[lg policy] Urdu needs Kiss of Life and not Myopic Policies

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded From: Ather Farouqui <farouqui at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 6:16 AM
:Urdu needs Kiss of Life and not Myopic Policies






MAINSTREAM, VOL L, NO 33, AUGUST 4, 2012****

Urdu needs Kiss of Life and not Myopic Policies****

by Ather Farouqui****



I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating Nusrat Zaheer on
his excellent views on various aspects of the Progressive Writers
Association (PWA) in Mainstream (vol. L, no. 11, March 3, 2012) and Abdul
W. Qasmi in ‘Whither National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language’ in
Mainstream (vol. L, no. 19, April 28, 2012)****

Though Zaheer has commented on the PWA, his letter seems to have gone
unnoticed in the CPI and CPI-M. This is owing largely to their well-known
arrogance, which spells more bad news for the future of the communist
movement in India. Most parts of the world, Europe included, have seen the
decline and withering away of the local communist outfits because of their
rigidity and obsolete thinking. The exemplary defeat of the CPI-M in West
Bengal is a case in point of a party, beset by intellectual hubris,
refusing to revise its thinking and learn from its mistakes.****

This rigidity was particularly noticeable at a recent tamasha, namely, the
technical conference of the PWA in Delhi University held on April 12, 13
and 14, 2012 to fulfil the ritual of re-election of office-bearers. It was
more in the nature of a circus organised by the PWA office-bearers, mainly
those who work in the Urdu Department of the University and the helpless
research scholars under their tutelage. Most unfortunate is that no
resolutions were passed, which is unique in the history of the PWA. I
checked on this on April 30, and was told that they had not yet been typed
though the report was available on the internet as it was quickly published
in New Age to set the record straight before the communist leadership!
Worse, the conference was organised with the support of the corporate
sector which led to an unprecedented hullabaloo that ultimately forced the
Secretary to withdraw his report and announce that the advertisement money
would not be collected. I seriously doubt this promise as the PWA has for
long now been an NGO kind of racket and not so long ago a huge grant for
the Faiz Centenary from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)
along with a number of grants from the corporate sector (as widely alleged
by reliable sources) was shared between the PWA officer-bearers of the
Department of Urdu, Delhi University, and an agency to which the organising
of the event was outsourced. More than anything else the CPI will now have
to check corruption which is a new phenomenon in communist circles,
particularly among office-bearers of the PWA. Coinciding with the Delhi
University conference was an event graced by Tariq Ali in New Delhi—the
Faiz Memorial Lecture, of which no office-bearer of the PWA was aware. In
fact, barring a few, most among the present PWA leadership would not even
have heard of him. And of course the conference has left no impact except
to fulfil the agenda of the office-bearers which is certainly not in the
public domain. Unfortunately, Zaheer has not commented on many important
issues which apply to other organisations, particularly government ones,
which are the worst victims of the ideological confusion in the ranks of
the Urdu and Muslim intelligentsia as well as Muslim leadership. All of
them have always rendered erroneous advice to the government regarding
Muslims issues since partition and all good-for-nothing government
institutions and ill-conceived policies for the revival of Urdu can be
attributed to them. They have reified Urdu as a language only of Muslims,
at the same time contributing to its decline as well as setting the
community apart from other Indians who speak regional languages.****

Basically Urdu faces only one major handicap: its absence in the school
curriculum. Fortunately, after the Right to Education (RTE) Act and the
recent landmark judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, there is no
need to define a ‘school’. But it is a matter of great shame (the mildest
term in this context) that Muslims have decided not to be a part of the
great revolution by making a hue and cry through their atavistic leadership
to exclude madrasas from the provisions of the RTE Act. Nobody seems to
have remarked on this collective suicide by Muslims through their failure
to cash in on this historic opportunity to get their children decently
educated!****

