the minds of an adopted child,  Atul (even after having grown up) has also been depicted and articulated quite beautifully. Atul lost his mother when he was just six days old; was brought up by her aunt who was widowed the day she was married as a pre-puberty girl, whose interaction with Muslim neighbourhoods, while growing up, was quite substantive.

The Patna-based creative genius, Zakiya Mashhadi got her Masters in Psychology from Lucknow University. This specific academic training and skill finds a deft and creative application in weaving and telling her stories. This is something rare in most of the contemporary story writers.

I recall Premchand (d. 1936):

“…No single event constitutes a story unless it gives expression to some psychological truth….It is not necessary that the basis of a story should be its readability only. If a story has the psychological climax, the nature of the event to which it relates is immaterial….Of course, one does sometimes hear of events that provide an easy basis for a short story. But no event can become a story, only because of literary embellishment or a gripping narration. Events exist and so do characters, but it is difficult to find a psychological basis; once it comes up it does not take long to write a short story…”.

[My Life and Times: Premchand, An Autobiographical Narrative, Recreated by Madan Gopal (2006; pp. 212-215)].

The everyday and standardised vocabularies, idioms, sentence-framing, deep insights from cultural and historical events, metaphors, symbolism, picturesque descriptions, articulation of emotions, and every other craft of a great story-telling are plentiful in the story, Diya Baati Ki Bela.

This is a must-read story to comprehend and diagnose the current problems (of Hindu- Muslim fratricide and politically manufactured and exacerbated divisiveness) as much as the story is quite helpful in finding out workable solutions.

There are many powerful sentences in the story.

Sample these: “people throng around faqir to obtain blessings of female calf from Cow, but male baby from daughters-in-law”; “the water is as sacred and useful whether it comes out of the Lord Shiva’s long hair-locks or as Zamzam out of the fountain emerging out of the friction of the foot-soles of the Prophet Ismael”.

A story-writer like Zakiya has been kept waiting for the Sahitya Akadmi Award in Urdu. The reason may be easy to guess, fathom. Is it the rot in the institution’s jury? If the jury’s decision has to do with the politics of frustrating any messages of everyday, lived fraternity and stoking fratricide today sanctioned by the politically powerful, then this is a psychopathic reaction for an institution of art and letters. Though, great stories and story writers are hardly dependent upon an award, such awards need to honour themselves by being conferred on creative genius’ engaged in the depiction and pursuit of a plural India, something that is being aggressively eroded from public memory, and reality.

 (The author is Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University)

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The post Light a Lamp to rescue Plural India: An Urdu Story, “Diya Baati Ki Bela”, by Zakiya Mashhadi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As 2022 ends, the noose of demolitions has tightened over Patna city’s heritage right before people’s eyes. India’s only state-funded government Urdu library, on the iconic Ashok Rajpath road, has been razed. The building next to the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library and the Bihar Urdu Academy, Patna’s Government Urdu Library, or the Bihar Urdu Library, was a centre of literature since before Indian independence. Known to stock a wide range of newspapers and magazines since its inception in 1938, the Bihar Urdu Library’s boasted a collection of more than 40,000 rare manuscripts and books.

The full-blown scenes of its state-funded demolition were visible from the main road but largely ignored. Assurances are that the government will move the Urdu Library collection into a new building. However, that would not restore the only site of remembrance for the tall figure of the national movement who was behind this library. The only ones making noise about demolitions are those who celebrate them for making way for upcoming flyovers and the metro project. This time, even the Urdu press is silent about the destruction of the Bihar Urdu Library.

According to a report prepared by the Bihar Assembly Library Committee, only 51 libraries survive in Bihar of the 541 that existed in the 1950s.

On average, the government of Bihar allocates 0.01% of its budget to libraries. This stinginess alone gives an idea of how important learning is to the authorities. The capital Patna has already lost a large segment of its multicultural past and heritage. Considering the losses, we must save whatever is left of the city’s past. Libraries, a crucial and irreplaceable gateway to history, should be preserved at all costs. However, the condition of existing libraries, especially those with Urdu books and manuscripts, is heartbreaking.

Not just books and literature, language itself is at risk today as right-wing forces attack India’s linguistic diversity. Bihar is home to more than 87 lakh Urdu speakers, but this large population has no library apart from one established by the barrister Dr Syed Mahmood, the first education minister of Bihar.

