Hindi–Urdu controversy

The Hindi–Urdu controversy arose in 19th century

colonial India out of the debate over whether the
Hindi or Urdu languages should be chosen as a
national language. Hindi and Urdu are generally
understood in linguistic terms as two forms or
dialects of a single language, Hindustani (or Hindi-
Urdu), that are written in two different scripts: Urdu (top) and Hindi (middle) along with English
Devanagari (for Hindi) and a modified Perso-Arabic (bottom) on a road sign in Jammu and Kashmir
script (for Urdu). state in India

Both Hindi and Urdu represent forms of the

Khariboli dialect of Hindustani.[1] A Persianized variant of Hindustani began to take shape during the
Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 AD) and Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD) in South Asia.[1] Known as
Dakkani in southern India, and by names such as Hindi, Hindavi, and Hindustani in northern India and
elsewhere, it emerged as a lingua franca across much of India and was written in several scripts including
Perso-Arabic, Devanagari, Kaithi, and Gurmukhi.[2]

The Perso-Arabic script form of this language underwent a standardization process and further
Persianization in the late Mughal period (18th century) and came to be known as Urdu, a name derived
from the Turkic word ordu (army) or orda and is said to have arisen as the "language of the camp", or
"Zaban-i-Ordu", or in the local "Lashkari Zaban".[3] As a literary language, Urdu took shape in courtly,
elite settings. Along with English, it became the first official language of British India in 1850.[4][5]

Hindi as a standardized literary register of Khariboli arose later; the Braj dialect was the dominant
literary language in the Devanagari script up until and through the nineteenth century. Efforts to promote
a Devanagari version of the Khariboli dialect under the name of Hindi gained pace around 1880 as an
effort to displace Urdu's official position.

The last few decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the eruption of the Hindi–Urdu controversy in
the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh, then known as "the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh"). The controversy comprised "Hindi" and "Urdu" protagonists each advocating the official use of
Hindustani with the Devanagari script or with the Nastaʿlīq script, respectively. Hindi movements
advocating the growth of and official status for Devanagari were established in Northern India. Babu
Shiva Prasad and Madan Mohan Malaviya were notable early proponents of this movement. This,
consequently, led to the development of Urdu movements defending Urdu's official status; Syed Ahmed
Khan was one of its noted advocates.

In 1900, the government issued a decree granting symbolic equal status to both Hindi and Urdu. Hindi
and Urdu started to diverge linguistically, with Hindi drawing on Sanskrit as the primary source for
formal and academic vocabulary, often with a conscious attempt to purge the language of Persian-derived
equivalents. Deploring this Hindu-Muslim divide, Gandhi proposed re-merging the standards, using
either Devanagari or Urdu script, under the traditional generic term Hindustani. Bolstered by the support
of the Indian National Congress and various leaders involved in the Indian Independence Movement,
Hindi, in the Devanagari script, along with English, replaced Urdu as one of the official languages of
India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.

Contents
Background
Controversy
British language policy
Hindi and Urdu movements
Gandhi's idea of Hindustani
Muslim nationalism
Linguistic purism
Hindi to Urdu
See also
References
External links

Background
In northern India (what is historically known as the
region of Hindustan), Khariboli was the native language Status change of languages

spoken there and it belongs to the Western Hindi Urdu replaces Persian 1837[6]
language class of Central Indo-Aryan languages.[1] Urdu and English made official
1857
Mughal rulers brought with them to India the Persian languages of British India
language.[7] In cities such as Delhi, the Khariboli form Hindi granted equal status to Urdu in
1900
of Hindi began to acquire some Persian loanwords and the United Provinces
continued to be called "Hindi" as well as "Urdu".[1][8] Urdu declared sole national language
1948[6]
While Urdu retained the grammar and core vocabulary in Pakistan
of the local Hindi dialect Khariboli, it adopted the Hindi granted separate status and
Nastaleeq writing system.[1] official precedence over Urdu and all
1950
other languages in the Republic of
India
Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of the same language,
Hindustani.[9] It evolved from the medieval (6th to 13th
century) Apabhraṃśa register of the preceding Shauraseni language, a Middle Indo-Aryan language that
is also the ancestor of other modern Indo-Aryan languages. Around 75% of Urdu words have their
etymological roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit,[10][11][7] and approximately 99% of Urdu verbs have their
roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit.[12][13] The remaining 25% of Urdu's vocabulary consists of loanwords from
Persian and Arabic.[10][12]