Since it is the duty of the government to adhere to the spirit of Article
350A of the Constitution to provide education to every child at the primary
level in her/his mother tongue, if it so wishes, it can easily extend this
provision to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Thus all school-going children can
study in the medium of their respective mother tongues at least in
government-run schools and those whose mother tongue is Urdu will, at least
up to the age of 14, benefit from this constitutional provision. Since this
ceiling of 14 years is open to challenge and is bound to be extended to 15
or 16 years, until these children appear in the higher secondary
examination, children whose mother tongue is Urdu (as well as others who
study in regional languages) can avail of the facility up to Class 10. So
far the activists’ concentration has been on the implementation of the
provisions of the RTE; they can now turn to other issues like reforms in
the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. As I have said, policymakers, ill advised by the
Urdu intelligentsia and Muslim leadership, have mistakenly come to the
conclusion that Urdu is a language only of culture. This is also a
convenient excuse for the government to hide behind for not undertaking the
onerous task of providing education to children of a 20-million strong
community. Once a language does not remain a functional language and is
exiled from the formal school system, it is bound to languish and
eventually die. I have first-hand experience of this and my observation is
that Delhi-based institutions, by treating Urdu superficially as a
‘language only of culture’, are sounding its death knell. The membership of
these institutions is mostly made up of university teachers or political
workers of the ruling party. Most unfortunate in this regard is the
attitude of Ms Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi and Chairperson
of the Delhi Urdu Academy. Her myopia and ignorance, when it comes to Urdu,
is there for all to see. Like other political leaders, she too has a
superficial approach to Urdu, mouthing clichés such as ‘Urdu is the finest
component of the composite culture of India’ and maintaining that the
culture of Delhi can only be saved by the Delhi Urdu Academy, which has
been a dud from day one.****

It, however, needs to be placed on record that the Honourable Chief
Minister has never been well advised on the subject of bringing about a
change in official policy. Amazingly, Ms Dikshit is also ignorant of the
constitutional provisions relating to education as she feels that the
mandate of the Urdu Academy has nothing to do with Urdu education which is
the responsibility solely of the Delhi Government through various
departments like the Directorate of Education and the Municipal Corporation
of Delhi (MCD). Until now, Ms Dikshit’s attitude suggests that the role of
the Delhi Urdu Academy is just to cultivate appropriate Muslim leaders for
the benefit of the ruling party.****

The shrewd politician that she is, whenever the issue of Urdu education in
Delhi schools is raised, it is forwarded to the Delhi Urdu Academy, even
though it has no mandate in this regard, when it should rightfully be
tackled by the Directorate of Education which is completely indifferent to
Urdu. As a result there has been no improvement in the state of Urdu
education in schools run by the Delhi Government and the state of Urdu
education in Delhi’s schools is far worse than that in UP’s schools. The UP
Government is at least clear about the institutions and personnel that have
to deal with Urdu education. Let me make it clear here that my criticism
extends only to Ms Dikshit’s Urdu policy and I will certainly cast my vote
for her in the next elections too, simply because the CPI is unlikely to
come up with a candidate!****

♦****

Some six years back, I was nominated to the governing body of the Delhi
Urdu Academy by virtue of my article ‘The Great Urdu Fraud’, which exposed
the underhand activities of the then Director of the National Council for
Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), Dr Hamidullah Bhat (who was recently
removed from the service permanently through contempt proceedings of the
Delhi High Court). He lost in a PIL for various frauds including remaining
in service longer than he was actually appointed for and was sent to jail
via the CBI.****

Because of my general cynicism, I have never been favoured for appointment
to any committee which has saved me from becoming a sarkari Musalman.
Moreover, the governing body of the Academy has no powers, except to
assemble once or twice a year. The agenda at the first meeting during my
tenure included an item for the funding of Dini madaris. While all the
other members of the governing body kept quiet when Ms Dikshit referred to
this issue, I asked for permission to speak, which was granted by the
Honourable Chief Minister, who was in the Chair. I inquired under which
provision the grant to Dini madaris was being provided as it was both
illegal and unconstitutional. To this Ms Dikshit responded with great
surprise that if my contention that the matter was unconstitu-tional was
correct, then how was it that so many States were providing funding for the
purpose. By way of reply, I just passed on to her a copy of the
Constitution in which Article 27 was flagged. On going through the
appropriate section, she and the Secretary, Culture, Ms Rina Ray, were duly
stumped. At that point of time, I also gave them a copy of a letter written
by none other than Syed Shahabuddin and published in the Economic and
Political Weekly on December 11, 2004, p. 5274, in response to an article
by Bikramjit Dey, a historian from Oxford, against the NCPUL under the
title ‘Abuse of Urdu’ (EPW, November 27, 2004) It says that the NCPUL was
like a Shakha of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). I would, however,
like to place on record here that the present Secretary and Vice-Chairman
of the Delhi Urdu Academy, Anis Azmi and Professor Akhtarul Wasey, are most
capable and deserving gentlemen, but in the absence of a mandate, they are
helpless to improve the state of Urdu education in Delhi and unless that is
done, the Delhi Urdu Academy has no relevance. When the aforesaid incident
occurred, two highly incompetent gentlemen were serving as the Secretary
and Vice-Chairman of the Academy.****

To hark back to Ms Dikshit’s outing at the Academy, she finally told me
that she was not really aware of the constitutional position, but given the
political compulsions, it was difficult to discontinue the grant to those
madrasas which were already receiving it. But she promised that the Urdu
Academy would not give any fresh grants to madrasas. I have never
subsequently tried to verify whether she kept her promise as I thought that
there was no point in proceeding further in the matter. Till the time my
term expired, I did not attend the almost worthless and futile meetings
thereafter.****

