Urdu movement

Most of the grammar and basic vocabulary of Hindustani descends directly from the medieval Indo-Aryan language of central India, known as Śauraseni.[1] After the tenth century, several Śauraseni dialects were elevated to literary languages, including Braj Bhasha, Awadhi and the Khari Boli of Delhi.

During the reigns of the Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire in India, where Persian was adopted as the official language and Delhi was established as the capital, the imperial court and concomitant immigration infused the Indo-Aryan dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi (the earliest form is known as Old Hindi) with large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai words from the court; this occurred as a result of cultural contact between Hindus and Muslims in Hindustan and became the fruit of a composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The introduced words were primarily nouns and were employed for cultural, legal and political concepts. These Persian and Arabic loanwords form 25% of Urdu's vocabulary.[8][9] As a form of Hindustani and a member of the Western Hindi category of Indo-Aryan languages,[7] 75% of Urdu words have their etymological roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit,[8][10][11] and approximately 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit.[9][12]

The new court language developed simultaneously in Delhi and Lucknow, the latter of which is in an Awadhi-speaking area; and thus, modern Hindustani has a noticeable Awadhi influence even though it is primarily based on Delhi dialect. In these cities, the language continued to be called "Hindi" as well as "Urdu".[13][6] While Urdu retained the grammar and core vocabulary of the local Hindi dialect, it adopted the Nastaleeq writing system from Persian.[6][14]

The term Hindustani is derived from Hindustan, the Persian-origin name for the northwestern Indian subcontinent. The works of the 13th century scholar Amir Khusro are typical of the Hindustani language of the time:

The language went by several names over the years: Hindavi ("of Hindus or Indians"), Dahlavi ("of Delhi"), Hindustani ("of Hindustan") and Hindi ("Indian").[15] The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built a new walled city in Delhi in 1639 that came to be known as Shahjahanabad. The market close to the royal fort (the Red Fort) was called Urdu Bazar ("Army/camp Market", from the Turkic word ordu, "army"), and it may be from this that the phrase Zaban-e-Urdu ("the language of the army/camp") derives. This was shortened to Urdu around the year 1800. The Mughal term Ordu with the local equivalent Lashkari[16] or "camp language" (cognate with the English word, "horde"), was used to describe the common language of the Mughal army. The language spread from the interaction of Persian-speaking Muslim soldiers to the local people who spoke varieties of Hindi. Soon, the Persian script in the cursive Nasta'liq form was adopted, with additional letters to accommodate the Indian phonetic system. Large number of Persian words were adopted in Hindustani, as were even grammatical elements such as the enclitic ezāfe.[8][17]

The official language of the Ghurids, Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as their language of poetry and literature, was Persian, while the official language of religion was Arabic. Most of the sultans and the nobility of the sultanate period were Turkic peoples from Central Asia who spoke Chagatai as their mother tongue. The Mughals were also Chagatai, but later adopted Persian. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the Indian subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties.[18] Muzaffar Alam asserts that Persian became the lingua franca of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature.[19] However, the armies, merchants, preachers, Sufis, and later the court, also incorporated the local people and elements of the medieval Hindu literary language, Braj Bhasha. This new contact language soon incorporated other dialects, such as Haryanvi, Panjabi, and in the 17th century the dialect of the new capital at Delhi. By 1800, Delhi dialect had become the dominant base of the language.[20]

When Wali Mohammed Wali arrived in Delhi, he established Hindustani with a light smattering of Persian words, a register called Rekhta, for poetry; previously the language of poetry had been Persian. When the Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the Deccan Plateau, they carried their literary language with them, and it was influenced there by more southerly languages, producing the Dakhini dialect. During this time Hindustani was the language of both Hindus and Muslims. The non-communal nature of the language lasted until the British Raj in India, when in 1837 Hindustani in the Persian script (i.e. Urdu) replaced Persian as the official language and was made co-official along with English. This triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. This literary standard, called simply Hindi, replaced Urdu as the official register of Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus, a divide that was formalized with the independence of India and Pakistan after the withdrawal of the British.[21]

Sir Syed in his later years, wearing official decorations.

