The great Urdu fraud

By Dr Ather Farouqui

Published in the print edition of The Milli Gazette (1-15 May 2005)


The NCPUL-National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language-is an autonomous organization created by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development for the promotion of Urdu. It is the born-again version of the Bureau for the Promotion of the Urdu Language which also came into existence after the scrapping of the Taraqqi Urdu Board. Both of these organizations were known for their unique incompetence. Their ineptitude led to their dissolution and the creation of a new organization. The NCPUL was created as an advisory body to the government for the promotion of Urdu. The Chairman of the NCPUL is the Union Minister for Human Resource Development who, like an absentee landlord, exercises his powers and privileges through a Vice-Chairman, appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The Vice-Chairman together with a council of members-again appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development-oversees the functioning of the NCPUL. The full-time adm inistrative head of the NCPUL is the Director who together with a hierarchy of junior officials carries out the day-to-day functioning of its various activities within the framework of an annually approved budget. The present director, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat, a favourite of Murli Manohar Joshi (former Union Minister of HRD), has been implementing the RSS agenda of the outgoing BJP-led NDA Government. Joshi's great achievement in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar is the saffronisation of education through the rewriting of history, glorification of ancient Hindu culture and civilisation, promotion of Hinduism (as per RSS definition) in the name of value education , introduction of Sanskrit from primary to professional level and slow but steady assimilation of Urdu in Hindi. In not too distant past , he was one of the main architect of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir movement and was present at the demolition of the Babri Masjid for which act of bravado he figures among the accused in the criminal cases, charged with conspiracy and collusion.

One of the major activities of the NCPUL is to receive, examine, evaluate and sanction the execution of academic research projects relating to Urdu submitted either by individuals, groups of individuals or even institutions. The NCPUL also generates its own research proposals and takes decisions with the help of various committees set up by it from among its members to allocate these projects to individuals or groups of individuals for execution after examining thoroughly their academic credentials and competence.

A MAJOR PROJECT

At a meeting of the Academic Panel (Project Academies) held on August 25, 1998, it was decided that 'an extensive project' covering the entire country should be undertaken to study the following:

1. The structure of the Urdu language spoken and written across the country.

2. The attitudinal behaviour of the speakers of Urdu towards their language and other languages of India.

3. The study of the use of Urdu in various media forms.

4. The study of the use of written Urdu in creative writings.

5. The study of the use of Urdu in non-creative writings, such as court proceedings, ledger, accounts etc.

6. The study of written Urdu in formal and informal writings.


It is evident that a project of such enormous scope could not possibly be completed in the foreseeable future. But not content with this, the scope of the project was twice enlarged even further.

A meeting of 'The Sub-Group of the Programme Committee of the Project' held on the 19th of February 1999 decided that the project team should compile:

» A comprehensive bibliography of all the published research work conducted in the field of Urdu Linguistics and Language in India;
» A comprehensive bibliography of all the published research work conducted in the field of Urdu Linguistics and Language abroad;
» A comprehensive bibliography of all the non-published research work conducted in the field of Urdu Linguistics and Language in India;
» A comprehensive bibliography of all the non-published research work conducted in the field of Urdu Linguistics and Language abroad;

The same Committee, at the same meeting "felt that enquiry about the general status of Urdu education in the areas of investigation should also be conducted. This in return implied reviewing the language used in text books of all subjects written in Urdu."

"The Project should also critically analyse the constitutional and legal framework for the promotion of Urdu and the major initiatives by the Government agencies during the last 50 years."

"The project will also cover the role of voluntary organizations in the respective areas and the contribution of the State Urdu Academies, University Departments, voluntary organizations and other institutions".

Dr. Hamidullah Bhat had yet more to say:
"A survey of the state of the Urdu education system throughout India will be carried out in the second, and major part of the project, which of course is of vital importance to the Urdu-speaking people. The basic aim of this survey will be to collect reliable data and prepare an official document on the state of Urdu education as well as to study and analyze the sociopolitical and psycho-educational situation and the problems of Urdu-speaking linguistic minority. One important aspect of the second part will deal with the problems of Urdu teaching and learning."

