Telangana state BJP leader and also the Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay on May 25, 2022, while talking on Shiva Lingas and corpses, publicly declared that “As soon as they come to power and establish the Rama Rajya they will ban the Urdu language.”
However, it is modest to know what Gandhi, who frequently hailed the establishment of Rama Rajya as his intent, during the independence movement said a hundred years ago about Urdu language.
Gandhiji about Hindi and Urdu languages
In 1917, Gandhiji while addressing the Gujarati Vidya Mahasabha held at Bharuch in Gujarat said, “I call it Hindi, the language spoken by Hindus and Muslims and written in the Devanagari script or Urdu script in North India”.
There is an argument that Hindi and Urdu are two different languages. But that is not correct. Hindus and Muslims speak the same language in northern India.
The difference between these two is created by the educated folks. You may either call it Hindi or Urdu, but it is the same language spoken by people in northern India. It can be called Urdu if written in Urdu script, If it is written in Nagari script, it is Hindi.
Now Bandi Sanjay has to say! Does prohibiting the Urdu language mean a ban on the writing of it? or even speaking of it too? As colloquial language? or using it even as a language at home? What is the point of banning a language spoken by millions (approximately over five crores)? We perhaps have never seen anyone in this world speak such words, or heard of them! It is purely a blind anti-Muslim outrage deeply rooted in the veins. An outcome of deeply offending resentment that has no bounds.
It’s like adding something a new mania of language to the politics of divide and rule policy, to rule the people with religious hysterical discrimination. It is nothing but sheer lunacy of allegation to hate even the language of Urdu, spoken by some Muslims in the Indian sub-continent. Although Urdu is the official language in Pakistan, there are more people spoken of various languages like Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, and Saraiki than the Urdu-speaking families of Indian descent. Like the Kashmiri people, all of them use the Persian script though their languages are different. Marathi, Nepali, Rajasthani, and Bhojpuri, which use the Devanagari script, are not Hindi as in the case of the above-mentioned languages are not Urdu. And everyone in the country knows about the Bangladeshi anthem. Rabindranath Tagore is the author of their national anthem “Amar Sonar Bangla” (1906)!
Official language of India
In 1949, the drafters of the Indian Constitution identified 14 languages as spoken and written in some script, in the country as Scheduled Languages. Urdu is one of them. Urdu script is also inscribed on our Indian currency notes. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is the official language of the Government of India. There is indeed a reason, why they are precisely mentioned as Devanagari … because they know that the same language is called Urdu if written in Persian script!
Manmohan Singh, who was the Prime Minister of India for ten years before Narendra Modi, used to read out the Hindi speeches written in Urdu script every August 15th from the Red Fort , Delhi.
Bandi Sanjay may not be aware of the fact that the famous Telugu poet Dasarathi Krishnamacharya acknowledged that Urdu and Telugu are just like two eyes to him.
Maharaja Kishan Prasad, who was the Prime Minister of Hyderabad before 1940, wrote poetry in Urdu. Urdu is the mother tongue of most of the Hindus who migrated to Hyderabad from the state of Uttar Pradesh during the rule of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, especially of the Kayastha caste. Renowned labor leaders Raj Bahadur Gaur, K.L. Mahendra, and advocate Narendra Luther are the best examples.
Hindus who speak Urdu were made to migrate as there could be no language problem.
There is also an opinion that the Urdu language means to stand for Kayastha Hindus in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Ram Prasad Bismil, a stalwart of the Hindustan Republican Association, who was hanged in the Kakori case used to sung the famous song
“Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai!” in Urdu!
Hindi writer Premchand wrote his first novel in Urdu. Most Telugu people may not know that writers like Kishan Chander and Rajendra Singh Bedi are Urdu writers. The earlier Hindi film songs we listen to by Gulzar (Sampurna Singh Kalra), Majroo Sultan Puri, Sahir Ludhianvi, and the writers like Javed Akhtar, Sayeed Qadri, and Sameer the present are Urdu writers. If Bandi Sanjay comes to power, will their songs be banned from being heard?