The Hindi-Urdu controversy arose in 1867 when the British government prepared to accept the demand of the Hindu communities of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar to change the Perso-Arabic script of the official language to Devanagari and adopt Hindi as the second official language on demand of Hindu activists. Muslim politician Sir Syed Ahmed Khan became the most vocal opponent of this change.[22] He viewed Urdu as the lingua franca of Muslims. Having been developed by the ruling Mughal Empire, what became known as Urdu was used as a secondary language to Persian, the official language of the Mughal court.[22] Since the decline of the Mughal dynasty, Sir Syed promoted the use of Urdu through his own writings. Under Sir Syed, the Scientific Society of Aligarh translated Western works only into Urdu.[22] Sir Syed considered Urdu to be "a common legacy of Hindus and Muslims".[23] The schools established by Sir Syed imparted education in the Urdu-medium. The demand for Hindi, led largely by Hindus was to Sir Syed an erosion of the centuries-old Muslim cultural domination of India.[24][25] Testifying before the British-appointed education commission, Sir Syed controversially exclaimed that "Urdu was the language of gentry and of people of high social standing, whereas Hindi was to be the vulgar."[22] His remarks provoked a hostile response from Hindu leaders and advocates of Hindi. ".[26] The Hindus unified across the region to demand the recognition of Hindi. The success of the Hindi movement led Sir Syed to further advocate Urdu as the symbol of Muslim heritage and as the language of the Muslim intellectual and political class.[22] His educational and political work grew increasingly centred on and exclusively for Muslim interests. He also sought to persuade the British to give it extensive official use and patronage.

Sir Syed's call for the adoption of Urdu as the language of Indian Muslims won extensive support from the Aligarh Movement and Muslim religious activists of the Deobandi and Wahabbi schools. Muslim religious and political leaders Mohsin-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq developed organisations such as the Urdu Defence Association and the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu, committed to the perpetuation of Urdu.[22] Sir Syed's protege Shibli Nomani led efforts that resulted in the adoption of Urdu as the official language of the Hyderabad State and as the medium of instruction in the Osmania University. This political campaign was criticised for making the use of Urdu a political issue that served as a wedge between Muslims and Hindus, who saw Sir Syed's advocacy as an effort to re-establish Muslim hegemony.[22][27] To Muslims in northern and western India, Urdu became an integral part of political identity and communal separatism. The division over the use of Hindi or Urdu would further fuel communal conflict between Muslims and Hindus in India.[22] The All India Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami projected Urdu as essential for the political and cultural survival of Islamic society in India. Muslim politicians like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan emphasised Urdu as the symbol of Muslim heritage and political identity. The political cause of Urdu became a core issue at the heart of the Two-Nation Theory, which advocated that Muslims and Hindus were irreconcilably separate nations. Advocates of the Pakistan movement sought to make Urdu a key argument in drawing distinctions with India's Hindu-majority population. Muslim religious leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali, Maulana Shaukat Ali and Maulana Maududi emphasised the knowledge of Urdu as essential for ordinary and religious Muslims.

Shaheed Minar, or the Martyr's monument, located near Dhaka Medical College, commemorates the struggle for Bengali language.

In Pakistan, Urdu has been so far, the National language and the Lingua franca, while English holds the status as one of the official languages of the state. However, this policy caused considerable political turmoil in East Bengal, which was home to Bengali-speaking population who constituted the majority of the population of Pakistan. Jinnah, most West Pakistani politicians emphasised that only Urdu would be recognised officially. This intensified the cultural and political gulf between West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (the predecessor of the Awami League), established by A. K. Fazlul Huq, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1949 would lead the demand for the recognition of Bengali. Intensifying protests and strikes led by political groups, unions and students groups would lead to the imposition of martial law. The killing of protesting students by police in 1952 triggered a massive wave of protests in the province, which would come to be known as the Bengali Language Movement. Although politicians like Khwaja Nazimudin supported the cause of Urdu, a vast majority of Bengali nationalists saw the government policy as a symbol of racial discrimination. This wedge in Pakistani society would ultimately lead to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971.

Independent India adopted Urdu as one of its 22 scheduled languages although its counterpart, Hindi, enjoys the status of official language. Urdu is also officially recognised by the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar and Delhi. Urdu is widely used by Indian Muslims across the country and there are a large number of Urdu-medium schools, colleges and universities, including madrassahs, the Jamia Millia Islamia and the Aligarh Muslim University. Urdu is also a part of popular culture, media and publications. Numerous Urdu language films have been produced, which include Umrao Jaan, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Pakeezah.

Despite being given the status of a scheduled language, there have been concerns that the Urdu language has largely been on a decline in India. This decline has been attributed to reasons such as lack of promotional policies by central language regulation boards, the promulgation and preference of Urdu's counterpart Hindi as the Indian union's official language since 1950, the higher number of Hindi-speakers in India leading to the suppression of Urdu, the partition of India and Urdu's national language status in Pakistan overshadowing the language's prospects in India, as well as the lack of many schools in India teaching Urdu as a medium of instruction.[28]

• Urdu
• Pakistan movement
• Hindi-Urdu controversy
• Aligarh Movement
• Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu