Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader Mohammed Shabbir Ali raised concern over the declining number of Urdu readers in the country, mainly in Telangana.
Speaking at the first national conference of the Telangana Urdu Working Journalists Federation (TUWJF) at the Khaja Mansion here on Sunday, he blamed lack of government support for the significant decrease in Urdu newspapers’ readership.
“The prosperity of Urdu journalism, like any language journalism, is directly proportional to its readers. Increasing the Urdu readership at grassroots levels is a priority. Over 4,000 primary schools, including several Urdu medium institutions, have been shut down in Telangana since 2014,” he said.
The Congress leader believes that the role of the Urdu Academy should go beyond printing textbooks.
“The Urdu-speaking population in Telangana, with a total population of nearly 3.5 crore, has increased to 12.69%. However, the actual number who can read and write Urdu is uncertain but seemingly low, inferred from the daily sales of all Urdu newspapers combined. These sales do not exceed one lakh copies. This means that only 0.22% of the Urdu-speaking population is buying the newspaper,” he pointed out.
In order to boost Urdu journalism, he suggested awards in the name of Urdu veterans like Abid Ali Khan, Mahboob Hussain Jigar, Khan Lateef Khan, and Syed Viqaruddin.
“Identify and address the shortcomings within the Urdu-speaking community and initiate necessary corrective measures,” he said adding he was pleased to see journalist attendees not just from Telangana but Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Showing distress over successful attempts to change the names of several Muslim cities as well as alter historical and cultural identity associated with them he said RSS was trying to infuse Hindutva elements through various ways; the recent being the removal of Mughal history from NCERT books.
He also condemned the removal of a chapter on esteemed Urdu poet Allama Iqbal, the author of ‘Saare Jahan Se Acha’, from the syllabus of Delhi University.
Recalling a personal anecdote from 1989, Shabbir Ali said that when he was appointed as a minister under the former chief minister of Undivided Andhra Pradesh Marri Chenna Reddy, he had expressed to take the oath of office in Urdu.
“In those days there was no such provision. But then veteran journalist M A Majid, (who currently leads the TUWJF) translated the English oath into Urdu. Since both Chenna Reddy and the then Governor Krishnakanth were conversant in the language, they made necessary corrections and the oath was successfully administered in Urdu,” he said.