Even the Bihar Urdu Library was one of his many contributions to the region. Its significance and role extended to India’s struggle for independence. Son-in-law of the great freedom fighter and lawyer Mazhar-ul-Haq, Mahmood, was expelled from the Aligarh Muslim University for anti-British political activities. He left to study law at the University of Cambridge, obtained a PhD from Germany and returned to India to devote himself to the freedom struggle.

An active member of the Indian National Congress during the Home Rule movement, the Non-Cooperation movement and the Khilafat movement, Mahmood became deputy general secretary of the All India Congress Committee, along with Jawaharlal Nehru. A strong voice of opposition to the Muslim League, he and Dr MA Ansari laid the foundation of the Muslim Nationalist Party within the Congress party. Mahmood was its general secretary until 1937 when he became the minister of education, development and planning in the Sri Krishna Sinha-led Bihar government.

On multiple occasions, Mahmood disagreed with the Congress party on communalism and casteism. Deeply disheartened by the growing divide between Urdu and Hindi speakers, he launched the bilingual newspaper ‘Raushni’ to combat the division at the social and political levels.

During his term as minister, he established the “Dehat Sudhar” department, which employed youngsters who participated in the struggle for independence and were forced into unemployment because of British suppression. The British government brought this department down as soon as Mahmood resigned, along with other ministers, due to the Second World War.

He wanted to establish a library in each district of Bihar. However, he was forced to confine the plan to Patna city due to opposition from the Muslim League and the British. Instead of a trail of district libraries, Mahmood gave the city its first and only government Urdu library.

The building of the Bihar Urdu Library at Ashok Rajpath was silently bulldozed to make way for the city’s infrastructure. It was the only site to remember one of the tallest figures of India’s Independence struggle. Its demolition and the silence of city dwellers mark the fact that no one cares about history any longer.

The city government had also decided to bulldoze a section of the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library or the Sultan Palace, but fortunately, widespread protests saved it. Now, without a sound, the building of Bihar Urdu Library has been knocked down.

Instead of celebrating and preserving the contribution of a figure who devoted his life and career to the nation, the Bihar government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has, in the 75th year of India’s independence, diminished his name and reduced his contributions to rubble. The Bihar Urdu Library was struggling to survive without a chairperson and other officials.

The government has said will move the Library into a new building. For sure, ministers and officials would inaugurate the new premises, but the legacy of Mahmood would stand erased in this process. This is because the original building could have been restored, revived, and renewed if only the State government had paid heed to such calls.

The library’s demolition cannot be divorced from the continuous socio-political attacks against Muslims. India’s Muslims are actively termed as intruders and outsiders, held responsible for India’s partition, and their contributions sidelined or eliminated. That is why the demolition of the Bihar Urdu Library would be seen as a project very much in line with the Sangh Parivar’s agenda of side-lining Muslim contributions and heritage. No matter how much the Chief Minister and his Janata Dal (United) portray themselves as friends of the minority community, their actions reveal their true intent.

The notions of development espoused by the Chief Minister of Bihar are shallow. Bihar’s new roads are being built over the grave of Patna’s multicultural heritage. Rather than opening new state-funded public libraries or improving existing ones, the government is hell-bent on destroying, demolishing and erasing what remains standing. These stories and legacies from a deliberately ignored past cannot be recreated without their historical setting.

The author is a theatre artist, activist and student of preventive conservation. The views are personal.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Easy to Bulldoze—Fall of Patna’s Government Urdu Library and Legacy appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A division bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court has issued notices to the Jammu and Kashmir Government to reply to a public interest litigation (PIL) to declare Hindi as the “official language of J&K”. The PIL was filed by one Maghav Kohli, stated a report in the Tribune. According to the report there is a provision for official language for the Union Territory under Section 47 of the J&K Reorganisation Act-2019. The petitioner has stated that “this provision is to adopt Hindi as the official language of the UT in order to give representation to Hindi language and also to grant respite to the public at large.” 

The Tribune reported that “the Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjay Dhar, after hearing advocate Priyanshu Sharma and advocate Aditya Sharma, issued notices to the Commissioner-cum Secretary, General Administrative Department (GAD), Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Principal Secretary, Home Department, and Financial Commissioner, Revenue Department.” They have been directed to file a reply.