Dr. Bhat went on to state that the proposed survey, the flagship-as it were-of the project would provide answers to the following crucial questions relating to Urdu in India:
1. How many schools (from primary to secondary level) of secular education with modern curriculum exist across the country that teach using Urdu as the medium of education or teach Urdu as an optional subject?

2. How many students are enrolled in both categories in these schools?

3. What is the proportion of dropouts in both categories?

4. How many Urdu teachers are available/regularly employed in both categories?

5. How many of the above are trained and equipped for teaching Urdu in both the categories?

6. Which institutions provided training facilities for Urdu teachers?

7. Are Urdu textbooks in various subjects available for students?

8. How many of the above textbooks are original works and how many are translations?

9. What is the syllabus for teaching in both categories?

10. What associated and supplementary material is available to students for reference and further study in both categories?

11. Has there been any academic audit of the difficulty level of the textbooks whether in translation or original?

12. How many pupils come from madrasas or go back to madrasas in the evening for religious education?

13. What kind of problems do Urdu medium (wherever it is available) students face at university level?


Then on 19th August 1999, came another development. Dr. L.M. Singhvi, Member Parliament wrote a letter to Mr. M.K. Kaw, the Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, drawing his attention to a speech delivered by Mr. Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, former Chief Justice of India and the then President of National Human Rights Commission at a function organized by the Linguistic Minority Guild wherein he had expressed a desire that a survey be conducted concentrating among others on:

1. The study of Urdu as a medium of Instruction and as an optional subject with details of the number of schools in every state, strength of students and the number of students who opted for Urdu as a optional subject or as a medium of instruction.

2. Problems of teachers training and syllabus...the translation of syllabus into Urdu from English ...(and) the quality of translation...

3. Numbers of those who drop out in both the streams…

In order to lend weight to his suggestions, Dr. Singhvi wrote that he was making this suggestion 'as a constructive contribution to the important issues of evolving a fair and honourable approach to Urdu as one of the Indian languages in our national life'.

While thanking Dr. Singhvi for his suggestions and informing him that they were 'initiating suitable action', the Secretary, Mr. Kaw, sent the letter to the NCPUL which decided immediate to broadbase its project by incorporating the suggestions made by Dr. Singhvi and also conduct a workshop on November12-14th, 1999 'to devise an appropriate format for this survey'. In fact, the NCPUL suggested that the [then] Secretary Education, Mr. Kaw, himself inaugurate the workshop.

THE PROJECT TEAM

So much for the scope of the project. What steps were taken to launch it? The same meeting of the Academic Panel that formulated the project, that of the 25th August 1998 included four members who had nothing to do with Urdu and who were scholars of Hindi. These were Professor V.R.Jaganathan, Professor M.G.Chaturvedi, Professor Anvita Abbi and Dr. Sushila Thomas.

Once the decision was taken to undertake this huge exercise, a logical next step should have been to organize a workshop or a seminar of a group of renowned Urdu scholars to work out the modalities of executing the project. But this was not done.

The next step was to decide what body should take up the project. The Academic Panel decided to entrust it to one of its members, Professor Anvita Abbi, who CANNOT READ and WRITE the Urdu script and has never done any work in the field of Urdu.

On the 23rd December, within four weeks, Professor Abbi had accepted the post. Such haste is most unusual. Normal procedure would have been to prepare the minutes of the meeting in which it was decided to offer the post to Professor Abbi, circulate them to all members to be confirmed, and then duly sign them. In this case it is not even certain whether such minutes were even prepared.

