Language of UP
Recently the Speaker of the UP. Legislative Assembly announced that members of the House could also speak in the House in 4 additional regional languages ( apart from Hindi ) viz Avadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj bhasha, and Bundelkhandi
Members of the Opposition Samaajwaadi Party ( SP) objected to non-inclusion of Urdu as a language which can be used in the House. This only shows their ignorance, and the fact that such an objection was made only with an eye on the Muslim vote bank, thinking that Urdu was the language of Muslims.
The language used in the House ( and by the common man, whether Hindu or Muslim, in many Indian states including UP) is simple Hindi, which is also called Hindustani or Khadiboli. This is the language also used by many Pakistanis.
Simple Hindi ( Hindustani) and simple Urdu are almost the same. What determines the language to which a sentence belongs are the verbs used in it, not the nouns or adjectives. In Hindi and Urdu the verbs are identical. Even in Urdu poetry, which is sometimes highly Persianized ( e.g. the poetry of Ghalib), the verbs are all in Hindustani or simple Hindi, though the nouns and adjectives are often in Persian.
Thus, Ghalib writes :
” Dekho mujhe jo deeda-e-ibrat nigaah ho
Meri suno jo gosh-e-naseehat niyosh hai “
We notice here that the verbs ‘dekho’, ‘suno’, ‘hai’ are all in Hindustani, while many nouns and adjectives are in Persian.
Similarly, we can take the verses of any Urdu poet, and we will find that all the verbs therein are in Hindustani. If the verbs were in Persian it would become a Persian verse, not Urdu verse, and if they were in Arabic, it would become an Arabic verse.
Though Urdu is used in poetry by Urdu poets, it is not spoken by Muslims, in India or Pakistan, and instead they speak Hindustani, which Hindus also speak. No doubt Pakistanis call it Urdu, but what they really speak is Hindustani. I speak in Hindustani to many Pakistanis on whatsApp.
So the demand to include Urdu among the languages used in the UP Legislative Assembly is really superfluous and redundant, and is based on a total misconception. In its simplified form as Hindustani it is already a language ( in fact the most common language) of the House.
As regards the comments of the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that knowledge of Urdu makes one a maulvi or kathmulla ( Muslim bigot ) these remarks were very unfortunate, and indeed fallacious.
Urdu is a totally secular language. Till 1947 it was the language of all educated people, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, etc, not of Muslims alone. In my own family upto my father everyone was highly proficient in Urdu. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told me that he wrote all his speeches in Urdu
The concept that Urdu was the language of Muslims alone, and that Hindi was the language of Hindus, while Urdu was the language of Muslims, was part of the British divide and rule policy, propagated by British agents like Bhartendu Harishchandra.
Also, Urdu is not a foreign language like Persian or Arabic, as explained here :
So the statements of both the Chief Minister and the Opposition leaders were based on total misconceptions about Urdu, and only reveals their ignorance about a great language, to which great injustice has been done in India
