LANGUAGE IN INDIA

URDU LINGUISTIC MINORITIES AND EDUCATION

S. Imtiaz Hasnain, Ph.D.

The Plight of the Urdu Linguistic Minority

This paper is a modified version of the presentation made in a Workshop on National Commission on Religious and Linguistic minorities. The Workshop was chaired by the Honourable Justice Ranganatha Mishra.

My intent in this presentation was that, as a representative of the Urdu linguistic minority, I would bring to the notice of the National Commission the plight of the Urdu linguistic minority, who, like any other minority, faces collective discrimination and suffers from the sense of victimization on account of language.

I represented Urdu not just because it is my mother tongue, but also because it occupies a unique position, decidedly unusual, in the Indian linguistic scenario. Even if it is looked at in isolation, there is always a metaphysical presence of Hindi, which inevitably makes any discussion on Urdu to be looked at in relation with each other. This fact is altogether missing in the case of other Indian languages.

Urdu is an Indian Language

Born in the Indian soil and a product of an intimate interaction between the linguistic currents of Indo-Aryan and Perso-Arabic groups, Urdu genetically belongs to the Indo-Aryan family of languages, and has been for centuries a language of the people of all faiths. But, with the passage of time, the political and economic exigencies narrowed down the base of the language and bracketed it with certain social roles and group identity-Urdu as Muslim. The shared space, thus, became a site for identity politics.

The communal contexts within which discussions about the historical origins of Urdu and its role in national movement were framed, and the rhetoric used during the freedom struggle through the religio-nationalist and linguistic slogan of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan heightened tension between Hindi and Urdu, and further distanced the possibility of engaging in any debate in the domain of civility.

Conceded that Urdu is, by and large, a language of Muslim religious minority today, does this perceived affiliation release the democratic state of India from the responsibility of according a rightful place to the language in education?

Advancement of the Minorities Through Education

Education is the key to all human advancement including economic and social uplift; hence it is a potential site for political contestation and struggle. It is empowering and constraining as well. Lack of education is the single most constraint in the way of people due to which they cannot avail of benefits from the socio-economic politics of the Government. Besides being empowering and disempowering, enabling and constraining, education is also an equally important tool for linguistic genocide. In fact, it is one of the most successful means of promoting or retarding, cultivating or destroying languages. Fate of any language, its growth and development, largely depends upon its use in the domain of education.

The Role and Responsibility of the Democratic Polity

Does the democratic polity respect the right of minorities to protect and promote the use of their language in the domain of education? Is our language policy all about upholding the rule of majority without caring to nurture and fulfill the linguistic aspirations of minorities and protecting their languages that have been subordinated to the languages of the majorities in different regions?

Language and Social Backwardness

Although language may not be a determinant of socio-economic backwardness, or there may not be any direct correlation between religiousness and backwardness and corresponding linguistic backwardness, the discriminatory policies of various States vis-à-vis Urdu language has been one of the major reasons for Muslim educational backwardness, particularly in North India.

Muslims, a Least Educated Indian Community

According to several official reports carried out by different agencies, Muslims rank among the least educated communities in India. Muslim educational backwardness became an accepted fact when the states, for the first time on the basis of Program of Action for Minorities laid down in the National Education Policy of 1986, recognized Muslims as an educationally "backward" community. The High Powered Panel headed by Gopal Singh to look into the conditions of five religious communities, namely, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and Buddhists, found that Muslims were one of the most marginalized communities in the country, hardly better off than the Dalits.

Of course, there can never be all India generalizations, for Urdu-speaking Muslim as a category is not homogenous - demographically, socially, culturally and economically. In fact, there are significant inter-regional diversities in all these attributes. The processes of prolitarianization, indigenization, impoverishment and formation of the elite class have taken different courses altogether in different regions. Even their response to the impulses of social change, literacy and education has regional variations. Thus, while Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnatake responded to education enthusiastically by setting up educational societies, the response in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar was rather different.

Language Development and Language Maintenance Depends on School System

Much of the development of a mother tongue, especially in the formal domains, takes place within the school system. Hence, it becomes necessary to see what kind of educational language-related minority rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and other legal covenants and declarations by the Centre and States. What provisions are granted to use the minority languages as medium of instruction and examination? Do the children of linguistic minorities have a right to become bi - or multilingual?

Overtly Non-Discriminatory and Maintenance Orientation of India's Language Policy

India's language policy is overtly non-discriminatory and maintenance-oriented. Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution provide certain rights to linguistic minorities and also make provisions as to how these rights can best be safeguarded and realized. Together they meet mutually supportive rights for minorities and minority institutions. Further, the Constitution seeks to protect the rights of linguistic minorities with in-built institutional arrangements under its Articles 347, 350, 350A and 350B along with Articles 32 and 226.

The Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities is in existence, since 30th July 1957, on the basis of Article 350B, which recommends for appointment of a Special Officer for linguistic minorities by the President. The duty of the Special Officer is to "investigate all matters relating to the safeguards provided for linguistic minorities under the Constitution and report to the President on those matters at such intervals as the President may direct, and the President shall cause all reports to be laid before each House of the Parliament, and sent to the Governments of the States concerned."

Serious Gaps between Policy and Implementation

However, a serious gap exists between policy pronouncement and their implementation practices. Despite the guarantees provided to the minorities to conserve their languages and the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, languages of the linguistic minorities are still struggling for survival - Urdu being no exception here. The gap becomes more discernible in the educational system where the rights to use Urdu as medium of instruction and examination or even establishing Urdu medium schools or seeking recognition for Muslim educational institutions are being constantly denied, thus resulting in the educational backwardness of the Urdu linguistic minorities.

A Conflict Paradigm

From the perspective of a conflict paradigm, the causes can be analyzed from both structural and ideological perspectives.

(a) Structural: It could be a state, an institution (e.g., schools), laws and legislations, directives and issuance of certain orders, which cover linguistic rights or the position of different languages on time-table in schools, budget allotted for teacher-training or material production in minority languages, and a whole range of other facilities like getting government publications, advertisements, etc.

(b) Ideological: It is norms and values ascribed to different languages and their speakers which bring about certain positive or negative identification with the mother tongue and the sense of utility and worth of the minority language and its speakers.

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