Soon after accepting the post Professor Abbi asked for a grant to cover various expenses. One was to cover the costs of a workshop/seminar she proposed to convene. She did not say who she proposed to participate in this seminar. Then she wanted money to cover 'travel by coordinator (University of Delhi, Jamia Millia and Indira Gandhi National Open University) for consultations'. Why could such consultations not take place within the proposed seminar's expenses? Thirdly money was needed to pay for 'Two visits by external coonrdinator of 3 days duration each (from Aligarh including TA and DA)." Rs. 4000 were asked for this. Who was this external coordinator? How and by whom had he or she been appointed? No information on these points was made available.

On the 19th February 1999 a meeting of the Sub Group of the Programme Committee of the Project appointed Principal Investigators, namely Professor RS Gupta, Dr. Ayesha Kidwai-both from JNU-and Dr. Imtiaz Hasnain from Aligarh Muslim University. None of these can read and write Urdu.

Then plans were made to appoint Project Assistants. Only four posts were advertised, and yet six were appointed at a meeting held on 9th August 19999. Dr. Hamidullah Bhat as member of the selection committee signed the minutes of the meeting. However it appears that he did not ever read the bio-data of the candidates, because four days later Dr. Hamidullah Bhat wrote a note to Professor Gopi Chand Narang---a member of NCPUL who eventually became the Vice-chairman of the NCPUL---,: "It transpires from the bio-data of Sl. No. 2 to 4 that they do not possess the sufficient knowledge of Urdu. Under the circumstances the whole exercise needs a relook." Professor Gopi Chand Narang wrote back, "I agree."

The logical next step would have been to revoke the appointment of these incompetent people. But this was not done. On the contrary, on the 23rd August the appointments were approved by a committee. The same meeting expressed its 'general satisfaction that the above project has started well' and also 'approved' 'the appointment of the Research Assistant/Technical Assistant as recommended by the Selection committee' and decided that 'Professor Anvita Abbi may proceed with the appointment'.

How people who had been appointed as Project Assistants had been transformed into Research Assistants/ Technical Assistants was not explained.

In the same month of August 1999 a decision was taken to do what ought to have been done at the very outset and on the 27th the Director addressed a letter to scholars across the country inviting them to a workshop in the last week of October "in order to develop the broad guidelines of this project". Interestingly, the expense involved was to be met by the NCPUL and not from the project funds, paying the TA/DA expenses of the participants and an honorarium of Rs. 1,000 to each participant who contributed a paper. An indication of what the response of Professor Abbi would be had already been provided when on the 5th October she had declined to attend a meeting arranged by the NCPUL with principals of Urdu medium schools in Delhi. She now refused to commit herself to participating in the national seminar, and when Dr. Hamidullah Bhat called a meeting in this connection on the 26th of October 1999 she instructed her assistants not to attend.

FINANCING THE PROJECT

Very shortly after accepting the post as coordinator of the project Professor Abbi asked for Rs. 15,000 to pay for the vaguely defined activities already described. The request was made and sanctioned and the cheque prepared and handed to her personally all on the same day. This prompt action was described as " setting the ball rolling" in her favour.

The project team then submitted a budget estimating that expenditure for the first year would be Rs. 2, 23, 000. This was at once accepted and a sum of Rs. 1,00,000 under the non-recurring head was also released immediately.

According to the proposal submitted by Professor Abbi and accepted by the NCPUL, the project was to be supervised jointly by JNU and Aligarh Muslim University, and a written agreement to this effect was to be prepared. However, before this had been done, on March 8, 1999, Professor Abbi asked for the release of the entire of Rs. 2,23,000 earmarked for the non-recurring grant to buy equipment that included Dictaphone tape recorders (6), VCR, computers (3), laserjet printers (2), scanjet, UPS (2) and special software. Since the financial year ends on 31st March, these purchases needed to be made at once.

On 31st March, 1999-the last day of the financial year-the NCPUL released Rs.1,00,000, sending the cheque personally to Dr. Abbi although it was made out to the Registrar, JNU. The Accounts Officer certified that 'the sanction is being issued in conformity with the rules and procedures as approved by the Ministry of Finance'.

