Urdu in India: opportunities and challenges

Since Urdu was recognized as a language, people have been claiming that Urdu is dead or going to die very soon. This trend still continues even though now we have more Urdu speakers than ever before.

Prophets of doom may predict the date when Urdu is supposed to be finished but all indications are that it will continue to survive and may be even flourish if it is allowed to grow.

Urdu Book Review is a bi-monthly magazine published by Arif Iqbal. People like him and journals like UBR give hope that Urdu can not only survive but achieve its full potential.

there are spaces and opportunities that we need to make use of’. ‘Ultimately’, he says, ‘it is up to lovers of Urdu to save, protect and promote the language’. And by publishing his magazine against heavy odds for over a decade now, Iqbal shows what a major difference a single individual can make in this regard.

To see what heavy odds that people like him or Urdu is facing, you just have to read this news item.

"The trend of supplying question papers in a language other than that of medium of instruction for the sake of administrative convenience is bound to seal the fate of not only Urdu medium schools but also the very language itself," said Jayant Parmar, Urdu poet of national repute, who was conferred national award last year by HRD Ministry for his outstanding poetry in Urdu which is not his mother tongue.

Need we say more?

Now instead of crying about what government is doing or not doing. How about we help those who are doing something about it.


Please click here and subscribe to Urdu Book Review.