A day before the first phase of UP polls on 11 February, Roznama Inquilab had carried a front-page headline- ”UP polls- Musalmanon ka Imtehan” (Test for Muslims). Here was an Urdu daily blatantly trying to create an atmosphere of fear and a sense of victimhood among Muslims. But was Roznama Inquilab an exception? The answer is an emphatic no.
A more detailed examination of history and contemporary events prove that Urdu has always been a vehicle of Islamic imperialism.
Historical background of Urdu
Ever since its inception, Urdu has been antithetical to Hindu civilization. In his ‘Studies in Islamic culture’, Professor Aziz Ahmed writes- “The poets of Delhi, proud of the pure Urdu of the imperial camp, rejected the Dakani principle and practice of borrowing extensively from the Indian languages, especially if these borrowings were related to Hindu religion, culture and worldview. In this process imagery was drawn exclusively from Persian precedents, i.e., from the unseen and unexperienced sights, sounds and smells of Persia and Central Asia, rejecting totally the Indian sights, sounds and sensuous experience as materials regarded not sublime enough for poetic expression. It was a desperate unconscious clinging to the origins of the symbols of Muslim India’s cultural experience which had begun abroad, and an instinctive fear of being submerged into the Hindu cultural milieu. These modes of aesthetic appreciation, rooted so deeply in the essence of universal Islamic culture, remained more or less incomprehensible to the Hindu mind. Its reaction has been summed up by [S.K.] Chatterjee: “Throughout the whole range of Urdu literature in its first phase the atmosphere of this literature is provokingly un-Indian – it is that of Persia. Early Urdu poets never so much as mention the great physical features of India – its Himalayas, its rivers like the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Sindhu, the Godavari, etc; but of course mountains and streams of Persia, and rivers of Central Asia are always there. Indian flowers, Indian plants are unknown; only Persian flowers and plants which the poet could see only in a garden. There was a deliberate shutting of the eye to everything Indian, to everything not mentioned or treated in Persian poetry. A language and literature which came to base itself upon an ideology which denied on the Indian soil the very existence of India and Indian culture, could not but be met with a challenge from some of the Indian adherents of their national culture; and that challenge was in the form of highly Sanskritized Hindi.
In short, although Urdu was “geographically” an Indian language, it rejected Hindu influences and was foreign to India.
As a residue of Islamic imperialism
Persian was made the language of administration and government by the Mohammedan Sultans. It remained so until the British replaced Persian by English at the higher levels and by Urdu at the lower levels. This did not bother the Islamic imperialists much because their stranglehold over public positions had not been affected. They felt a sense of discomfort when Urdu was replaced by vernaculars like Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, etc.
Although Hindi had replaced Urdu in the Central Provinces (in 1872) and Bihar (in 1881), owing to the influence of Syed Ahmed Khan and his Aligarh lobby; Hindi had continued to receive step motherly treatment in Uttar Pradesh. At this critical juncture, Antony MacDonnell was made the Lieutenant Governor and the “controversial” Hindi resolution act of 1900 was passed.
Sitaram Goel: “It was only after 1894, when Antony MacDonell became the Lieutenant Governor, that a long-standing and just demand of the local people came up for an active review. But even a sympathetic Governor could not go the whole hog in favour of Hindi. He converted the language controversy into a competition of rival scripts. Nagari script was now placed on par with the Persian script, and both were made compulsory for all those who aspired for government service at certain levels where English was not essential.” ( Source- Muslim Separatism: Causes and consequences.)
Islamic imperialists had been used to a status of privilege and supremacy and were not ready to accept Hindi as an equal.
In the end, not much came out of the Hindi resolution. “MacDonell was soon succeeded by LaTouche who wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, that MacDonell went too far in acknowledging Hindi as a language. For a long time afterwards, no bilingual examinations were held and no government orders were issued in the Nagari script. In fact, the number of Muslims in government services increased in subsequent years”, writes Sitaram Goel.
Contemporary events
A lesser known fact about the Urdu press is its stand during the Bangladesh ( then East Pakistan) crisis that ultimately led to the formation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971. Some of these editorials would correctly be deemed anti national. ( Read the complete analysis of Urdu press’s role during the conflict here.)
Regular viewers of English mainstream media and especially Arnab Goswami’s ‘The News hour’ would have come across a certain Shahid Siddiqui- editor of the Urdu weekly ‘Nai Duniya’ and a prominent moderate Muslim. While Mr. Siddiqui fools his non-Urdu audience by positioning himself as a reformist Muslim, he radicalizes Muslims through his Nai Duniya editorials. Journalist Tufail Ahmad was the first to expose Siddiqui. Some of the headlines featured in the Nai Duniya were: Taslima Nasreen is “Shaitan ki beti” ( devil’s daughter), Salman Rushdie is a “Shaitan”(devil), Muslims will take revenge for Ishrat Jahan’s death. ( Source: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/shahid-siddiquis-magazine-harms-democratic-ethos-indian-republic-tufail-ahmed-21453 )
The residues of Islamic imperialism capitalize on the fact that very few non-Muslims have knowledge of the Perso-Arabic script, especially the Nastalīq style. This allows them to fool their non-Urdu audience and their job of radicalizing Muslims becomes easier.