Before the state’s special status was scrapped and it was bifurcated into two Union Territories on August 5, the official language in the state was Urdu, however official business was conducted in English. An Indian Express report from then quoted J&K Governor’s advisor Farooq Khan as saying, “The Reorganisation Act is very clear that the new official language or languages will be chosen by the new Assembly. Hindi is the national language so it would be an official language of the Union Territory of J&K. Urdu will also be given its due place. English will also be used as it is being used currently.’’

The state has always been multilingual through the ages. According to the IE report “Dogra rulers recognised Urdu as a state and official language of J&K in 1889. Before Urdu, Persian was the official language of Kashmir for around three centuries. In J&K, Urdu is the language of land and revenue records, courts (especially lower judiciary) and police (FIRs etc are all written in Urdu). It is also the mode of instruction in government schools, especially in Kashmir and the Muslim-majority districts of Jammu and Kargil.”

The other languages spoken in J&K include Kashmiri (Kishur), Dogri, Gojri, Ladakhi, Pahari, Balti, and as IE explained it was Urdu that emerged as a “link language during Dogra rule, especially because it wasn’t the mother tongue of any substantial group.”

Later English took over as more and more, and those who came from other states to work in J&K could not read and write Urdu and preferred English. However, as IE stated, Urdu, “continued to be the main language of the government.” 

In fact in 2018 the PDP-BJP government had constituted the first ever State Council for Promotion of Urdu Language. Because it believed that  “Urdu is not just the official language and spoken in all its regions, it is also a vast repository of the cultural heritage of the Indian sub-continent known as Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb”.

The conversation about Hindi as an official State or as the National language has always fuelled many volatile discussions. One of the biggest controversy on the issue was unleashed in in 2019 when the Union Home Minister had said on Hindi Divas that “India is a country of different languages and every language has its own importance but it is very important to have a language of the whole country which should become the identity of India in the world. Today, if one language can do the work of tying the country to the door of unity, then it is the most spoken Hindi language.”

भारत विभिन्न भाषाओं का देश है और हर भाषा का अपना महत्व है परन्तु पूरे देश की एक भाषा होना अत्यंत आवश्यक है जो विश्व में भारत की पहचान बने। आज देश को एकता की डोर में बाँधने का काम अगर कोई एक भाषा कर सकती है तो वो सर्वाधिक बोले जाने वाली हिंदी भाषा ही है। pic.twitter.com/hrk1ktpDCn

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) September 14, 2019

After a massive controversy blew up, he later said that he had only meant that Hindi could be chosen as a second language for those who want to. “There should be one language in the country, if you want to learn a second language then let it be Hindi, this was my request,” he was then quoted by Hindustan Times.

Non-Hindi speaking states, especially in South India have always stood together to oppose Hindi being allegedly imposed on them. A  2017 report by CNBC-TV18 had shown how a massive campaign had been launched by the pro-Kannada outfit Karnataka Rakshana Vedike to “fight Hindi chauvinism.”  

In an opinion written for The Week in 2019, Justice Markandey Katju who retired from the Supreme Court had stated, “Hindi is an artificially created language, and is not the common man’s language, even in the so-called Hindi-speaking belt of India.”

He added that “Up to 1947, Urdu was the language of the educated class of all communities in large parts of India, whether they were Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and other communities, while Hindustani was the language of the uneducated common man (in urban areas). The British rulers artificially created Hindi through their agents like Bhartendu Harishchandra, as part of their divide-and-rule policy, and propagated the claim that Hindi is the language of Hindus, while Urdu is the language of Muslims.”

Flash forward to the present day, and the argument continues. According to the report in Greater Kashmir, during the hearing, the counsel submitted that in the erstwhile state of J&K, the commonly used language in Jammu was Dogri and Hindi. They added, “Also the people of Jammu have become constant victim of this language barrier which has been slapped over them by the administration in the erstwhile J&K state… The revenue record and police record are in Urdu language because of which people of Jammu have to be at the receiving end always and even as per the High Court rules, a translated copy is required to be submitted which makes it difficult for the judiciary as well as the people.” 
 

Related:

BJP alienating Urdu to alienate Muslim culture?