Professor Abbi now stated, "However, before we hand over the cheque to the Registrar and enter into a formal agreement with the NCPUL, a few things need to be sorted out regarding the scope of the project, the provisions in the different budget heads…." So the NCPUL had doled out money for the project even before entering into a formal agreement with the JNU. In offering the project to JNU the NCPUL now made, among others, the following two observations.

· The amounts mentioned in recurring Heads are tentative and upward revision of these figures is possible depending on the requirements and progress of the Project.

· Figures under different Heads in the recurring sections are open to inter-Head reappropriation.

As noted above, Project Assistants-later transformed into Research Assistants/ Technical Assistants and then transformed back again into Project Assistants -were appointed on the 9th August 1999. Almost two months before that Professor Abbi had demanded the release of the grant under the head "Recurring", observing, "without any money under ' Recurring' we cannot proceed at all." She had other demands as well. On the 10th August, the very next day after the appointment of the six assistants (as against only four posts advertised) she demanded two more. She also demanded an increase in their salary from Rs.3000 to Rs. 5000, despite the fact that Rs 3,000 had been the sum advertised, that none of the appointees had asked for more, and the minutes of the selection committee made no mention of provision for enhancement.

Tensions were now developing between Professor Abbi and the hitherto compliant NCPUL. On the 25th August 1999 Dr. Hamidullah Bhatt asked the coordinator for "revised project proposals". He also asked her to submit -something which she had long ago promised -the questionnaire which the team had drafted for an all-India survey. Professor Abbi, instead of sending the questionnaire, responded, "I am sorry to say that we will not be able to proceed at all without the financial help". However, although the questionnaire had still not been sent, Rs 1,00,000 were released on the 1st October 1999. But tension again developed, and on the 27th October 1999 the NCPUL wrote to Professor Abbi, "… you are requested not to initiate any action on the project till the project guidelines are developed in the proposed seminar-cum-workshop. No expenditure (recurring/non-recurring) may be incurred till future course of action is devised and communicated to you". So the NCPUL suddenly woke up to realize that there was all play and no work in the project. In a Note dated 18.2.2000, the Director, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat noted, "Till date, NCPUL has released Rs. two lacs to the project team. We have not received any statement of accounts or progress report of implementation enabling us to take further action at our end. It will be advisable if the meeting of the monitoring committee is convened and project team requested to place before it the work done, report and statement of accounts and particularly the nature of survey they have been conducting, if any".

The Vice-chairman, Professor Gopi Chand Narang 'agreed' the contents of this letter. Notwithstanding all this, the proceedings of a meeting of the Monitoring Committee held on 2 March 2000 the Director was once again happy with the smooth running of the project. 'The project team…requested the release of further grant, which was agreed'. An estimate of Rs. 4,20,000 expected to be spent in the next 9 months -April 2000 to December 2000 -was presented by Professor Abbi and was accepted.

It was proposed to buy more equipment-once again computers, printers, UPS, CD writers, etc. No one bothered to ask what had happened to the earlier equipment-whether it was in operation, how much of it was being used and how much of it was lying unutilized. Interesting budgetary provision included the purchase of 'Audio-cassettes and Cells worth Rs. 10,000 and Video Films worth another Rs. 10,000. An amount of Rs. 1,64,000 against the budgetary demands mentioned above was released on 19 April 2000 and this did not include money for the purchase of computers and VCR etc. The NCPUL stated that this would be made available as and when sufficient data became available from the survey. However, once again, the NCPUL relented within a few days and on May 2, 2000 another installment of Rs. 32,000 was released towards, among other things, the purchase of a VCR and an HP Scanjet.

Meanwhile work which it might have been expected that the project would do was being done by the NCPUL. It was the NCPUL which wrote to the State Urdu Academies, requesting photocopies of Urdu newspaper/ magazine clippings from 1950 onwards. And it was the NCPUL that provided the project team with the addresses of the Urdu Academies and the names of their secretaries. It was also the NCPUL which sought the copies of Annual reports of the Academies during the last 50 years. Meanwhile the project was getting more money from the NCPUL. Another installment of Rs. 31,825 was sent on 7 June 2000 for non-recurring expenditure, that is for buying more equipment.

