LANGUAGE IN INDIA

URDU IN DELHI

A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.

Historical, Geographical and Linguistic Sketch of the State

Delhi finds prominent reference right from the times of the epic Mahabharata. Lying in the northern part of the country, Delhi is surrounded by Haryana on all sides except the east where it borders with Uttar Pradesh. After 1947, it became the capital of India and was made a Union Territory in 1956. In the history of Delhi, the 69^th Constitutional amendment is a milestone as Delhi got a Legislative Assembly with the enactment of the National Capital Territory Act, 1991.

The State has a population of 94,20,644. The main language of the State is Hindi whose speakers are 76.15 per cent of the total population.

The major linguistic minority groups in the State constitute the speakers of Punjabi (12.86%), Urdu (05.91%) and Bengali (01.10%) per cent of the population.

The speakers of minority languages who constitute less than 1 per cent are the speakers of Gujarati (0.30%), Malayalam (0.57%), Tamil (0.92%), Sindhi (0.66%), Marathi (0.27%), Telugu (0.26%), Kannada (0.10%), Gorkhali/Nepali (0.26%) and Lahnda (0.12%) per cent of the population.

The speakers of minority languages who constitute less than 0.09 per cent are the speakers of Assamese (0.02%), Kashmiri (0.08%), Oriya (0.07%), Dogri (0.06%), Konkani (0.03%), Arabic/Arbi (0.01%), Bhili/Bhilodi (0.01%) and Tibetan (0.02%) per cent of the population.

In Delhi there is no area having 15 per cent or more of the linguistic minority population.

Table 1: Area, Population and Headquarters of Districts

District	Area in 000' sq. km	Population (Lacs)	Headquarters	Total Urdu Population (Lacs)	%age (Between 3 & 5)	Muslim Population (Lacs)	%age (Between 3 & 6)	%age (Between 5 & 6)
1	2	3	4	5		6
Delhi	1483	94.2	Delhi	5.1	5.4	8.9	9.4	57.3

Urdu in Delhi

Hindi is the official language of the State. The State Government have issued orders for publication of important rules, notices etc. in Urdu and Punjabi languages.

In Delhi there are Punjabi and Urdu Cells in the Language Department to translate important rules, notices, etc. in minority languages.

A detailed district-wise break-up of the total Urdu population in Delhi is shown in Table 1.

Table 2: District-wise Break-up of Urdu Population in Delhi

S. No.	District	Total Population (Lacs)	Total Urdu Population (Lacs)	Total    Male (Lacs)	Total Female (Lacs)	Rural (Lacs)	Urban (Lacs)
1.	Delhi District	94.2	5.1	2.8	2.3	0.2	4.9

In the light of the figures given above we may draw the conclusion that Urdu is basically an urban based language in Delhi. Urban Rural division of Urdu population is presented diagrammatically below. The graph presented below exhibit the rural urban division of Urdu population in Delhi

. Chart 1: Rural and Urban Division of Urdu Population

The numerical strength of speakers of Urdu shows an uneven distribution in Delhi. The difference in concentration of Urdu speakers varies from a few hundred to thousands.

Urdu Population in Delhi

Table   3: Total Population and Urdu Population

S. No.	District	Total Population (Lacs)	Total Urdu Population (Lacs)	%age
1.	Delhi District	94.2	5.1	5.45

Chart 2: Total Population and Total Urdu Population in Urdu Populated Areas

Urdu as an icon of Muslim identification

Despite its secular character Urdu has always been identified with Muslims, and therefore Urdu has become an icon of Muslim identity. To assess the validity of this myth the section provides a distribution of Muslims and Urdu population in Delhi.

Table 4: District wise Break up of Muslim/Urdu Population Ratio

S. No.	District	Total Muslim Population (Lacs)	Total Urdu Population (Lacs)	%age
1.	Delhi District	8.9	5.1	57.66

The figures presented in the table indicate that not all Muslims claim Urdu as their mother tongue.

Decadal growth of Muslims & Urdu Speakers

Identification through a particular Linguistic Identification is very much a matter of social awareness on the part of an individual. Change in Linguistic Identification does not signify change in linguistic behaviour. Oscillation in mother-tongue declaration reveals a shift in social identification under changed circumstances. The table given below presents the decadal growth of Muslims and Urdu speakers reported in 1971, 1981 and 1991 census reports.

Table   5: Decadal growth

S.No.		1971	%age	1981	%age	1991
1.	Muslims	263019	45.41	481802	45.84	889641
2.	Urdu	231127	36.32	362935	29.23	512847

Table indicates a considerable fall ranging between 36 to 29 per cent among Urdu speakers in the state during 1971 to 1981 and 1981 to 1991. In other words, Urdu Population falls from 36% in 71-81 to 29% in 81-91.