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In another move on what secular forces see as an attack on Muslim cultural heritage, the ruling government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided that in the state of Uttarakhand the names of railway stations written in the Urdu language on platforms will be replaced with Sanskrit.

The state with a population of 10 million, adopted Sanskrit as its second official language in 2010. According to the 2011 census, the exact number of Sanskrit speakers in the state is 386, out of which 282 are males and 104 are females. The number of Urdu speakers are more than four percent at 425,752 persons.

Citing the reason of Sanskrit being the second official language, railway officials announced that signboards of all railway platforms which have names of stations written in Hindi, English and Urdu, will now be written in Hindi, English and Sanskrit.

The opposition parties have condemned the decision of the government and termed it “unfortunate”.

In October 2018, the BJP renamed the cities of Allahabad and Faizabad in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh to Prayagraj and Ayodhya respectively, saying that it was “correcting wrongs” made in the medieval period by the Mughal rulers.

It had also changed the name of the iconic Mughalsarai railway station near Varanasi to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya station. The BJP had also moved a proposal to change the name of the capital of Gujarat, Ahmedabad to Karnavati. Not just this, there had been calls by the CM of UP, Yogi Adityanath to change the name of Agra to Agravan.

Nayantara Sahgal, eminent writer and niece of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, said that she wasn’t surprised by the decision of the ruling regime. “Why should we surprised? Everything they are doing matches their policy. Such things are happening everywhere in every aspect. From this ruling regime we cannot expect anything else,” she told the New Indian Express.

A Delhi based historian Swapna Liddle too has questioned the move and signed a petition that has been launched online to oppose the move. She says, “I think that this move is less about including Sanskrit (because seriously, the name of the place written in Hindi and Sanskrit would be identical), and more about removing Urdu. This panders to the common misconception that Urdu is somehow a ‘foreign’ language that we should be less proud of.”

She added, “Its script, while derived from the Perso-Arabic, was heavily modified to include the sounds that are not to be found in those languages, e.g. sounds of ड,झ,ध, थ, ढ, ठ, and many more. It was a script that was widely used in many parts of the country till some decades ago. The reason it has become less popular is exactly because of this kind of apathy and in fact deliberate exclusion.”

The war against Urdu

Writers and historians have noted that the war against Urdu or the concept of gharwaapsi had begun long ago by the Hindu Supremacist groups like the Hindu Jagran Morcha.

Writing for The Diplomat, Shahzaman Haque, co-director of the Department of South Asia and Himalaya at Institut des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO), Paris, says, Urdu evolved from the Khari Boli language as a variety of Sanskrit. It was earlier known as Hindoostani, Dehlavi and Rekhta among other names.

He says its lineage to Sanskrit is proudly recalled, but the embellishment of the Perso-Arabic script have born the taint of Islam and since then there has been an attempt to Hinduize the language. Urdu then became the face of linguistic segregation and was radicalized with Muslims being made sole owners of the language.

When Urdu was made the second official language of Uttar Pradesh in 1989, which it still is; it was opposed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as an act of “Muslim appeasement.”

More recently, when the BJP came to power in Rajasthan in 2013, it merged the Urdu-medium schools to the benefit of the Hindi-medium schools, following which the recruitment of Urdu teachers was postponed and exam question papers were no longer made available in that language.

On October 30, 2019, just a day before Jammu and Kashmir was declared to be a Union Territory, BJP’s national secretary Tarun Chugh said, “The best thing is that now Urdu will no longer be the first and official language of the state. Hindi will be the first and official language of the state.”

This was seen as another attempt to dilute the cultural fabric of the region and an attack on the religious rights of Muslims in Kashmir. It is also seen as the first step to change the names of famous places in the region and an attempt to manipulate land and revenue records said human rights activist Lubna Sayed Qadri to The Logical Indian.

“Invading your language is a political tool in conflict, for instance, Urdu is the language of land and revenue records, changing it to an alien language like Hindi will leave people baffled. It will be used as a weapon to manipulate our land and revenue records,” she said adding that it will weaken the grip of the language in the Valley especially when religious scriptures are written in Urdu and all official records land, revenue, courts, and even FIRs are scripted in the language.

In recent times, the accusation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem ‘Hum Dekhenge’ being anti-Hindu and the opposition to the appointment of a Muslim man as a professor of Sanskrit at the Benaras Hindu University are other examples of the ruling government’s Hindutva agenda that has seeped into the minds of the people.

