Urdu in UP who could not gain admission in any other

faculty took to Urdu as an escape from

the criteria of merit. They later gained high
degrees and became teachers to the dam-
Since independence, Urdu has seen a rapid decline. Initially the age of Urdu education.
decline was largely fomented by the adherents of Hindi and These atavists wiped out Urdu from
secular educational curricula in north India.
opportunistic leaders of the Muslim community. The cause of Urdu Parents were thereby compelled to send
had even been well championed by the likes of Zakir Hussain and their children to the mosque-dominated
I K Gujral, but once in power such well intentions invariably ran madrasas or maktabs. These were now the
aground. At present, besides an appeal filed in the Supreme Court only source of Urdu education. This
by the Hindi sahitya sammelan against the UP government’s 1989 strengthened the grip of Muslim funda-
mentalists and obscurantists on the mind
amendment granting Urdu the status of official second language, of the people, as was evident during the
there are more than 16 petitions filed in the high court that seek to Shah Bano controversy.
challenge the status accorded to Urdu. The stilted Urdu taught by the madaaris
and makaatib (religious seminaries) be-
DANIAL LATIFI pitch and led his followers up the garden came the official standard Urdu, wiping
path. Later when he became president he out the immemorial Urdu traditions of the

U
rdu in the UP, for long a sleeping
volcano, has suddenly erupted.
This event is wrapped in such
confusion, mystery, and misinformation
that the Urdu-speaking people and the
public do not know where to turn and how
to redress their woes.
After independence and partition Urdu
came under a cloud and was subjected to
attack from atavists. These atavists were
joined by certain opportunistic Muslims
who sought to prove their loyalty by
abusing the rest of their own community.
Many of these were bureaucrats who after
retirement sought to become public lead-
ers of the Muslim community, a task for
which most of them were ill-equipped.
The Decline
The decision of the Drafting Committee
of the Constituent Assembly [by the
president’s casting vote] making Hindi
the official language of the union, i e, raj
bhasha was sought to be read as
rashtrabasha by Hindi enthusiasts. They
rode roughshod over the rights of other
language-speakers. This was resisted in
the south. Unfortunately north Indian Urdu
speakers were ill-led and misguided.
Zakir Hussain, later India’s third presi-
dent, gained popularity in 1952 by collect-
ing 2.25 millions of signatures from Urdu
speaking people of UP (at that time a very
high percentage) after a massive cam-
paign, supporting a petition asking the
president to save Urdu under Article 347
of the Constitution. Subsequent census
reports were manipulated (by wrongly
stating the mother tongue of Urdu speak-
ers as Hindi) to mask this figure. He raised
the expectations of the people to a high
abandoned the idea. Even if he was com-
pelled to do this by opposition from the
cabinet, morality demanded that he resign
on this issue. He did not do so and
demoralised the Urdu speaking people
who had trusted him. Thereafter it became
difficult for anyone else to raise the banner
of this cause. Some years later I K Gujral
played the same game. He had authored
the Gujral committee report, containing
various recommendations to the govern-
ment in favour of Urdu. He gave maximum
publicity to this for 25 years. Partly on this
account he gained popularity and a secular
image that helped him become prime mini-
ster in 1997. When in office he inexpli-
cably abandoned his own proposals which
he could seemingly have implemented suo
motu without consulting anybody as Ali
Imran Zaidi has rightly pointed out:
Now it is useless to talk about the Gujral
Commission and its famous recommenda-
tions in favour of Urdu because it is as clear
as broad daylight that they were never meant
to be implemented – but only to fool Urdu
speaking people. By recommending for Urdu
every thing between heaven and earth, Gujral
became the apple of the eyes of Muslims
and it was the immense popularity thus
gained that helped his ascendancy to the
throne of prime ministership. As PM he
never tried to give any thought to imple-
menting his own recommendations. Only
when he was dethroned with the UF govern-
ment losing its majority in the house did
he aspire to become PM again by playing
the Gujral Commission Card. But to his bad
luck – by the time Muslims had lost faith
in him (EPW, April 10, 1999).
It is generally believed that on the advice
of certain opportunitists the government
permitted persons to study Urdu in the uni-
versity who had never matriculated in that
language. It is alleged that such students
past that constituted the priceless wealth
of the composite Indian cultural heritage.
The new Urdu thus created alienated non-
Muslim Urdu speakers and simultaneously
strengthened the atavic non-Muslims.
We are now confronted with the third
or fourth generation of these conditioned
Urdu scholars who comprise the major
part of the official Urdu intelligentsia.
It is alleged that the ‘advisers’ above-
named prevailed upon the government to
open ‘show-window institutions’ appear-
ing to promote Urdu – really a mere cloak
for inactivity.
All this, particularly the performance of
Zakir Hussain and even more of I K Gujral
brought maximum discredit to their respec-
tive governments and ruling parties among
the Urdu speaking people. This has shown
in devastating poll results in the UP.
Misinform and Deny
A placebo statute was passed in 1989 by the
UP legislature to give the status of second
official language to Urdu in UP. This Act was
toothless because it made no provision for
Urdu education. Such a provision had be-
come essential because four generations of
those whose mother tongue was Urdu had
been deprived of instruction in that lan-
guage, whether as primary or optional subject.
On October 6, 1989 the UP legislature
amended the UP Official Languages Act
28 of 1989, adding section 3 to it. This
enabled the state government to provide
as per the purposes indicated in its noti-
fication, “in the interests of Urdu speaking
people” that Urdu would be treated as the
second official language of the state. A
notification issued thereunder the next day,
enumerated these purposes.