The decadal growth of Muslims in Delhi shows a slightly slow increase ranging between 45.4 to 45.8 per cent during 1971 to 1981 and 1981 to 1991. The graph given below displays a steep fall in case of Urdu. However the figures of Muslim decadal growth have shown a steady maintenance.

Chart 3: Decadal growth in Muslim and Urdu

Bilingualism among Urdu Speakers

The Urdu population is mostly scattered throughout the country, hence a large proportion of Urdu speakers in many regions tend to have bilingual control over respective language of the region along with Urdu. The table below presents figures of bilingualism among Urdu speakers.

Table   6: Bilingualism among Urdu Population

			Total	%age	Male	%age	Female	%age	Rural	Urban
Total No. of Urdu speakers			5.1	(5.4) 1.1	2.8	54.8	2.3	45.1	0.2 (4.1%)	4.9 (95.8%)
Monolinguals			3.1	60.7	1.6	52.3	1.5	47.6
Bilinguals			2.0	39.2	1.2	58.6	0.8	41.3
S. No.	Languages	Speakers	%age to col. 2	Male	%age to col. 4	Female	%age to col. 6	Rural	%age to col. 8
1.	Arabic	0.2	3.4	0.08	47.6	0.09	52.3
2.	English	0.3	5.5	0.2	59.3	0.1	40.6
3.	Hindi	1.6	30.2	0.9	59.7	0.6	40.2

The figures present in the table indicate that bilingualism among Urdu speakers is much higher than the State average. The 39.2% of the total Urdu population are bilingual; Hindi is the most preferred language among the Urdu speakers of Delhi. 30% of the total Urdu population has bilingualism in Hindi.

Literacy in Urdu Populated Areas

Despite the progress of literacy programmes in India, there are more illiterate adults in India today than there were in 1951. However we may not ignore the fact that the literacy rates in the country have shown a steady increase of about eight- percent every decade since 1951, from a national average of 19.74% in 1951.

The literacy level is linked with the urban: rural factor in a significant way. The chunk of illiterates lives in the rural areas. They do not have access to information through the written word. According to the 1991 census, 74.30 per cent of the total Indian population lives in the rural areas and 25.7 per cent in urban areas. On the other hand the literacy rate in urban areas is 61.72 while in the rural areas it is 36.31 per cent.

The male: female parameter is also very significant in literacy. Males show higher literacy rate than females.

The table given below presents the figures of literacy among Urdu population.

Table 7: Literacy

Districts	Total Population	Total Literates	Male	Female	Rural	Urban
Delhi	94.2 Lacs	58.8 Lacs (62.4%)	35.4 Lacs (60.1%)	23.4 Lacs (39.8%)	5.0 Lacs (8.5%)	53.8 Lacs (91.4%)

Chart 4: Total Population and Total Literates in Urdu Populated Areas

The graph presented above indicates that the language issue is inter-language the urban and rural factor insignificant way.

Level of Education among Urdu Population

In late nineties India adopted a series of policies and programmes to improve its quantity and quality of education system. These included the approval and adoption of the EDUCATION FOR ALL. Most of these plicies aimed at improving Primary especially in rural areas.

In response to wide spread concerns over the deteriorating education systems on the one hand and the importance of education is national and global development, the need to strengthen the educational system has been recognised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The maladies of the Indian education system are clearly alarming.

The table given below presents the level of education in Urdu populated areas of the state.

Table 8: Level of Education among Urdu Population

District	Total Literates	Literate without any formal Schooling	Primary	Middle	Matric	10+2	Non-technical diploma	Technical diploma	Graduate & above
Delhi	58.8 Lacs	0.2 Lacs (0.3%)	19.6 Lacs (33.3%)	12.0 Lacs (20.3%)	10.0 Lacs (17.0%)	6.3 Lacs (10.6%)	0.04 Lacs (0.07%)	0.5 Lacs (0.8%)	10.3 Lacs (17.5%)

Chart 5: Level of Education in Urdu Populated Areas

Medium of Instruction

Orders exist for imparting instruction through mother-tongue provided a minimum of 10 pupils in classes I and II and 6 pupils in classes III and V so desire. However, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali and Telugu are actually recognised media of instruction.

Hindi and English are used as the media of instruction.

Table 9: Total Number of Languages used as Medium of Instruction in Delhi

	Primary	Upper Primary	Secondary	Higher
NCERT Third Survey	11	11	N.A.	11
NCERT Fifth Survey	11	8	8	8

The three-language formula entails the study of languages as under :

(i)                Any language mentioned in the VIII Schedule to Constitution as the first language.

(ii)              Any language mentioned in the VIII Schedule to the Constitution as the second language.

           (iii) Any language mentioned in the VIII Schedule to the Constitution as the third language.

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