The conflict over language reflected the larger politicization of culture and religion in nineteenth century
colonial India, when religious identities were utilized in administration in unprecedented ways.[14]
Several factors contributed to the increasing divergence of Hindi and Urdu. The Muslim rulers chose to
write Hindustani in Perso-Arabic script instead of Devanagari script therefore ultimately exacerbating the
resentment towards the cultural hegemony of a minority Muslim population in an overwhelming Hindu
population. In time, Hindustani written in Perso-Arabic script also became a literary language with an
increasing body of literature written in the 18th and 19th century. A division developed gradually
between Hindus, who chose to write Hindustani in Devanagari script, and Muslims and some Hindus
who chose to write the same in Urdu script. The development of Hindi movements in the late nineteenth
century further contributed to this divergence.[15] Sumit Sarkar notes that in the 18th and the bulk of the
19th century, "Urdu had been the language of polite culture over a big part of north India, for Hindus
quite as much as Muslims". For the decade of 1881-90, Sarkar gives figures which showed that the
circulation of Urdu newspapers was twice that of Hindi newspapers and there were 55% more Urdu
books as Hindi books. He gives the example of the author Premchand who wrote mainly in Urdu till
1915, until he found it difficult to publish in the language.[16]

Professor Paul R. Brass notes in his book, Language, Religion and Politics in North India,

The Hindi-Urdu controversy by its very bitterness demonstrates how little the objective
similarities between language groups matter when people attach subjective significance to
their languages. Willingness to communicate through the same language is quite a different
thing from the mere ability to communicate.[15]

Controversy

British language policy

In 1837, the British East India company replaced Persian with local vernacular in various provinces as
the official language of government offices and of the lower courts. However, in the northern regions of
the Indian subcontinent, Urdu in Urdu script was chosen as the replacement for Persian, rather than Hindi
in the Devanagari script.[15][17] The most immediate reason for the controversy is believed to be the
contradictory language policy in North India in the 1860s. Although the then government encouraged
both Hindi and Urdu as a medium of education in school, it discouraged Hindi or Nagari script for
official purposes. This policy gave rise to conflict between students educated in Hindi or Urdu for the
competition of government jobs, which eventually took on a communal form.[18]

Hindi and Urdu movements

In 1867, some Hindus in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during the British Raj in India began to
demand that Hindi be made an official language in place of Urdu.[19] Babu Shiva Prasad of Banares was
one of the early proponents of the Nagari script. In a Memorandum on court characters written in 1868,
he accused the early Muslim rulers of India for forcing them to learn Persian. In 1897, Madan Mohan
Malaviya published a collection of documents and statements titled Court character and primary
education in North Western Provinces and Oudh, in which, he made a compelling case for Hindi.[18][20]

Several Hindi movements were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century; notable among them were
Nagari Pracharini Sabha formed in Banaras in 1893, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad in 1910,
Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha in 1918 and Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti in 1926.[20] The
movement was encouraged in 1881 when Hindi in Devanagari script replaced Urdu in Persian script as
the official language in neighboring Bihar. They submitted 118 memorials signed by 67,000 people to the
Education Commission in several cities.[15][20] The proponents of Hindi argued that the majority of
people spoke Hindi and therefore introduction of Nagari script would provide better education and
improve prospects for holding Government positions. They also argued that Urdu script made court
documents illegible, encouraged forgery and promoted the use of complex Arabic and Persian words.

Organisations such as Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu were formed in defence of the official status given to
Urdu.[15] Advocates of Urdu argued that Hindi scripts could not be written faster, and lacked
standardisation and vocabulary. They also argued that the Urdu language originated in India, asserted that
Urdu could also be spoken fluently by most of the people and disputed the assertion that official status of
language and script is essential for the spread of education.

Communal violence broke out as the issue was taken up by firebrands. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had once
stated, "I look to both Hindus and Muslims with the same eyes & consider them as two eyes of a bride.
By the word nation I only mean Hindus and Muslims and nothing else. We Hindus and Muslims live
together under the same soil under the same government. Our interest and problems are common and
therefore I consider the two factions as one nation." Speaking to Mr. Shakespeare, the governor of
Banaras, after the language controversy heated up, he said "I am now convinced that the Hindus and
Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life was quite distinct from one
another."

In the last three decades of the 19th century the controversy flared up several times in North-Western
provinces and Oudh. The Hunter commission, appointed by the Government of India to review the
progress of education, was used by the advocates of both Hindi and Urdu for their respective causes.