Economic and Political Weekly February 17, 2001 533

 This act was passed under Article 345
of the Constitution, (reading, “The legis-
lature of a state may by law adopt any one
or more of the languages in use in the state
or Hindi for all or any of the official pur-
poses of the state”). The notification there-
under was challenged in a PIL Writ Peti-
tion No 10313 of 1989 filed in the Lucknow
bench of the Allahabad High Court by the
UP Hindi sahitya sammelan on various
grounds. The court did not insist at the
outset that any concerned Urdu represen-
tative or institution be made respondent.
Three main constitutional issues were
raised by the petitioners in their petition
which runs into 48 typed pages:-
(1) That the word ‘or’ in Article 345
must be given its full meaning; that Hindi
having been declared official language
exhausted the power of the legislature to
adopt any other language for any official
purpose. No doubt ‘or’ can be read as ‘and’
whenever the judges so please, but they
should normally give reasons for so doing.
In the present case all the judges on the
bench seem to have dismissed this argu-
ment without giving any reasons. No doubt
cogent reasons were present in their minds
for the course they took.
(2) That the words “subject to the pro-
visions of Articles 346 and 347 occurring
in Article 345 of the Constitution imported
the consequence that the power conferred
on the legislature under Article 345 is
subject to the same limitations as are
imposed on the power given to the presi-
dent under Article 347. The limitation was
that there must be a desire expressed by
a substantial proportion of the population
of a state that the language spoken by them
should also be officially recognised in the
desired manner. The reading of this limi-
tation into Article 345 was rejected by the
judge Trivedi J but approved by judges
Sahay and Brijesh Kumar.
(3) That no substantial proportion of the
population of the UP were Urdu speaking
and that the condition had not been sat-
isfied. Judge Brijesh Kumar held this point
in favour of the Urdu speaking people. He
held that the matter stood concluded by a
previous decision of a judicial bench
comprising K K Goyal and K N Mishra.
It would not be proper to comment on these
questions in view of the pendency of the
appeal in the Supreme Court. There were
other minor points (such as the argument
that the notification issued under the act
involved excessive delegation of legisla-
tive powers by the legislature) that need
not be discussed in detail here.
534
All the many legal grounds taken by the
petitioners in the high court were ultimately
rejected by that court. The writ petition was
dismissed. Leave to appeal to the Supreme
Court was refused by the high court.
Proceedings in the High Court
It is needless to detail the many inter-
esting arguments considered and ultimately
rejected by the high court at Lucknow.
These are now of academic interest only
in view of the pending appeal in the
Supreme Court. It is not permissible to
comment on them here. The judgments of
the learned judges of the high court run
into 145 pages of typescript and display
much erudition. One of the longest of these
relates to a question that arose as to the
procedure to be followed when there is a
difference of opinion between two judges
of the bench (as here). This question is well
settled under the Letters Patent governing
the procedure in the various high courts
in India that have been functioning for
over 100 years. Readers cannot help think-
ing that if the learned judges had received
abler legal assistance they might have
completed their task sooner. Actus curiae
neminem gravabit is the grim maxim of
the law. In English this means: ‘grin and
bear it’. Beneficial legislation has been
held up for 10 years by the Hindi sahitya
sammelan obtaining the stay order of the
court. The prolonged legal proceedings are
a tribute to the legal ability and acumen
of the lawyers of the sammelan. They took
full advantage of the indifference of their
only opponent, the government, that
seemed least interested in speedy end of
the litigation. A study of these proceedings
may prove instructive to students of legal
procedure, constitutional law and political
science. Such a study cannot be attempted
here now.
Attitude of Urdu Teachers
This matter seems to have proceeded
before the learned judges of the UP High
Court for many years without attempted
intervention by any of the well-wishers of
Urdu in the state. At a late stage Z Jilani
was permitted to make oral submissions
before justice Brijesh Kumar on behalf of
Naim Ahmad who also sought to be
impleaded as a party. However, no formal
