By Raza Elahi
Woh zabaan jo iss sarzameen se upaji
Wahi zabaan apne vatan mein begaani ho gayee
(Kunwar Mohinder Singh Bedi)
At a time when Urdu has been gaining popularity in many western and European countries and is being taught in various universities in USA, UK, Japan and China etc., it is shocking to know that Punjab University in Chandigarh has mooted a proposal to club Urdu with foreign languages and disbanding its individual department. Though the decision is put on hold after it received flaks from all the quarters, yet it is enough to tell-a-tale of Urdu language in its own country where it is born and brought up.
In 1969, when the then government decided to hold Ghalib’s centenary celebration,
Sahir Ludhianvi sarcastically wrote:
Jis ahd-e-siyaasat ne ye zinda zubaan kuchli
Us ahd-e-siyaasat ko marhoom ka gham kyun hai?
Ghalib jise kehte hain Urdu ka hi shaayar tha
Urdu pe sitam dha kar Ghalib pe karam kyun hai
Today, a recap of history is required to make people understand that Urdu is not a foreign language but an Indian one like Hindi or Punjabi or any other Indian language.
It is generally believed that Urdu originated around the late 18th century in Muslim army camps and cantonment bazaars; it means
lashkar (army); and it is the language of the Muslims only.
All these are not true.
The fact is Urdu had been in existence for several centuries before and was the language of all the people of Delhi and its neighbourhood. The similar sounding Turkish word ‘ordu’, which means army, has nothing to do with the language Urdu.
The word ‘Urdu’ was primarily referred to the city of Shahjahanabad as Urdu-e-Mu’alla-e-Shahjahanabad (the exalted court/city of Shahjahanabad) and the language of the people in and around the city was referred as
Zabaan-e-Urdu-e-Mu’alla-e-Shahjahanabad. Over the period of time
Zabaan-e-Urdu-e-Mu’alla-e-Shahjahanabad became shortened as
Zabaan-e-Urdu which later became Urdu (
zabaan). And thus, the name Urdu came into the existence for the purpose of the language spoken in and around Shahjahanabad / Delhi.
According to renowned critic and author Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Mir Taqi Mir, in his
Nikat-ush Shu’ara (c. 1752) describes the poetry in
rekhta as the poetry written in the language of the Urdu-e-Mu’alla (which means the city of Shahjahanabad).
Faruqi also said, “None stopped to consider that the only foreign armies in India during and from the 1780s were British (and some French). There were no Arabic or Persian or Turkish speaking armies in India from the 1780, and the language of Urdu had by then been in existence for several centuries. Thus the name ‘Urdu’ which came into use apparently in 1780 could not have been given to the language because of the putative army connection.”
A product of Indo-Persian blend, Urdu has been in the past known by many names like
zabaan-e-dehli,
hindavi, dihlavi, zabaan-e-urdu, gujri, dakhani, hindi, hindostanee and
rekhta etc.
During Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) and Mughal Empire (1526 to 1857), the court language was Persian (and or on some instances Turkish) but the common man’s language was a mixed language known as
zabaan-e-dehli (dihlavi) or
hindavi. This language of the street, however, did not get any patronage from the rulers of Delhi. It evolved only through people to people contacts at battlefield,
caravansarais, shrines of sufis, workshops and marketplaces. Besides words from braj, khari boli, saraiki, awadhi and other local dialects, this language also had Persian, Turkish and Pashto words.
In early 14th century Amir Khusro (1253–1325) began writing his poetry in this mixed language instead of his earlier expertise in Persian to connect more and more to common people.
During the same period, Alauddin Khijli had spread the Delhi Sultanate to Gujarat. Khijli’s Turk commanders shifted with their staff and their families to Gujarat and
zabaan-e-dehli or
hindavi got intermixed with Gujrati and became Gujri or Gojri.
After Khijlis, Tughlaks ruled Delhi.
The second of the Tughlak kings, Mohammad bin Tughlak moved his Capital and the entire population of the city in 1327 from Delhi to Deogri (Daulatabad). A few years later he shifted the Capital back to Delhi, but many
Delhiwallas stayed back
and their language began to mix with Marathi.
Towards the end of 14th century, a well-known sufi saint Khawaja Banda Nawaz Gesu Daraz left Delhi for Daulatabad in the wake of constant attacks by Mongols on Delhi. He later settled in Gulburga (Karnataka) at invitation of the Bahmani Sultan Tajuddin. When Gesu Daraz was moving out of Delhi, a large number of his followers and their families accompanied him.
Some stayed back in Daulatabad, giving another dose of zabaan-e-dehli or hindavi to the already existing language mixed with Marathi, while other moved with the saint to Gulbarga spreading it to the north Karnataka.
The
zabaan-e-dehli’s journeys through Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka incorporated words from languages/dialects of these regions into it
and over a period of times got transformed into a fully developed language known as dakhani.
