The Urdu Heartland Shifts South
The language is losing out to Hindi in Gangetic belt
MAHMOOD FAROOQUI
[ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005 12:00:00 AM ]
The Times of India dated June 27 carries a piece that succinctly sums up not merely the problems of education in Urdu medium schools but also the fate of the wider language itself. The report mentions how students of Urdu medium schools in the capital have fared extremely poorly in the Class X and XII board exams, with pass percentage barely touching 50 even in the best ones.
Their performance is in stark contrast with their peers in Urdu medium schools of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or West Bengal. This is the great paradox facing Urdu, that in the supposed areas of its birth, in the north Indian hinterlands, it languishes, but it thrives in the states below the Vindhyas.
The fate of Urdu has been a perennial concern for the Indian state. During the last 60 years, every single government at the Centre, including the BJP-led NDA, has announced a policy, a scheme, a body or a board for advancing the cause of Urdu. Usually the states of UP and Bihar have been at the forefront of such measures, it being assumed that since they account for the greatest proportion of Muslim population in the country, they would also contain the largest speakers of the language.
It is a fair assumption but it ignores the hypnotic and sponge-like effect of Hindi on Urdu and Urdu speakers. Easy and instant awareness of Hindi and its sway in terms of mass media leads Urdu speakers in these states to switch to and identify with Hindi more easily than in other states. While today Urdu is used almost exclusively by Muslims, it is thriving in areas where the Muslim populations are a smaller minority. In UP and Bihar, it is much more markedly linked to madrassas and other non-formal education systems. While more than 15 million people speak Urdu in UP, there are very few Urdu medium high schools in the state, even as there are more than 2,000 in Maharashtra and Karnataka, 70 in Delhi and more than 5,000 in Bihar. Almost five lakh students from Urdu medium schools sit for X and XII exams every year but their pass percentage is less than 30. In UP and Bihar it is a woeful 25 but in the southern states and Maharashtra that percentage shoots up to 70, even 80.
Unlike the students from Bihar the Urdu medium students in Maharashtra compete on equal terms with students from other vernacular schools, occasionally even topping the state board exams.
Like so many such schemes in the past, the recent budget also provided for a central fund for Urdu teachers. Schools and colleges under state governments may appoint Urdu teachers and the Centre will defray some of the cost. But appointing more Urdu teachers to schools does not necessarily translate into more Urdu students, nor does it imply an automatic advancement of the language.
Like Hindi and English, Urdu speakers are spread over a number of states but unlike the former it is not the first language in any state, and unlike the latter it is not the universal link and official language. Urdu is the second language, in terms of speakers, in five states — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. It fares better in the peninsular than in the Gangetic states. This is perhaps because peninsular India is better administered or perhaps because the Urdu speakers in this region derive an advantage out of having a distinct and separate second language.
In terms of the number of Urdu magazines and newspapers around, with more than 2,000 publications it is in third place, after English and Hindi. Urdu dailies in 1991 numbered more than 2,000, but their total circulation was just about 25 lakh. Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of publications after UP. There is no Urdu newspaper or magazine printed anywhere in the country that can be considered influential or even famous. The highest newspaper circulation hardly rises beyond 25,000.
Described sometimes as the third biggest language in the world and supposedly spoken by nearly five crore people in India, the sixth biggest language in the country today cannot boast of any single nationwide magazine, newspaper or even a canon of popular literature. When one tries to remember a popular or respected Urdu journalist, one is forced to go back to the pre-Independence period.
Where it does score heavily, unsurprisingly, is in its poetical output: More than a thousand collections of Urdu poetry are published every year in the country.
When the contours and canons of modern Urdu literature were laid down in the eighteenth century, the Dilliwallas gave a short shrift to the preceding two centuries of literary developments in the Deccan. Nusrati and Quli Qutub, as well as Gisu Daraz or Wajhi, were all discarded as corrupt or sub-standard in the face of the chaste and elitist idiom of north Indian courts. What is happening to the language in the country today, its irrelevance in north India and resurgence in the south, may be seen as a belated revenge of the Deccan on the north Indian hegemon.
The writer is an independent film-maker.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1154773.cms
Since it's birth Urdu has been able to beat the odds and find places to grow and develop, may be what is mentioned in this article is the new phase of Urdu development.
MAHMOOD FAROOQUI
[ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005 12:00:00 AM ]
The Times of India dated June 27 carries a piece that succinctly sums up not merely the problems of education in Urdu medium schools but also the fate of the wider language itself. The report mentions how students of Urdu medium schools in the capital have fared extremely poorly in the Class X and XII board exams, with pass percentage barely touching 50 even in the best ones.
Their performance is in stark contrast with their peers in Urdu medium schools of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or West Bengal. This is the great paradox facing Urdu, that in the supposed areas of its birth, in the north Indian hinterlands, it languishes, but it thrives in the states below the Vindhyas.
The fate of Urdu has been a perennial concern for the Indian state. During the last 60 years, every single government at the Centre, including the BJP-led NDA, has announced a policy, a scheme, a body or a board for advancing the cause of Urdu. Usually the states of UP and Bihar have been at the forefront of such measures, it being assumed that since they account for the greatest proportion of Muslim population in the country, they would also contain the largest speakers of the language.
It is a fair assumption but it ignores the hypnotic and sponge-like effect of Hindi on Urdu and Urdu speakers. Easy and instant awareness of Hindi and its sway in terms of mass media leads Urdu speakers in these states to switch to and identify with Hindi more easily than in other states. While today Urdu is used almost exclusively by Muslims, it is thriving in areas where the Muslim populations are a smaller minority. In UP and Bihar, it is much more markedly linked to madrassas and other non-formal education systems. While more than 15 million people speak Urdu in UP, there are very few Urdu medium high schools in the state, even as there are more than 2,000 in Maharashtra and Karnataka, 70 in Delhi and more than 5,000 in Bihar. Almost five lakh students from Urdu medium schools sit for X and XII exams every year but their pass percentage is less than 30. In UP and Bihar it is a woeful 25 but in the southern states and Maharashtra that percentage shoots up to 70, even 80.
Unlike the students from Bihar the Urdu medium students in Maharashtra compete on equal terms with students from other vernacular schools, occasionally even topping the state board exams.
Like so many such schemes in the past, the recent budget also provided for a central fund for Urdu teachers. Schools and colleges under state governments may appoint Urdu teachers and the Centre will defray some of the cost. But appointing more Urdu teachers to schools does not necessarily translate into more Urdu students, nor does it imply an automatic advancement of the language.
Like Hindi and English, Urdu speakers are spread over a number of states but unlike the former it is not the first language in any state, and unlike the latter it is not the universal link and official language. Urdu is the second language, in terms of speakers, in five states — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. It fares better in the peninsular than in the Gangetic states. This is perhaps because peninsular India is better administered or perhaps because the Urdu speakers in this region derive an advantage out of having a distinct and separate second language.
In terms of the number of Urdu magazines and newspapers around, with more than 2,000 publications it is in third place, after English and Hindi. Urdu dailies in 1991 numbered more than 2,000, but their total circulation was just about 25 lakh. Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of publications after UP. There is no Urdu newspaper or magazine printed anywhere in the country that can be considered influential or even famous. The highest newspaper circulation hardly rises beyond 25,000.
Described sometimes as the third biggest language in the world and supposedly spoken by nearly five crore people in India, the sixth biggest language in the country today cannot boast of any single nationwide magazine, newspaper or even a canon of popular literature. When one tries to remember a popular or respected Urdu journalist, one is forced to go back to the pre-Independence period.
Where it does score heavily, unsurprisingly, is in its poetical output: More than a thousand collections of Urdu poetry are published every year in the country.
When the contours and canons of modern Urdu literature were laid down in the eighteenth century, the Dilliwallas gave a short shrift to the preceding two centuries of literary developments in the Deccan. Nusrati and Quli Qutub, as well as Gisu Daraz or Wajhi, were all discarded as corrupt or sub-standard in the face of the chaste and elitist idiom of north Indian courts. What is happening to the language in the country today, its irrelevance in north India and resurgence in the south, may be seen as a belated revenge of the Deccan on the north Indian hegemon.
The writer is an independent film-maker.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1154773.cms
Since it's birth Urdu has been able to beat the odds and find places to grow and develop, may be what is mentioned in this article is the new phase of Urdu development.
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HYDERABADS SIASAT URDU DAILY EDITOR IN SEX RACKET
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