One disclaimer invariably made early in any discussion concerning Urdu is that Urdu is not the language of Muslims alone./1/ The truism serves an important rhetorical and political purpose, but has little analytical value. Hindi, for example, is not the language of Hindus alone, nor, for that matter, are Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, etc. Even before 1947, there were any number of rural, uneducated Muslims in North India who didn't speak Urdu; they used a variety of languages -- Braj, Avadhi, Bhojpuri, etc. -- that are now culturally and officially considered dialects of Hindi. Further, it is never spelled out that in that proud disclaimer the term "Muslim" (and, by implication, "non-Muslim") really means Muslim (and non-Muslim) men. Non-Muslim women, even in the households where men spoke Urdu and studied Persian and Arabic, seldom spoke or read Urdu. Even in Muslim families, the use of a normative Urdu by women was closely linked to such matters as region, economic class, social hierarchy, and education.

Presently a number of people, Ather Farouqui and Ibn-e-Farid among them, have begun to say that we should openly acknowledge that since 1947 Urdu has become in India a language exclusive to Muslims, and that the questions concerning the "development" of Urdu and Urdu education should be considered only with reference to Muslims. While I agree with their general aim -- "let's face the facts" -- I must offer two caveats. Currently, the discourse on Indian Muslims is too emphatically directed by concepts of "religious minority" and "reservations." We should not let these almost twin concepts exclusively govern any discussion of Urdu education in India. Likewise, we should bear in mind that questions concerning the socio-economic plight of Indian Muslims should not be considered with reference to Urdu alone. "Backwardness" of Indian Muslims does not exclusively, or even primarily, come from the terrible state of Urdu education. Its cause is the overall very low presence of education or even simple literacy among the Muslims, and the abysmal quality of a majority of the schools and colleges run by the Muslims themselves, particularly in UP and Bihar. Some valuable information in that regard is available in the fascinating reports on Muslim-run educational institutions that Mr. Ahmad Rashid Sherwani of the Bharat Seva Trust, New Delhi, has been putting out for perhaps close to three decades. By using financial reward as well as the weapon of "shame," he and his family have been pushing these institutions to do what they are supposed to do in the first place: provide decent education. What becomes clear from Mr. Sherwani's reports, regularly appearing in the Qaumi Awaz (Lucknow) and other Urdu newspapers, is that it was the teaching staff and the supervisory boards of the schools that were most to be blamed for the blatant failure, rather than any alleged discrimination on the part of the state and local authorities.

Like many other writers, Farouqui uses the terms "development" and "decline" in the context of Urdu's prospects in India, without clearly indicating what the terms refer to. Does Urdu's future development lie in an increase in the number of its speakers? In that case, there is nothing to worry about. According to the 1981 census, there were 34.9 million speakers of Urdu in India, a definite increase over the 28.6 million recorded in 1971.

Or, does "development" mean an expansion of Urdu's lexicon and those areas of its speakers' lives in which Urdu is presently used? If so, how do we measure it? Should we judge it by the quantity and quality of Urdu publications (books, magazines and newspapers)? The question of quantity is easier to explore. The Library of Congress, Washington, has a book procurement programme in India -- commonly called the PL480 Programme -- which regularly buys almost all significant publications in all the major languages of India. Since 1962, I have been personally going through all the Urdu titles we receive under that programme at the University of Chicago; I have noticed no decline in number, in either relative or absolute terms. During each decade from 1968 to 1998, we have received an average of 4,700 new titles from Pakistan and India combined. Though I don't have separate figures for India, my impression is supported by some other figures too. According to the Statistical Abstracts published by the government of India, 428 Urdu books (titles) were published in 1974, as compared to 182 during 1967-68. The same source also provides the following figures: Number of Urdu newspapers and periodicals published in India: 929 in 1975; 1,492 in 1984.

As to the questions of quality and subject-matter, it is hard to say. Urdu Literature (poetry, fiction, criticism and history) seems to be the dominant category, followed by the category of Islamics (commentaries and translations, religious law, sectarian tracts, Sufi literature, etc.) The quality of books in these categories seems to have remained unchanged -- a few truly significant books come out every year. Current events, political and economic history, sociological issues and such have never been big in Urdu, and that continues to be the case.

At one point in his essay, Farouqui asks, "Why is Urdu going downwards in spite of the improving conditions of the Muslims?" He doesn't spell out how he came to that conclusion, but I'm glad he noted that over the years the condition of at least some Muslims in India had considerably improved. I don't believe that Urdu as such is going downward, for in whatever sense it might be doing so in India that can't be true in Pakistan too. In other words, we need not worry about the language itself.