The exclusivist attitude of Hindu nationalists towards Urdu is unfortunate. Their argument that Urdu be brought back to its Sanskrit roots is not based in reality given the evolution of the language which has resulted in a completely different written code than Sanskrit.

Urdu represents the composite culture of India. Confining it to a faith or religion to further selfish political agendas is reflective of the BJP’s myopic view and its crafty attempt to suppress and alienate Muslim culture as a whole from India.

The petition to request the railways to not remove Urdu names from the railway station signboards in Uttarakhand may be signed here.

Related:

Nehtaur, Aligarh, Jamia – how Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag ka Darya imagines India

Danish Husain: The only way to fight Modi’s grammar of deception is that you continue to be relevant

The post BJP alienating Urdu to alienate Muslim culture? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Previously it was available only in English and Hindi. In May 2016, Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj launched 6 language versions of PMO

India’s website viz. in six major regional languages, including Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam and Bengali. Sushma also announced that government will launch the PM’s official website in other regional languages also in a phased manner.

If checked the recent updates, there are Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu also in the language drop down.

Right after the NDA government regained power in 2014, the PMO is seen to be doing away with many issues related to minority community.

The present RSS-backed government is known to be staunch and hardliner, if one goes by general belief.

According to the census 2001, Urdu is the sixth most spoken language of India. Urdu speakers, mostly Muslims constitute 5.01% of the population, surpass those speaking Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya and Punjabi languages.
Now the questions that arise in mind are; Is it deliberate to ignore Urdu? Does the central government want Urdu speakers to be barred from benefits of government resolutions and schemes and official information etc?

If we look for a possible logical reason of this delay, we fail to find one but a deliberate act of injustice. Because, in a phased and planned development, one usually tends to give priority by looking at statistics. And, going by the sheer number of Urdu speakers, Urdu ought to have found a place on PMO’s website.

In the democratic land of India, let’s all just hope that people in power refrain from targeting few of their own citizens.

Editor’s note: Janta Ka Reporter made several attempts to contact the PMO for their reaction on the above story, but they remained unavailable for comments. We will update the blog as and when we get a reaction from the PMO.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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प्रेमचंद के बारे में कुछ ऐसे तथ्य जो ज्यादा लोगों को पता नहीं है-

हिंदी के इस मशहूर लेखक ने अपनी पढाई एक मदरसे से शुरू की थी .

• शुरूआती दौर में यह उर्दू लेखक थे और इन्होने लेखनी की शुरूआत में कई उर्दू नाटकों से करी और इन्होने हिंदी में बाद में लिखना शुरू किया .
• कहते हैं इन्हें उर्दू उपन्यास का ऐसा नशा था कि यह किताब की दुकान पर बैठकर ही सब नॉवल पढ़ जाते थे ।
अपने उपन्यासों और कहानियो के लिए तो सभी लोग इन्हें जानते है पर बहुत कम लोगों को पता होगा की वह साथ ही एक नाटककार भी थे और लोगों का कहना है कि कहानियो से पहले यह नाटक ही लिखते थे
• अंगेजी हुकूमत को इनकी रचनाओं में बगावत की बू आने लगी थी जिस कारण इनकी रचनाओं पर प्रतिबन्ध लगा दिया गया था . इस प्रतिबन्ध से बचने के लिए इन्होने “प्रेमचंद” के नाम से लिखना शुरू किया . .
• वह फिल्मों में खुद अपनी किस्मत आजमाने मुंबई भी गए थे और इन्होने मजदूर नाम की फिल्म की स्क्रिप्ट भी लिखी थी और प्रदर्शित होने के ठीक बाद इस पर प्रतिबन्ध लगा दिया गया था क्योंकि यह मजदूरों को मिल मालिकों के खिलाफ भड़का रही थी

मामूली नौकर के तौर पर काम करने वाले अजायब राय के घर प्रेमचन्द ( धनपत राय ) का जन्म ३१ जुलाई सन् 1880 को बनारस शहर से चार मील दूर लमही गाँव में हुआ था। कहा जाता है कि घर की माली हालत कुछ ठीक नहीं थी जिस कारण उन्हें मैट्रिक में पढाई रोकनी पड़ी और ट्यूशन पढ़ाने लगे. बाद में इन्होने में ग्रेजुएशन की डिग्री हासिल की. तंगी के बावजूद इनका साहित्य की ओर झुकाव था और उर्दू का इल्म रखते थे । उनके जीवन का अधिकांश समय गाँव में ही गुजरा और वह सदा साधारण गंवई लिबास में रहते थे।