Having done her shopping for the project, Professor Abbi wrote to the NCPUL on 23rd June, 2000 that she was proceeding to Germany on leave for six months and Professor R.S. Gupta, who was one of the Principal Investigators would be coordinating the project. Now it was Professor Gupta's turn to run the project, that is to demand more money. So, no one was surprised when on 18th September, 2000 Professor Gupta demanded the immediate release of Rs. 2,06,426 which was the remaining unpaid balance from a total sanctioned amount of Rs. 6,02,252. As for the up-to-date accounts of the money already received that had been asked for, he stated that these would be submitted as soon as Professor Abbi returned from abroad. Professor Gupta now decided to go on a tour. One would have imagined that for collecting data or for apprising himself of actual conditions of Urdu teaching/learning he would go to places like Ballimaran in Delhi or Nakkhas (Lucknow) in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar Sharif in B ihar or Aurangabad in Maharashtra where there are concentrations of Urdu speakers. But he chose instead to go to Bangalore and Mysore- and the NCPUL sanctioned the tour without even a murmur of a protest.

The progress report up to 29 August 2000 stated that data had been collected from Delhi, Maler Kotla, Lucknow, Mysore and Himachal. There was no mention of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar all of which have substantial populations of Urdu speakers and learners (In J&K, of course, Urdu is the state language). So much for the all-India reach of the project. There was of course mention of some short stories having been collected and journalistic writings analysed. Apparently these were culled out of anthologies of books available in Delhi or were sent by State Urdu Academies in response to the letters sent out by the NCPUL. More than two years and lakhs of Rupees later, this is what the project had to show by way of progress.

Professor Gupta also managed to persuade the NCPUL to extend the appointment of the Project Assistants for another year and their tenure was extended up to 12 October 2001.

On 27th October 2000, Professor Gupta sought the assistance of the NCPUL in conducting a survey of Urdu education in Delhi, Lucknow and Maler Kotla and asked them to 'depute somebody from NCPUL to assist me in conducting and coordinating the fieldwork.' Why the Project Assistants who were receiving their salaries regularly and who were located in Professor Gupta's own department could not do this was not explained.

A Report of Activities March 2000-September 2000 was submitted. This reported fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, which is not major Urdu speaking state. The other focus of the project team had been on Bangalore and Mysore, which again are not the most significant places for teaching or learning of Urdu. The reasons for ignoring the most obvious places in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat, Maharashtra, Andhra and Kerala were not given. Nor did the NCPUL ask for them.

On 8th February, 2001, Professor Gupta wrote a letter to the NCPUL saying that he had become Coordinator of the project only in the place of Professor Abbi who had proceeded to Germany on six months' leave, and now that she had returned 'I am handing back he Coordinatorship of the project to her'. He continued, " I take this opportunity to also state that it will not be possible for me to continue assisting/participating in the said project as one of the Principal Investigators any longer. There are several reasons for this, the details of which I do not wish to go into." It seems that he was not asked the reasons.

There were signs how that the whole project would soon collapse. And on March 8, 2001, Professor Abbi wrote a letter to Dr. Hamidullah Bhat. Gone was the bonhomie and mutual praise-showering that had gone on for two years when money was being sought and doled out without any accountability. Professor Abbi wrote, among other things, "This is to request you to consider this most urgent and release the installment of Rs. 3,92,122=50 (the original request made by Prof. Gupta dated 27 October 2000 along with the justification) to meet the already incurred expenditure and future running of the project. Any lapse and failure to do so will force me to close down the project and I am sorry to say you will have to own the responsibility of the premature death of a very significant and nationally useful project. I hope your office takes cognizance of this communication and expedite the release of the funds.

Professor Abbi signed off with 'With best wishes'. Not a word had been said about the amount of work done by the project team during the three years of its existence, during which it had spent more than 5 lakhs on purchase of equipment, salaries and honoraria.