When subsequently the search for a new Vice-Chairman of the Academy was
initiated, I received a phone call to the effect that the Chief Minister
would like to see me. I sensed something amiss, as the Chief Minister could
not possibly remember a person whom she had met only once. However after
checking and reconfirmation, I put in an appearance at her residence at the
appointed hour. Five minutes after being ushered in, the Hon’ble Chief
Minister appeared in her nicely done up drawing room. Though she welcomed
me warmly, I could make out that she could not recollect who I was. My
premonition was turning out to be correct. As a cultured person, she
tactfully started a conversation to gauge why an unusual person like me was
there. After about five minutes or so of this, she abruptly said: “But you
do not look like an Urduwala.” My fault perhaps was that I was sporting
corduroy trousers and a formal shirt with appropriate footwear; moreover I
didn’t have a beard and was not chewing paan. This obviously did not quite
fit in with the mental image Ms Dikshit had of a pucca Urduwala, an image
shared by most of the English-speaking class.****

For this stereotypical image and its damaging implications in the minds of
the English-speaking elite, the credit goes to Anita Desai’s novel In
Custody, a Booker Prize winner of 1994, and a film by the same name based
on the novel by Merchant Ivory directed by Ismail Merchant. Both the novel
and film project the Muslim community and Urdu litterateurs in a highly
objectionable manner and caricatured light. As Faiz’s poetry was freely
used—rather misused—in the movie, the non-Urdu audience could have assumed,
among other things, that the film was based on Faiz’s life, a great
disservice to Faiz. Our elite seem to be drawing upon precisely such
representations of the Urdu-speaking community while forming their views
and opinions.****

In case of Ms Dikshit, who undoubtedly falls in the category of the
English-speaking elite, the victim was policy. Anyway, I politely asked
about the business at hand and she told me that two very eminent people for
the first time had strongly suggested my name so I had reasons to feel
privileged. Then she added that the Secretary, Culture (I owe my thanks to
Ms Rina Ray), was of the view that I would be a fit candidate for
Vice-Chairmanship of the Delhi Urdu Academy. I sensed though that she felt
to the contrary. She asked me to send a note about myself and my priorities
if I became Vice-Chairman and said that if she did not find another
suitable (read incompetent) person, she would consider my name favourably
for some other assignment for which I am more suitable.****

She indicated her priority that Chairmanship of a college will be the best
proposition which to me was more shocking as she has mostly nominated most
incompetent Muslims as Chairmen of different colleges. The only exception
is Zakir Husain College for the simple reason of the Khurshids’ successful
political life but this is, unfortunately, not the case of Shafiq Memorial
School. She was at least honest in saying this. I told her that I was not
interested in any kind of political affiliation or nomination but
nevertheless I thanked her very sincerely for her consideration and a nice
cup of tea. It was very clear from this meeting that for Ms Dikshit, Urdu
was only an instrument for the ‘preservation of the Culture of Delhi’ and I
am sure that her idea of the same is not different from that of In Custody.
My name was included in the new committee as a Special Invitee, which I
thought was most disgraceful and meaningless. I, therefore, did not put in
an appearance at any of the iftaar parties organised by the Academy to
prove that Urdu is Muslim! To conclude, I would say that there is a crying
need to change the official approach towards Urdu, which is not possible
unless the functioning of Urdu institutions is subjected to proper public
scrutiny. I sincerely believe that Urdu is the language of both Hindus and
Muslims and has served the cause of cultural integration between them for
centuries which is not the case anymore because of the myopic policies of
each and every government in all the States and at the Centre, and more
importantly the communal Muslim politics. I hope that my views presented
here serves to nudge policy in this direction and I hope that Mainstream
will publish articles examining the approach and functioning of all the
major Urdu institutions.****





*(The author is a pioneer scholar in the field of Urdu language and its
education and has for long been arguing that instead of modernising dini
madrasas, the government should provide Urdu education as part of the
secular curriculum of school education. He has written his M.Phil and Ph.D
dissertations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His recent book,
Muslims and Media Images, (OUP 2009) presents a frank and no-holds-barred
discussion on an important theme that has become a victim of
oversimplification. The paperback edition (2010) of the author’s book,
Redefining Urdu Politics in India, with a new Introduction argues how the
once-secular Urdu language has now been relegated to only Muslims and
confined within the realm of madrasas. It is a timely intervention in the
wake of the Right to Education Act, 2010. He can be contacted at e-mail:
farouqui at yahoo.com)*****

 ****

** **




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