Root Of The Language Problem: Why Replacing Urdu Terms Won’t Simplify Justice

The Rajasthan government recently issued a directive to the state police to replace all the Urdu and Persian words currently being used in official documents, letters and reports with their Hindi equivalents. After Chhattisgarh, this is the second BJP-ruled state to issue such a directive. While there is nothing wrong in promoting the national language, or any language for that matter, the question that arises is: is such an extensive exercise really needed?

The reason given by minister of state for the home department Jawahar Singh Bedham is that Rajasthan is a Hindi-speaking state, and police personnel and the general public are not familiar with Urdu or Persian words, often leading to misunderstandings or misrepresentations and delays in serving justice.

The minister has further stated that these words, introduced in the Mughal era, have lost their prominence today and should be substituted by equivalent Hindi words so that the decision-making process ‘at the competent level’ can be completed and justice can be served quickly.

There are only about 109-110 odd such words of Urdu and Persian used in official documentation, such as ‘qatal’, ‘gunaah’, ‘roznamcha’, ‘chashmadid gawah’, etc. The government wants to replace them with simple Hindi words. Now, here’s a thought. These words, or rather terms, have been in use for the past few centuries and have become a part of the local vocabulary.

Besides, Hindi movies have contributed majorly to educating people about the meanings and usages of most of these terms. Hence, to say that the general public can’t understand them doesn’t ring true. Moreover, the Hindi that is used in government offices is markedly different from the spoken version.

The Hindi used by the Government of India in its correspondence is “Sankritnishth” (Sanskritised) and archaic, which anyway is not in use by the general public, including the Hindi-belt. So, the whole argument about the public not understanding these words is baseless. If at all, it is the official Hindi language itself that needs to be curated by replacing archaic Hindi words with the ones used in local parlance.

Clearly, the idea here is to promote the central government’s agenda of language unity with Hindi at its helm. To stay relevant, a language needs to expand and evolve over time. There has to be innovation as well as adaptation for a language to transcend time. That is how it sustains itself.

English is a universal language because it not only adapted itself to changing times but also created new words rooted in different languages. The Hindi that we speak today, including the Hindi-speaking belt, incorporates scores of local dialects, which is why you find the language changing from district to district. If Hindi has to emerge as a unifying language in India, it has to become inclusive, not exclusive.

By the way, someone should inform the Chhattisgarh government that the replacement word ‘naqsha’, substituting the term ‘goshwara’, finds its roots in Persian.