काफी कम उम्र से ही लिखना आरंभ कर दिया था और यह सिलसिला ताउम्र जारी रहा । पहली कहानी कानपूर से प्रकाशीत होने वाले अखबार ज़माना में प्रकाशित हुई थी । बाद में जब माली हालात कुछ ठीक हुए तो लेखन में तेजी आई। लोग बताते है कि 1907 में इनकी पाँच कहानियों का संग्रह सोजे वतन काफी मशहूर हुआ था और यही से एक लेखक के तौर पर मशहूर होना शुरू हुए ।
 
सामाजिक रचनाओं के साथ साथ इन्होने समकालीन विषयों पर भी अपनी कलम चलाई और अंग्रेज शासकों को इनके लेखन में बगावत की झलक मालूम हुई और एक बार पकडे भी गए. इनके सामने ही आपकी रचनाओं को जला दिया गया और बिना आज्ञा न लिखने का बंधन लगा दिया गया। इस बंधन से बचने के लिए इन्होने प्रेमचन्द के नाम से लिखना शुरू किया ।

इनकी लिखी लगभग 300 रचनाओं में से गोदान , सद्गति , पूस की रात जैसे उपन्यास और दो बैलो का जोड़ा , ईदगाह , गबन , बड़े भाईसाहब , शतरंज के खिलाडी , कर्मभूमि जैसी कहानिया तो सभी जानते है पर सामन्ती और पूँजीवादी प्रवृत्ति की निन्दा करते हुए लिखी “महाजनी सभ्यता” “नमक” नामक लेख उस समय के सामंती पूंजीवादी समाज का सटीक विश्लेषण है । कई मशहूर निर्देशक इनकी कहानियों पर कई फिल्मे भी बना चुके हैं .

प्रेमचंद के वो लेखक थे जिन्होंने कहानी के मूल को परियों की कहानियों से निकालकर यथार्थ की जमीन पर ला खड़ा किया और वह सही मायने में हिंदी आधुनिक साहित्य के जन्मदाता थे.

The post आज के समय में प्रेमचंद कि प्रासंगिकता –किशोर appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The same source reproduces the form, originally circulated in Urdu, thus: “I, son/daughter of …, confirm that my book/magazine titled …, which has been approved for bulk purchase by NCPUL’s monetary assistance scheme, does not contain anything against the policies of the government of India or the interest of the nation, does not cause disharmony of any sort between different classes of the country, and is not monetarily supported by any government or non-government institution.”

Urdu is one of the twenty-two “scheduled languages” of the country. It is the language of vastly more Indians than, for instance, Bodo or Santali or Sindhi. Historically, there is no doubt that it is an Indian language. Whenever people have suggested that it is a “foreign” language, I have responded with two questions. First, was Urdu born in Hindostan or in Arabia or Peru or China? Second, where except in the sub-continent is it spoken? I know it for a fact that, despite commonalities in semantics, no one in Jeddah or Tehran can follow sentences spoken in Urdu. This is because syntactically it is little different from Hindi, or from what is still called Hindustani, or from the Hindavi of Amir Khusro’s time.

To my knowledge, neither the ministry of human resource development nor any other arm of government has imposed a similar condition on any of the other twenty-one “scheduled languages”. Clearly, Urdu has been singled out because of its association with Islam. Going further, because Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, it is stupidly assumed to be the language of “pro-Pakistan” people in India. This stupidity is a fundamental part of the ideology of the Sangh Parivar, which now rules over India. And these worthies see Pakistan not as just a neighbour but as an “enemy nation”.

This explains the main clause of the declaration demanded, “does not contain anything against the interest of the nation.” It is assumed that those who write in Urdu, given that they are chiefly Muslims and given that Pakistan is an “Islamic republic”, are by definition (in the currently popular expression) “anti-national”: specifically, they are Pakistani spies or agents.

