Urdu-Hindi Controversy fro
Story of Pakistan Babu Shiva Prasad of Banares was one of the early proponents of the Nagari script. In a ''Memorandum on court characters'' written in 1868, he accused the early Muslim rulers of India for forcing them to learn Persian. In 1897,
Madan Mohan Malaviya
Madan Mohan Malaviya ( (25 December 1861 — 12 November 1946) was an Indian scholar, educational reformer and politician notable for his role in the Indian independence movement. He was president of the Indian National Congress four times and ...
published a collection of documents and statements titled ''Court character and primary education in North Western Provinces and Oudh'', in which he made a compelling case for Hindi.
[Status Change of Languages by Ulrich Ammon, Marlis Hellinger]
Several Hindi movements were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century; notable among them were
Nagari Pracharini Sabha
The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for Promotion of Nagari), also known as Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha, was an organization founded in 1893 at the Queen's College, Varanasi for the promotion of the Devanagari script over the more common K ...
formed in
Banaras in 1893, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in
Allahabad
Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
in 1910, Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha in 1918 and Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti in 1926.
The movement was encouraged in 1881 when Hindi in Devanagari script replaced Urdu in Persian script as the official language in neighboring
Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...
. They submitted 118 memorials signed by 67,000 people to the Education Commission in several cities.
The proponents of Hindi argued that the majority of people spoke Hindi and therefore introduction of Nagari script would provide better education and improve prospects for holding Government positions. They also argued that Urdu script made court documents illegible, encouraged forgery and promoted the use of complex Arabic and Persian words.
Organisations such as
Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu
Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu ( ur, ; ''Organisation for the Progress of Urdu'') was an organisation working for the promotion and dissemination of Urdu language, literature and culture in British India.
After the partition of India, the separated ...
were formed in defence of the official status given to Urdu.
Advocates of Urdu argued that Hindi scripts could not be written faster, and lacked standardisation and vocabulary. They also argued that the Urdu language originated in India, asserted that Urdu could also be spoken fluently by most of the people and disputed the assertion that official status of language and script is essential for the spread of education.
Communal violence broke out as the issue was taken up by firebrands.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also Sayyid Ahmad Khan) was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India. Though initially espousing Hindu-Muslim unity, he ...
had once stated, "I look to both Hindus and Muslims with the same eyes & consider them as two eyes of a bride. By the word nation I only mean Hindus and Muslims and nothing else. We Hindus and Muslims live together under the same soil under the same government. Our interest and problems are common and therefore I consider the two factions as one nation." Speaking to Mr. Shakespeare, the governor of
Banaras, after the language controversy heated up, he said "I am now convinced that the Hindus and Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life was quite distinct from one another."
In the last three decades of the 19th century the controversy flared up several times in
North-Western provinces
The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1858, the nawab-ruled kingdo ...
and
Oudh
The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...
. The Hunter commission, appointed by the Government of India to review the progress of education, was used by the advocates of both Hindi and Urdu for their respective causes.
Gandhi's idea of Hindustani
Hindi and Urdu continued to diverge both linguistically and culturally. Linguistically, Hindi continued drawing words from Sanskrit, and Urdu from Persian, Arabic and
Chagatai. Culturally Urdu came to be identified with Muslims and Hindi with Hindus. This wide divergence in the 1920s was deplored by
Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
, who exhorted the re-merging of both Hindi and Urdu, naming it Hindustani, written in both Nagari and Persian scripts.
Though he failed in his attempt to bring together Hindi and Urdu under the Hindustani banner, he popularised Hindustani in other non-Hindustani speaking areas.
Muslim nationalism
It has been argued that the Hindi–Urdu controversy sowed the seeds for
Muslim nationalism in India. Some also argued that
Syed Ahmad had expressed separatist views long before the controversy developed.
Linguistic purism
Because of linguistic purism and its orientation towards the pre-Islamic past, advocates for pure Hindi have sought to remove many Persian, Arabic, and Turkic loanwords and replaced them with borrowings from Sanskrit. Conversely, formal Urdu employs far more Perso-Arabic words than does vernacular Hindustani.
Urdu to Hindi
In April 1900, the colonial Government of the North-Western Provinces issued an order granting equal official status to both Nagari and Perso-Arabic scripts.
This decree evoked protests from Urdu supporters and joy from Hindi supporters. However, the order was more symbolic in that it did not provision exclusive use of Nagari script. Perso-Arabic remained dominant in North-Western provinces and
Oudh
The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...
as the preferred writing system until independence.
C. Rajagopalachari
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), popularly known as Rajaji or C.R., also known as Mootharignar Rajaji (Rajaji'', the Scholar Emeritus''), was an Indian statesman, writer, lawyer, and independence activis ...
, chief minister of
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...
(where a majority of the population would have spoken
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
or other
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
) introduced Hindi as a compulsory language in secondary school education though he later relented and opposed the introduction of Hindi during the Madras
anti-Hindi agitation of 1965.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (; born Keshav Gangadhar Tilak (pronunciation: eʃəʋ ɡəŋɡaːd̪ʱəɾ ʈiɭək; 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), endeared as Lokmanya (IAST: ''Lokmānya''), was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence a ...
supported Devanagari script as the essential part of nationalist movement. The language policy of Congress and the
independence movement
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
paved its status as an alternative
official language of independent India. Hindi was supported by religious and political leaders, social reformers, writers and intellectuals during independence movement securing that status. Hindi, along with English, was recognised as the official language of India during the institution of the
Indian constitution
The Constitution of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental r ...
in 1950.
See also
*
Urdu movement
*
Hindi in Pakistan
*
Linguistic purism
Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the prescriptive practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties. Linguistic purism was institutionalized th ...
*
History of Hindustani
Hindustani language, Hindustani (Hindi: हिंदुस्तानी, Urdu: ) is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu. It is widely spoken and ...
*
Persian and Urdu
The Persian language and Urdu have had an intricate relationship throughout the history of the latter. Persian historically played a significant role in the formation and development of the modern Urdu, and today acts as its prestige language.
...
References
External links
South Asia Analysis Group: Hindi-Urdu controversy from
Dawn
Newspaper
The poisonous potency of script: Hindi and Urdu''ROBERT D. KING''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindi-Urdu controversy
Pakistan Movement
Hindustani language
Hindi
Urdu
Politics of British India
India–Pakistan relations
Political controversies
1867 in India
Language conflict in India
Linguistic controversies
Muslim politics in India
Urdu-language literary movements