This threat achieved the desired result, for on the very next day, 9th March 2001, the NCPUL sanctioned an amount of Rs. 1,72,095 and released it on the 12th. By now Rs. 5,67,920 had been spent since the project began. The final report was now done, and Professor Abbi asked the NCPUL to pay for it. She found an ingenious way of extracting this further sum of money. In a communication dated June 17 she wrote to the Director that while the report was 'almost complete' "the hard disk of the computer purchased for the project was showing 'crash signals' when we copied the data and saved it. Unless the disk is replaced (it may cost anything between Rs. 10,000 to 12,000) we are unable to complete the report. It would be a great help if the additional money is granted too."

Professor Abbi was evidently not sure whether whatever the project had remained would be approved by the Monitoring Committee or other evaluation agency. So her very last comment was a self-commendation certificate:

"whatever little we could do within the available money is commendable."

This was the end of the project. The cause of Urdu had been served and promoted to the tune of approximately six lakhs.

THE NEED FOR A PUBLIC ENQUIRY
All this calls for a public enquiry in which the following crucial questions must be asked:

1. Did the proposal to undertake the project originate with the NCPUL or was it originated elsewhere?

2. At whose instance was Professor Anvita Abbi made the Coordinator of the Project, when she had no formal qualifications in the field of Urdu and could not even read the script?

3. Why did no one, more particularly the Director of NCPUL, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat ascertain the academic competence of Professor Anvita Abbi? Did they not know that she could not even read Urdu?

4. Why did they not investigate the competence of the three Principal Investigators? Did they know that none of them could read or write Urdu?

5. Why did they agree to the appointment of six Project Assistants when only four had been proposed?

6. Why did they approve these appointments apparently unaware that at least three of the six selected did not possess any knowledge of Urdu and could not read and write it?

7. Why, having discovered the incompetence of three of the project assistants, did they not take steps to revoke their appointment?

8. Why did they grant Professor Anvita Abbi's demands for two additional posts and her demand that the previously agreed monthly salary of each should be raised from 3000 to 5000?

9. Why was money released for the project even before the MOU had been signed with the Jawaharlal Nehru University?

10. Why did the NCPUL continue to certify that the project was 'running smoothly' and release more installments of money when even the 'broad guidelines' for running the project had not been prepared and presented by the project team?

11. Why did the project team refuse to participate in the workshop convened especially for finalizing the details of the All India Survey to be conducted by the project team especially when the suggestion for the workshop had come from Dr. L.M. Singhvi, Member Parliament who had referred to the idea having first been mooted by no less a person than Mr. Justice Venkatchalia, former Chief Justice of India and the then President of the National Human Rights Commisson?

12. Why was the project team allowed to continue with the project after the Coordinator had refused to allow the Project Assistants to participate in this meeting, though it had been convened by the Director NCPUL, who had himself invited the Project Assistants to take part?

13. Why did the NCPUL not insist on knowing the reasons of Professor Gupta, one of the Principal Investigators, suddenly resigning his post?

14. Why did the NCPUL succumb to the pressure of the Coordinator, every time the question of release of money was linked to the submission of progress report and accounts of expenditure?

15. What was content of the final report?

16. Why were Dr. Hamidullah Bhat and Professor Abbi not asked by either the Chairman of the NCPUL-the Union Minister for Human Resource Development is the Chairman-or the Education Secretary, Government of India, to account for the fiasco of the project?

17. And finally the most important question of all-Why was no professor or scholar of Urdu from any academic or research institution associated with the project?

Only a public enquiry can answer these questions in order to fix the responsibility for this great fraud. More crucially such an inquiry could make it difficult for such frauds to recur.

(Ather Farouqui, a pioneer scholar in the field of Urdu language and education in post partition India, was awarded Ph.D from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1995. He has written extensively about the theoretical framework relevant to the academic formulations for making Urdu a functional language in India. He may be contacted at farouqui@yahoo.com)

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