Rahi Masoom Raja, a scholar of Urdu and Sanskrit, is the lyricist for the television serial “Mahabharata” aired under the B.P Chopra’s direction between 1988-90. Gopichand Narang, who served as the President of the Kendra Sahitya Academy, is an Urdu language scholar! The original name of the poet Firak Gorakhpuri, who received the first Jnanpith award in Urdu, is Raghupati Sahai. Until a few years ago, many of today’s Urdu teachers and lecturers are regular students of Gyan Chand Jain who was the head of the Urdu branch of the Central University of Hyderabad. Amar Nath Rahgeer, a linguist, received his doctorate in Urdu from Adul Kalam Azad University in Hyderabad a few months ago.
Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, the first Chief Minister of Hyderabad, wrote an article on the history of the Urdu language. According to him, Hindi and Urdu are like twins. To envy the Urdu language to perish means to make one of the Hindustani language eyes blind. Komarraju Lakshmana Rao although wrote about Telugu Bhasha Thatvam he upheld a principle that applies to any language. He compared the language to a body, where the repertoire of vocabulary + grammatical principles become a skeleton that transforms very slowly, and the fast-changing vocabulary as compared to blood and flesh. In this example, it is understood that the basic language structure of grammar and grammatical principles for both the Hindi and Urdu languages are the same. It is true of course that there are some differences in the pool of vocabulary. Yet, the interactions between Hindi and Urdu speakers can be carried out almost without any difficulty.
Jahid Ali Khan, editor of Siasat , a leading Urdu magazine published from Hyderabad, while speaking with me and Nirmalananda on one occasion, talked about a principle of mobilization about Hindi and Urdu.
Hindi – Sanskrit = Urdu
Urdu – Persian = Hindi
(it’s Urdu if Sanskrit words are removed from Hindi; it becomes Hindi if the words Persian + Arabic words are removed from Urdu)
Kotireddy’s character in the second Telugu novel “Simhagarjana” (In English Telangana Thunders) published during the Telangana armed struggle (1950-51) describes the intents of the struggle as follows.
This fight is not to overthrow the Muslim kingdom. This fight is not to destroy the Muslim race. This struggle is not for the establishment of a Hindu kingdom. Or to take revenge on the personal grudges. It’s the struggle to liberate the land from the vicious clutches of the so-called greatly titled bigwigs of landlords, jagirdars, Jamindars, Deshmukhs and to distribute to the plowmen. This can be taken as a strategy of the communists in the second phase of the armed struggle of the day.
Precisely 40 years ago, in the declaration announced by the Telugu Desam Party, the tenth item in the resolution acknowledged by NT Rama Rao himself as the Telugu Desam Party’s Language policy on 28-5-1982 said, Urdu should be given due prominence in the affairs of the State Government in some areas where there are innumerable Urdu-speaking people in Telugu Nadu.
Second official language
Urdu is currently the second official language of the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Urdu is an additional official language in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.
The above statement made by Bandi Sanjay while being a Member of Parliament was a deliberate dereliction on the part of the Constitution of India. Unless he withdraws his statement and does not publicly apologize to the people of the country, the Supreme Court of India should take up the case of Suo moto and try and convict him for violating the Constitution.
On one occasion M.N.Roy said,
“Prejudice and jealousy and hatred are the greatest weaknesses of man. Added by racism to it, a race resents the other’s great traits and tries always to prove them evil traits”
The slanderous propaganda against the history, culture, and customs of the Muslims till now has now escalated towards the Urdu language. No one with a minimum of human virtue can accept this.
Regardless of caste, political affiliation, and bigotry, Bandi Sanjay’s statement should be condemned by all the people of the country, especially the Telugu-speaking people.
The article was first published in Telugu daily Andhra Jyothi on June 8, 2022. Translated to English by V. Vijayakumar
| Posted by Sameer Khan | 