In 1518, the Bahmani kingdom broke up into five smaller sultanates of Bidar, Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bijapur and Golcanda and the latter two even started using dakhani as court language in place of Persian.
All the major poetic forms – ghazal, masnavi, qaseeda and masnafi – evolved in
dakhani in this region only. Some of the early exponents of ghazals were
Quli Qutub Shah (1580-1611) and
Wali Mohammad Wali (1667-1707).
And when Wali visited Delhi in 1700, all the renowned poets of the city like Abru Shah Mubarak, Khan Arzoo and Zuhuruddin Hatim were writing in Persian at that time. Wali’s poetry in
dakhani took the world of literature in Delhi by storm and soon all the master poets started trying their hand in this language.
So, the language that had first set out in 1304 from Delhi returned to the city as an established language, which further got evolved and was later known as rekhta (meaning mixed).
After few decades of Wali’s visit to Delhi, Mirza Rafi Sauda (1713-1780) and Mir Taqi Mir (1722-1810) were prominent poets of
rekhta. Ghalib had famously said:
Rekhte ke tum hi ustad nahii ho ‘Ghalib'
Kahte hain agle zamane main koi 'Mir' bhi tha
(‘Ghalib’, you're not the only master of rekhta
They say there used to be a ‘Mir’ in the past).
The first use of word ‘Urdu’ (as a language) came from Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780 in some of his couplets:
Khuda rakkhe zabaan hum ne suni hai Mir-o-Mirza ki
Kahen kis munh se hum ai Mushafi Urdu hamari hai
(May God preserve it, i have heard the speech of Mir and Mirza
How can i truthfully, Oh Mushafi say that my language is Urdu?)
Albatta rekhta main hai Mushafi ko daava
Yaani kai hai zabaandaan Urdu ki voh zabaan ka
(Mushafi claims expertise in rekhta
And that means he is master of Urdu language, too)
Till mid-19th century Urdu language was also known as Hindi (don’t confuse with today’s Hindi written in Devnagri). In fact, Ghalib, who also wrote extensively in Persian, called his Urdu work as “Hindi.”
But Britishers, who used to call this language as hindostanee, sowed the seeds of separating it into two different languages in early 19th century. And thus, sanskritised
hindostanee became Hindi and persianised
hindostanee called Urdu.
Though Urdu and Hindi became two languages, yet Urdu was never seen as a language of Muslims only in initial days of their separation. Renowned historian Irfan Habib said in a lecture that as per a survey done in 1879, “the circulation of Urdu newspapers were eight times than those of Hindi papers in India. Everyone... Hindu, Muslim or Punjabi were well-versed in Urdu. This proves the fact that religion had got nothing to do with it then.”
Its “ganga-jumni,” multi-cultural ethos are well recorded with a galaxy of non-Muslims counted among both classical and modern poets, novelists and writers etc.
Furthermore, Urdu language gave the country some of the most popular slogans/songs of the independence movement during the freedom struggle like inquilab, zindabaad; sarfroshi ki tamanna aaj mere dil main hai....; sare jahan se achcha..... etc.
It is really sad that many of us don’t know the vast and well-recorded history of this language. This pain is clearly reflected in this couplet of Rashid Banarsi:
Agar Urdu pe bhi ilzaam hai baahir se aane ka
To phir Hindostaan kis ka vatan hai hum nahin samjhe
(If even Urdu is accused of coming from “outside,”
Then we cannot understand whose homeland India is)
However, in the last 7-8 years, there is a notable surge of interest in Urdu poetry especially among non-Muslim youths. Whether it is a packed house in plays laced with Urdu dialogues and poetry like
Mughal–e-Azam and
Ghalib etc., or huge turnout in literary festivals and
mushairas like
Jashn-e-Rekhta,
Jashn-e-Viraasat-e-Urdu,
Jashn-e-Adab and
Jashn-e-Bahar etc., or a cluster of
shayari groups on social media, their enthusiasm towards this sweet language is a ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy scenario for the language.
I conclude this write-up with a nazm on Urdu written by me:
Shahad shahad si shireen ye zabaa.n Urdu
Khusboon se moattar ye zabaa.n Urdu
Suniye, aayie, farmaiye
Guft-o-shuniid ki hasiin ye zabaa.n Urdu
Husn-o-ishq ki ruuh-o-ravaa.n
Shaiistagii ki hai pahchaan Urdu
Nigahoon se jab koi bolta hai
Samajh jao, aa gyi usse ye zabaa.n Urdu
Hindi ki hi to ye ik bahen hai
Phir kyun mitate ho nishaan-e-Urdu
Zamane se raha hai vajuud iska
Sambhal jao aye dushmanaa.n-e-Urdu
Shahad shahad si shireen ye zabaa.n Urdu
Khusboon se moataar ye zabaa.n Urdu
(
elahi.raza82@gmail.com)