The fear of “anything against the policies of the government of India” is, in a democracy, laughable but also sinister. It takes away the right of free speech, one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It is the consideration which governed the actions of the sarkari censors during the Emergency of 1975-77, when fundamental rights were suspended.

But this leads also to the question: Are we a democracy any more?

(Likely to be published in 'Mainstream' weekly)

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My grandmother told me years ago that "Ismat apa", as she always called the illustrious writer,  wrote lying flat on her stomach, in the middle of a room buzzing with people. My grandparents were part of the great current of people who contributed to and were carried along by the Progressive Writers' Movement in the 1940's. While my grandfather was directly involved in literary production, my grandmother's contributions were more tangential, and her observations rather pithy. She told me that she loved visiting Ismat apa's home near Shivaji Park in Mumbai, a far trek from where she lived in Andheri. The windows of this house were always wide open, she recalled, and its curtains billowed all day in the sea breeze. From these observations I formed my own image of Ismat Chughtai, a woman of formidable achievement who wrote in an accessible voice. In my mind, she is the writer who wrote no matter what, belly down on a chatai (mat) on the floor, thriving on the bustle of the household around her.  The prolific writer was in the news recently, when the Rajasthan government decided to drop her stories from school textbooks. It also removed poems and short stories by the late theatre activist and writer Safdar Hashmi.
 
In her life, Chughtai was adept at offending people. Her work dealt with taboo themes and took readers into places that had never before been described. She wrote in the 'ghareloo zabaan': the turns of phrases and idioms of her busy household, the gossip of inner courtyards and women's quarters. I read her memoir Kaghazi Hai Pairahan (translated in English as A Life in Letters) as a college student. It was as transformative a text as other feminist tracts I encountered during those years, if not more so for the immediacy of its setting. Chughtai wrote in a style that was fearless, irreverent and often very funny. She began writing in the 1930s, but the story that defined her was Lihaaf (The Quilt), published in January 1942 in Adab-i-Latif, a literary magazine published from Lahore. The story earned her a court summons for obscenity, along with her friend Saadat Hasan Manto. They both chose to stand trial rather than apologize for their work, and eventually the cases were dropped.
 
Chughtai's canon includes works like her novel Terhi Lakeer (The Crooked Line) and stories like Masooma, Chauthi ka Joda (The Wedding Dress)  and Ziddi (The Stubborn Girl). The latter was adapted into a film script directed by her husband Shahid Latif. The duo collaborated on a host of other films including Arzoo (1950). Chughtai also wrote the dialogues for the 1978 film Junoon in which she played the role of a grandmother. And Chauthi ka Joda formed part of the story for the Partition classic Garam Hawa (1973), directed by MS Sathyu.

The years of student life are made special by exploration, by tuning into the abundance and diversity of nations, voices and realities. All this would be denied to the young minds who read the purged textbooks.
 
In every way, Chughtai stood for progressive values for most of her life.  She had to fight for an education, first from the iconic Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow and then to gain a Teachers Training degree from Aligarh. She went on to write books that challenged parochialism and patrirachy and championed the cause of social justice. She wrote for all of India, and almost 25 years after her death, she stands as a proud symbol of India's syncretic values and her own compassionate humanity. So to weed her out of textbooks for schoolchildren is a self defeating move.
 
According to media reports, the reason for the removal of Chughtai and Hashmi's writings is that "they were were loaded with Urdu words…" and were "highlighting practices of a particular community." They are sought to be replaced by readings that promote "local cultural practices and beliefs". This runs counter to the idea of Indian plural culture, that takes pride in its diversity. It also fails to understand the entire culture of reading, and of exploring different worlds through words, ideas and books. As a young woman in Aligarh, where Chughtai set many of her stories, I devoured translations of Chekhov and Maupassant, besides the writings of PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. It is limiting to think that reading should be about your own life or what is familiar. The years of student life are made special by exploration, by tuning into the abundance and diversity of nations, voices and realities. All this would be denied to the young minds who read the purged textbooks.
 
It is both sad and ironic that Chughtai's works continue to fall foul of government diktats, decades after her trial by the British Crown, in the India of 2015.  Perhaps the only sane response to this is what I imagine Ismat would have done: continue writing, in a room with the windows flung wide open, open to the breeze from all directions.  
 
(The writer is a journalist based in Mumbai )
 

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