order impleading him seems to have been
passed. This was unfortunate because it
prevented Naim (seemingly the only per-
son really interested in Urdu before the
Economic and Political Weekly
court) from receiving notice of the special
leave petition later filed in the Supreme
Court. As an academic, Naim may be
forgiven for assuming that the order of the
high court refusing leave to appeal to the
Supreme Court would be final. It was the
duty of his advocate to alert him to pos-
sibility of the appeal which actually
materialised. A petition for special leave
to appeal was shortly thereafter filed by
the indefatigable sammelan and admitted
in the Supreme Court in 1996. It does not
appear that they made anyone but the state
a party respondent, despite the earlier
application made by Naim before justice
Brijesh Kumar, earlier referred to. This
appeal has been pending in the Supreme
Court since then.
More inexplicable is the conduct of the
politicians and public figures claiming to
be interested in Urdu. When this writer
was approached by Ather Farouqui in
January 1999 to examine this matter, the
first thought that occurred was to find out
whether any special leave petition had
been filed in the Supreme Court. It was
a matter of archival research to ascertain
the appeal number of an appeal already
three years old. Initial efforts in the Su-
preme Court having failed it was the te-
nacity of the redoubtable Ather Farouqui
that was able, ultmately to trace out the
appeal. Meanwhile opportunist politicians
were publicly declaring that the battle in
the UP had been won. The strong public
response of the Urdu speaking people in
two public meetings at New Delhi, on
January 16, and again on April 16, 1999
demonstrated their enormous and vibrant
interests in this issue. Spreading compla-
cency and misinformation about such a
matter is ill service to Urdu; so is irrational
thinking and chauvinism which is losing
cause in the world today.
In these circumstances a gathering of
intellectuals and well-wishers of secular-
ism and Urdu met on January 16, 1999
which continued on April 16, 1999 at the
IIC, New Delhi under the joint auspices
of the Linguistic Minorities Guild, the
Jamia Urdu, Aligarh and the Urdu Speak-
ing People’s Front – to demand that Urdu
be accorded its full rights under the Con-
stitution of India. This campaign has re-
ceived adherence from a formidable list
of eminent supporters from all secular
sections of the people.
The former chief justice of India and
chairman of the Human Rights Commission,
M N Venkatchalliah, on April 16, 1999
at the India International Centre, New Delhi
February 17, 2001
in his inaugural address to the Urdu Sym-
posium, sounded the tocsin. He said:
The Urdu language has a special place in
India. The Urdu language conjures up and
inspires deeply emotive sentiments and
thoughts from the sublimity of the mystic
to the romantic and the earthy, of perfumes
of camaraderie, of music and life’s wistful-
ness and a whole range of human relation-
ships. Its rich literature and lore is a trea-
sure house of the noblest thoughts on life’s
mysteries. Urdu is not simply one of the
languages of this country. It is a culture and
civilisation in itself...But today this great
culture needs urgent measures for its very
survival...The richness of Urdu culture
needs to be restored to its pristine glory.
Unfortunately, at this time as mentioned
earlier, some persons who should know
better have been falsely representing that
the UP Act is now in force, when it is still
under stay from the Supreme Court as
mentioned above. Meanwhile the Delhi
state government under Sheila Dixit had
Economic and Political Weekly February 17, 2001
decided to declare Urdu, along with
Punjabi, as second languages in the state.
This is a toothless bill since it does not
provide any facility for Urdu/Punjabi
education nor does it make it an extra
qualification to know these languages for
applicants seeking government jobs –
particularly in those departments where
the knowledge of these languages becomes
imperative. However, despite this the BJP
had opposed this move, which still awaits
the sanction of the governor. A long battle
is ahead. Much has to be done. Spreading
complacency and misinformation is ill
service to Urdu. According to materials col-
lected by Ather Farouqui 16 writ petitions,
challenging the status of Urdu are pending
in the high court. It is surprising that
Lucknow, with all its traditions and claims,
seems to have been unable, so far, to supply
these. The Urdu speaking people must
meet this challenge. The slogan of second
official language may not suffice. EPW
535