Gandhi's idea of Hindustani

Hindi and Urdu continued to diverge both linguistically and culturally. Linguistically, Hindi continued
drawing words from Sanskrit, and Urdu from Persian, Arabic and Chagatai. Culturally Urdu came to be
identified with Muslims and Hindi with Hindus. This wide divergence in the 1920s was deplored by
Gandhi who exhorted the re-merging of both Hindi and Urdu naming it Hindustani written in both Nagari
and Persian scripts.[15] Though he failed in his attempt to bring together Hindi and Urdu under the
Hindustani banner, he popularised Hindustani in other non-Hindustani speaking areas.[20]

Muslim nationalism
It has been argued that the Hindi–Urdu controversy sowed the seeds for Muslim nationalism in India.
Some also argued that Syed Ahmad had expressed separatist views long before the controversy
developed.[15]

Linguistic purism
Because of linguistic purism and its orientation towards the pre-Islamic past, advocates for a pure Hindi
have sought to remove many Persian, Arabic and Turkic loanwords and replaced them with borrowings
from Sanskrit. Conversely, formal Urdu employs far more Perso-Arabic words than in vernacular
Khariboli.

Hindi to Urdu
In April 1900, the colonial Government of the North-Western Provinces issued an order granting equal
official status to both Nagari and Perso-Arabic scripts.[21] This decree evoked protests from Urdu
supporters and joy from Hindi supporters. However, the order was more symbolic in that it did not
provision exclusive use of Nagari script. Perso-Arabic remained dominant in North-Western provinces
and Oudh as the preferred writing system until independence.[18]

C. Rajagopalachari, chief minister of Madras Presidency introduced Hindi as a compulsory language in

secondary school education though he later relented and opposed the introduction of Hindi during the
Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965.[22] Bal Gangadhar Tilak supported Devanagari script as the
essential part of nationalist movement. The language policy of Congress and the independence
movement paved its status as an alternative official language of independent India. Hindi was supported
by religious and political leaders, social reformers, writers and intellectuals during independence
movement securing that status. Hindi, along with English, was recognised as the official language of
India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950.[20]

See also
Urdu movement
Hindi in Pakistan
Linguistic purism
History of Hindustani
Persian and Urdu