What is worrisome is the ambivalence -- and worse -- one presently seems to feel between Urdu and the Urduwallas in India. In fact, that has been the case for some time. To give one example, among the 34 million speakers of Urdu in India, there certainly must be 34 hundred persons of means who can spend a thousand rupees annually on Urdu books. But do they? Even the best Urdu books come out in minuscule first editions, and very few get a second printing. Urdu doesn't have any national weekly publication of the kind that are numerous in English and plentiful in such regional languages as Bengali and Malayalam. Even Hindi has a couple of them. The only weekly or fortnightly magazines in Urdu are a few shrill rags that devote themselves to fiery headlines concerning the "plight of Indian Muslims" and seem to toe the ideological line of one or the other of the so-called Muslim countries: Libya; Iran; Saudi Arabia. There are only four kinds of monthly magazines in Urdu: literary; quasi-literary and movies-oriented; religious; and women's magazines. There is no magazine for children of the quality that is found in several other Indian languages and did in fact exist in Urdu in 1947. Urdu journalism, as a whole, is in a very sad shape, particularly in what is described as the "heartland of Urdu." There is not a single flourishing Urdu newspaper in Delhi, UP and Bihar, certainly not of the kind found in Calcutta and Bombay.

Why this depressing state? Is it because the number of Urdu speakers who can afford to subscribe has gone down or is it because they prefer to spend their money elsewhere? I would very much like to find out what effect the Tablighi Jama'at and the Jama'at-e Islami have had on the reading habits of the educated Muslims of North India. Where do their members, particularly the members of the first group, get their information about the world around them? What Urdu publications do they buy? Also, what are the bestsellers in Urdu in India and what can they tell us about the cultural and educational goals of their readers? These are interesting questions, and someone should pursue them.

Farouqui castigates some Urdu intellectuals for suggesting that Urdu should be written in the Devanagiri script in India, for he feels that the principal dividing line between Urdu and Hindi is the script. He fears that if Urdu speakers were to use the Devanagiri script "Urdu will become Hindi." I don't believe that Urdu should change its script, but I also think that Farouqui's fear is misplaced. If the script is changed, Urdu will have as much, if not more, effect on Hindi. We have the example of the so-called Hindi films; they use a language that is not the cherished variety heard on official bulletins or in the corridors of Hindi institutions. The Hindiwallas are always nervous around Urdu, particularly Urdu texts and authors. They may call Urdu a shaili or style of Hindi, but they will never include Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz (or Sarshar, Ruswa and Qurratulain Hyder) in the Hindi canon. Yes, they have made their own Insha's Rani Ketki ki Kahani and some of Nazir Akbarabadi's poems, but it will be a cold day in hell when they do include a selection of classical Urdu ghazals in Hindi textbooks. Similarly, it's not just the script that decides what gets included in the canon of Urdu literature. The Urduwallas have never included Jaisi and Qutban, despite the fact that the manuscripts of their Sufi poems in Avadhi are all in the Perso-Arabic script. Just as Kabir is not considered a part of the Urdu canon, though linguistically he should be included, and the reason is not the script in which his poems have been preserved. The reasons are different, as I have discussed elsewhere./2/

At another place, Farouqui bemoans the situation at some universities where "BA standard students of Urdu literature prepare class notes in Hindi." I'm sure it is true, but what does it mean? Do the students not know Urdu? If that's the case, shouldn't they be flunked out? But are they? Or does it mean that they know Urdu but are less conversant with its script than with Hindi? If that's the case, shouldn't they be learning how to read and write Urdu rather than its literature? The problem is that at the Aligarh Muslim University (which Farouqui seems to have in mind) and elsewhere, instruction in Urdu means reading Urdu literature. The two tasks, however, are entirely distinct and should be engaged in separately. Equally importantly, there has to be some strong motive for the students to learn Urdu. They come from a culture where their parents determine what they study, and I have rarely met a parent who knowingly urged any slightly smart progeny of his to study Urdu at the university level. These students take up Urdu because they have no other choice or, more commonly, because the institution requires them. Consequently, when I taught at Aligarh in 1971-72, they treated their Urdu courses the way they treated the "Theology" requirement -- as a joke. And the faculty let them.

I also found somewhat disconcerting some of Farouqui's random observations, two of which should be commented upon. He is entirely wrong when he asserts that "Authentic and standard collections of poems of great poets including Mir and Ghalib are impossible to get, as they have never been published." Ghalib has always been available in plenty, and most of Mir can also be found. As are Iqbal and Faiz. And reasonably good selections of all important poets are available from the Maktaba-e-Jamia in their excellent series, Mi'yari Adab, as are most of the prose classics. The efforts of another private press, the Educational Book House of Aligarh, and such official agencies as the Taraqqi-e-Urdu Board and the Urdu Academies of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh must also be noted in this regard. In any case, should the availability of the works of great poets be the chief criterion to judge the state of education in any language? Is poetry the only intellectual possession of Urdu? What is intellectually depressing is not that the Aligarh Muslim University failed to produce its much ballyhooed History of Urdu Literature, but that it never bothered to publish a complete -- or even partial -- edition of its own founder's extraordinary writings, much less to make them a serious part of its Urdu syllabus.

