New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said there was a misconception that Urdu is alien to India as the language developed and flourished in the country, while rejecting a challenge to its use on the signboard of the new building of Municipal Council in Patur, Maharashtra. The board of the council displays "Municipal Council, Patur", in Marathi at the top, with its translation below in Urdu.
The apex court said language was a medium for the exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer, and it should not become a cause of their division.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran said it must be stated that a Municipal Council is there to provide services to the local community of the area and cater to their immediate day-to-day needs.
Justice Dhulia, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench, said if people or a group of people, residing within the area covered by the Municipal Council are familiar with Urdu, then there should not be any objection if Urdu is used in addition to the official language i.e; Marathi, at least on the signboard of the Municipal Council.
“Language is a medium for the exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division”, said Justice Dhulia, while citing words of former Chief Justice MN Venkatachaliah, who made a fervent plea for the preservation of Urdu, while speaking at a seminar in the capital.
Justice Dhulia said, “Our misconceptions, perhaps even our prejudices against a language, have to be courageously and truthfully tested against the reality, which is this great diversity of our nation: Our strength can never be our weakness. Let us make friends with Urdu and every language”.
The apex court dismissed a petition filed by Varshatai challenging the judgment of the Bombay High Court, which allowed the use of Urdu on the signboard of the new building of the Municipal Council, Patur in district Akola, Maharashtra.
According to the appellant, who is a former member of the Municipal Council, the work of the Municipal Council can only be conducted in Marathi, and the use of Urdu in any manner is impermissible, even though it may just be writing on the signboard of the Municipal Council.
The bench said that the display of an additional language was not a violation of the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022. “We completely agree with the reasoning given by the High Court that there is no prohibition on the use of Urdu under the 2022 Act or in any provision of law. The entire case of the appellant to our mind is based on a misconception of law. We see no reason therefore to interfere in the present case”, said the bench.
The bench said if there are dissimilarities, there are plenty between Hindi and high Hindi, like there are between Urdu and high Urdu but close similarities exist between Hindi and Urdu when these are spoken day-to-day.
The bench said the fusion of the two languages Hindi and Urdu met a roadblock in the form of the Puritans on both sides and Hindi became more Sanskritized and Urdu more Persian, and a schism exploited by the colonial powers in dividing the two languages on religion. “Hindi was now understood to be the language of Hindus and Urdu of the Muslims, which is such a pitiable digression from reality; from unity in diversity; and the concept of universal brotherhood”, said the bench.
The bench said it may also be of the same interest to know that when we criticize Urdu, we are in a way also criticizing Hindi, as according to linguists and literary scholars, Urdu and Hindi are not two languages, but it is one language. “True, Urdu is mainly written in Nastaliq and Hindi in Devnagri; but then scripts do not make a language. What makes languages distinct is their syntax, their grammar and their phonology. Urdu and Hindi have broad similarities in all these counts”, said Justice Dhulia.
The bench said the Urdu language has come to be adopted by many States and Union Territories in India as the second official language in the exercise of powers conferred by Article 345 of the Constitution. “The States which have Urdu as one of the official languages are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, while the Union Territories which follow this practice are Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir”, said the bench.
The bench said Urdu words have a heavy influence on Court parlance, both in criminal and civil law: From adalat to halafnama to peshi, the influence of Urdu is writ large in the language of the Indian courts.
The bench said even today, the language used by the common people of the country is replete with words of the Urdu language, even if one is not aware of it. “It would not be incorrect to say that one cannot have a day-to-day conversation in Hindi without using words of Urdu or words derived from Urdu. The word ‘Hindi’ itself comes from the Persian word ‘Hindavi’! This exchange of vocabulary flows both ways because Urdu also has many words borrowed from other Indian languages, including Sanskrit”, said Justice Dhulia.
The bench said it is a fact now that Hindustani is not the official language under the Constitution and under Article 343 of the Constitution, Hindi is the official language, while the use of English was made permissible for official purposes for fifteen years. “But this does not mean that Hindustan and Urdu have become extinct. This was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution. In a speech to the Constituent Assembly on the language issue, Jawaharlal Nehru emphasized that the official language i.e. Hindi shall be enriched by borrowing the vocabulary from Urdu”, said the bench.
The bench said the prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India and this opinion, we are afraid, is incorrect as Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. “It is a language which was born in this land. Urdu developed and flourished in India due to the need for people belonging to different cultural milieus who wanted to exchange ideas and communicate amongst themselves. Over the centuries, it attained ever greater refinement and became the language of choice for many acclaimed poets”, said the bench.
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