References
1. Taj, Afroz (1997). "About Hindi-Urdu" (https://web.archive.org/web/20100419162950/). The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Archived from the original (http://www.unc.edu/~t
aj/abturdu.htm) on 19 April 2010. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
2. "Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language, The Emergence of Khari Boli Literature in North India"
(http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/workshop2012/bangha_rekht
a.pdf) (PDF). Columbia University. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160328003510/
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/workshop2012/bangha_rekht
a.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
3. Alyssa Ayres (23 July 2009). Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan.
Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-0-521-51931-1.
4. Coatsworth, John (2015). Global Connections: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World
History (http://www.overstock.com/Books-Movies-Music-Games/Global-Connections-Politics
-Exchange-and-Social-Life-in-World-History-Hardcover/9911619/product.html#more).
United States: Cambridge Univ Pr. p. 159. ISBN 9780521761062.
5. Tariq Rahman (2011). "Urdu as the Language of Education in British India" (http://www.nihc
r.edu.pk/Latest_English_Journal/1.%20URDU%20AS%20THE%20LANGUAGE,%20Tariq%
20Rahman%20FINAL.pdf) (PDF). Pakistan Journal of History and Culture. NIHCR. 32 (2):
1–42.
6. Maria Isabel Maldonado Garcia (2015). Urdu Evolution and Reforms. Punjab University
Department of Press and Publications, Lahore, Pakistan. p. 223.
7. Taj, Afroz (1997). "About Hindi-Urdu" (http://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm). University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171107083412/htt
p://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm) from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved
27 March 2018.
 8. First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. Brill Academic Publishers. 1993. p. 1024.
ISBN 9789004097964. "Whilst the Muhammadan rulers of India spoke Persian, which
enjoyed the prestige of being their court language, the common language of the country
continued to be Hindi, derived through Prakrit from Sanskrit. On this dialect of the common
people was grafted the Persian language, which brought a new language, Urdu, into
existence. Sir George Grierson, in the Linguistic Survey of India, assigns no distinct place to
Urdu, but treats it as an offshoot of Western Hindi."
9. Maria Isabel Maldonado Garcia (2015). Urdu Evolution and Reforms. Punjab University
Department of Press and Publications, Lahore, Pakistan. p. 223.
10. Ahmad, Aijaz (2002). Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South
Asia. Verso. p. 113. ISBN 9781859843581. "On this there are far more reliable statistics
than those on population. Farhang-e-Asafiya is by general agreement the most reliable
Urdu dictionary. It twas compiled in the late nineteenth century by an Indian scholar little
exposed to British or Orientalist scholarship. The lexicographer in question, Syed Ahmed
Dehlavi, had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi, as is evident even from the
title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the total stock of 55,000 Urdu
words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that the
entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are derived from these
sources. What distinguishes Urdu from a great many other Indian languages ... is that is
draws almost a quarter of its vocabulary from language communities to the west of India,
such as Farsi, Turkish, and Tajik. Most of the little it takes from Arabic has not come directly
but through Farsi."
11. Dalmia, Vasudha (31 July 2017). Hindu Pasts: Women, Religion, Histories. SUNY Press.
p. 310. ISBN 9781438468075. "On the issue of vocabulary, Ahmad goes on to cite Syed
Ahmad Dehlavi as he set about to compile the Farhang-e-Asafiya, an Urdu dictionary, in the
late nineteenth century. Syed Ahmad 'had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi,
as is evident from the title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the total
stock of 55.000 Urdu words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and
Prakrit, and that the entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are
from these sources' (2000: 112-13). As Ahmad points out, Syed Ahmad, as a member of
Delhi's aristocratic elite, had a clear bias towards Persian and Arabic. His estimate of the
percentage of Prakitic words in Urdu should therefore be considered more conservative
than not. The actual proportion of Prakitic words in everyday language would clearly be
much higher."
12. India Perspectives, Volume 8. PTI for the Ministry of External Affairs. 1995. p. 23. "All verbs
in Urdu are of Sanskrit origin. According to lexicographers, only about 25 percent words in
Urdu diction have Persian or Arabic origin."
13. "Urdu's origin: it's not a "camp language" " (http://www.dawn.com/news/681263/urdus-origin
-its-not-a-camp-language). dawn.com. 17 December 2011. Archived (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20150924135247/http://www.dawn.com/news/681263/urdus-origin-its-not-a-camp-lan
guage) from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 5 July 2015. "Urdu nouns and
adjective can have a variety of origins, such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Pushtu and even
Portuguese, but ninety-nine per cent of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit/Prakrit. So it
is an Indo-Aryan language which is a branch of Indo-Iranian family, which in turn is a branch
of Indo-European family of languages. According to Dr Gian Chand Jain, Indo-Aryan
languages had three phases of evolution beginning around 1,500 BC and passing through
the stages of Vedic Sanskrit, classical Sanskrit and Pali. They developed into Prakrit and
Apbhransh, which served as the basis for the formation of later local dialects."
14. Jones, Kenneth (1981). "Religious Identity and the Indian Census," in The Census in British
India: New Perspectives, ed. by N.G. Barrier. New Delhi: Manohar. pp. 73–101.
15. Language, Religion and Politics in North India by Paul R. Brass, Publisher: iUniverse,
Incorporated, ISBN 978-0-595-34394-2
16. Sumit Sarkar (1983). Modern India, 1885-1947 (https://books.google.com/books?id=x1uBQ
gAACAAJ). Macmillan. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-0-333-90425-1.
17. John R. McLane (1970). The political awakening in India. Prentice-Hall. Inc, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey. p. 105.
18. Religious Controversy in British India by Kenneth W. Jones, p124, ISBN 0-7914-0827-2
Google book (https://books.google.com/books?id=EmY9fsUTjwYC&pg=PA123&dq=hindi+ur
du+controversy#PPA124,M1)
19. Urdu-Hindi Controversy (http://www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A133), from
Story of Pakistan (http://www.storyofpakistan.com/).
20. Status Change of Languages by Ulrich Ammon, Marlis Hellinger
21. Christopher R. King (1994). "Chapter V: The Hindi-Nagari movement" (http://www.columbia.
edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/king/05_chapter.pdf) (PDF). One language, two
scripts. Oxford University Press. p. 155. ISBN 0-19-563565-5.
22. Venkatachalapathy, A. R. (20 December 2007). "Tongue tied" (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/st
ory/Tongue+tied/1/2692.html). India Today.

External links
South Asia Analysis Group: Hindi-Urdu controversy (http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded
_files/paper675.html)
A century of dedicated service: Anjuman Tarraqqi-i-Urdu (http://www.dawn.com/2003/01/07/
op.htm#5), from Dawn Newspaper
Urdu Scholarship-Maldonado Garcia (https://punjablahorepakistan.academia.edu/MariaIsab
elMaldonadoGarcia)
The poisonous potency of script: Hindi and Urdu (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/
King2001.pdf) ROBERT D. KING

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