Farouqui makes a second invidious, but revealing, statement, when he castigates the Indian National Congress for what it did to Urdu; he declares that "...the Muslims who opted to live on the promises of the Congress that their religion and culture would be safeguarded, were deceived." Even if he means to refer only to the Muslims of UP and Bihar, it is false to suggest that all of them had the choice to migrate to Pakistan and avail of the opportunities there; that they, however, deliberately chose to stay in India because of some alleged "promises" made by the Congress. To begin with, the women and children in that population had no choice of any kind. Of the Muslim adult men, only the urban elite -- particularly of the "salariate" class -- had that kind of a choice, and many of them did in fact opt for Pakistan. As did large numbers of Muslim men graduating from colleges in North India during the first decade after the Partition. They went to Pakistan because it was easier to get a good job there -- they had relatives and "contacts" to help them and they were educationally at an advantage compared to much of the population in their new country.

One corollary of that fact is the statistics often invoked to show how very few Muslims got into the administrative services in India in the Fifties and the Sixties; what is not brought out is the small number of Muslim graduates who actually tried for those services in India in those decades. Here I would like to quote from a letter I published in The Hindustan Times (Delhi) of 6 October 1973. It refers to a report published earlier in the same newspaper (16 June 1973), describing the uneven distribution "from a geographical point of view" of the successful candidates from different universities in the IAS examination of 1970 in which a total of 6,730 candidates had appeared.

"It seems that five universities accounted for 2,457 candidates, by sending more than 300 candidates each. The AMU is not listed among those five. Twelve sent less than 300 but over 100 candidates each; if we assume an average of 175, these twelve will account for an additional 2,100. The AMU is not listed among the twelve. At least eight universities sent less than 100 but over 50 candidates each; an average of 75 would let them account for another 600 candidates. The AMU is not listed among these eight either. Please bear in mind that these figures are for the candidates who merely appeared in the examination, and not for those who actually passed. I do not imply that there were no Muslim candidates from other universities. I do not imply that there were no Hindus among those who may have applied from the AMU. Nor do I suggest for a moment that discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, language, even colour is not a part of our life in India. But, since the AMU is always asserted to be the last hope of the Muslim youth in India, I would like to know just how many candidates did apply from that institution and how did they fare."/3/

It should be noted that since the Eighties the situation is vastly different, thanks to the special coaching classes conducted at Aligarh and Delhi, and increasingly more Muslim names can now be found on the various lists issued by the Union Public Service Commission.

Finally, I agree with Ibn-e-Farid and Farouqui that self-help is best, that the Urduwallas will have to take the initiative and find the needed resources themselves. Self-pity and putting blame on others will not get them far. If Muslims can teach their children to vocalise the Qur'an, they can also simultaneously teach them to read Urdu. That task is simple enough. Where they have to fight against the prejudice of the authorities is in the area of primary education, which should be available to every child in his or her mother tongue. That, unfortunately, has not been the case -- particularly in the so-called Hindi belt. There, even the facilities available in 1947 were deliberately destroyed by the official proponents of Hindi. The criminal damage they caused has not been corrected yet./4/ According to R. K. Sharma, Director National Council for Educational Research and Training, a state institution of utmost importance in the field of Education, of a total of 90,000 schools in UP, only 400 were Urdu-medium, all at the primary level (i.e. upto grade 5), and 70 percent of Muslim students never reached the 10th grade./5/ Also, according to Mr. Sharma, "in some schools near the Jama Masjid at Delhi there were Urdu teachers who didn't know Urdu at all." But if the powers-that-be are not fair and just, it is much more important presently for Muslim children to be well educated through whatever language is available than poorly or not at all. That is the only way they can successfully compete with their peers in these radically changing times. It is most heartening to note that the efforts of people like Hakim Abdul Hamid and Mr. A. R. Sherwani are directed in that direction and indeed bearing fruit.

NOTES

/*/ An earlier version was published in The Annual of Urdu Studies, #10 (1995).
/1/ Prepared in Fall 1993, these remarks were intended for publication in a special issue of Mainstream (New Delhi) that Ather Farouqui was to edit. The special issue never materialised. My comments were triggered by three articles that I had read at the time: (1) Ather Farouqui, "Future Prospects of Urdu in India," in Mainstream, Annual 1992, pp. 99-107; (2) Firoz Bakht Ahmed, "Plight of Urdu Schools," in The Hindustan Times, 26 July 1993; and (3) Ibn-e-Farid, "Sar-e Balin-e Urdu" ("At the Deathbed of Urdu"), in Kitab Numa, April 1993, pp.3-12. My note appeared in 1995 in The Annual of Urdu Studies, #10, pp. 153-159. Since then I have been informed that Mr. Ahmed's article could have been based on incorrect or fake figures, hence I have discarded any mention of it here
/2/ C. M. Naim, "Urdu in the Pre-modern Period: Synthesis or Particularism?" in New Quest, #6 (February 1978), pp. 5-12. (Also included in the present volume.)
/3/ The full letter is reproduced (without acknowledgment) in M. R. A. Baig, The Muslim Dilemma in India, Delhi: Vikas, 1974, pp. 114-5.
/4/ Here I strongly recommend a later article by Ather Farouqui: "Urdu Education in India: Four Representative States," in the Economic & Political Weekly, Bombay, 29:14 (2 April 1994), pp. 782-785. It in fact discusses the state of Urdu-medium education in five states: UP, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and West Bengal.
/5/ As reported in the Qaumi Awaz, Lucknow, 30 October 1997.