Urdu Literary Groups Welcome Supreme Court's Ruling Upholding Language's Indian Identity

The Supreme Court upheld the use of Urdu on a Maharashtra municipal council's name board alongside Marathi, saying that the language cannot be tied to any particular religion and that there is no legal bar on its use.

The court said that the prejudice against Urdu stemmed from the misconception that the language is alien to India. This opinion, we are afraid, is incorrect as Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. It is a language born in India, the court said.

Urdu literary groups have welcomed the Supreme Court's judgment on Urdu, calling it a language rooted in India and as Indian as other Indo-Aryan languages, Hindi and Marathi.

Zubair Azmi, director of Urdu Markaz Mumbai, said that this is the first judgement on Urdu in the annals of the highest court in India. "The judgement itself is self-explanatory; it highlights the finer points like Urdu being an Indo-Aryan language like Marathi or Hindi and spells the Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb of the composite Indian culture and the great Idea of India," said Azmi.

Farid Khan, founder and president of Urdu Caravan, agreed that it was the first time a court in India said that Urdu is a pure Indian language. "Urdu is a daughter of Sanskrit, which has influenced many Indian languages, including Hindi, Marathi, and Tamil. The judgment upholds Urdu's Constitutional status. It is a landmark judgment," said Khan, who added that when Pakistan made Urdu its national language after India's partition, it faced discrimination in India. 

"But we should remember that the parliamentarians who added Urdu to India's schedule of recognised official languages were Hindus," said Khan, who added that Urdu writers and poets like Rajinder Singh Bedi and Firaq Gorakhpuri were not Muslims. "They would not have enriched .

The court, in its observations, noted that the fusion of Hindi and Urdu encountered a roadblock in the form of purists on both sides, resulting in Hindi becoming more Sanskritized and Urdu more Persian. "A schism exploited by the colonial powers in dividing the two languages on religion. Hindi was now understood to be the language of Hindus and Urdu of the Muslims, which is such a pitiable digression from reality; from unity in diversity; and the concept of universal brotherhood," the Court said.

Azmi said Urdu and Hindi have borrowed from each other. "The petitioner (a former councillor) who hails from Akola must not forget the fusion of Urdu and Marathi in the Akola region, formally part of the Ahmadshahi dynasty of the Berar Sultanate in the Deccan region.