‘Jin shahron mein goonji thi Ghalib ki nava barson

Un shahron mein aaj Urdu be-naam- o nishaan thahri

Aazaadi-e kaamil ka ailan hua jis din

Maatoob zaban thahri, gaddaar zabaan thahri’¹

(The cities where Ghalib’s voice echoed and was honoured

Urdu has no place today

The day, independence was declared

Urdu was declared a cursed, treacherous language)

URDU was born in India in the tenth century out of a historical necessity, when the Muslim invaders felt the need to communicate with the masses in the subcontinent. Ralph Russell points out that although the invaders spoke different languages, belonging to different regions of the now Middle East and Central Asia, the language of administration was Persian. This resulted in an increasing number of Persian words getting incorporated into Urdu.² Though the roots of the language are traced back to as early as the tenth century, Shamsur Faruqi brings to our notice that the language got its name ‘Urdu’ only in 1780 when Mushafi used it in his divan.³ He continues to say that initially the name was zaban-e-urdu-e mualla-e shahja-hanbad, which was later shortened to zaban-e-urdu-e mualla, then to zaban-e-urdu and finally to Urdu.⁴

 

Urdu has been growing and flourishing in three separate centres simultaneously – the Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow, but it did not receive the patronage of the royal court of the Mughals in the North. Persian remained the language of the court and often, of the elite⁵ while Urdu remained the language of the masses. Gopi Chand Narang, in Urdu Language and Literature says, ‘...it is only with Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) in the fourteenth century that we have clear evidence that the new Indo-Aryan language had already come into vogue. The great genius, Amir Khusrau, composed verses in Rekhtah or Hindvi, or Zaban-e-Delhi as Urdu was called in those days.’⁶

In the essay, ‘The Poetry of Ghalib’, Ahmad, Stafford and Rich also mention the growth of Urdu. It is pointed out that ‘Urdu was an amalgam of the medieval languages of northern India – notably Bhasha and Prakrit – and the languages of the Middle East, mainly Persian, which the Muslims brought with them. It was written in a Persianised form of the Arabic script; its syntax was based on a combination of Bhasha and Persian grammar, and it drew its vocabulary from a variety of Indo-European languages.’⁷

 

Kidwai brings to our notice that it was Dr John Gilchrist, who insisted on calling Urdu ‘Hindoostanee’. He not only devised methods to teach Urdu but also compiled the grammar and the dictionary with an aim to reach out to the masses. In course of time, Hindustani became the language of the common man.⁸ Although the credit of its recognition and the rise of Hindustani goes to the college of Fort William, Alok Rai mentions that it was Nathaniel Halhead, writing his Grammar of Bengal in 1778, who identified a language he called, ‘Hindustanic’, which he found being used in Bengal.⁹

David Lelyveld¹⁰ points out that by the end of the nineteenth century, the modern standard languages of India, including Hindi and Urdu, had been institutionalized in schools, courts and government offices. Both these languages had a special relation with each other. And, by the early twentieth century, the definition of Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani was placed on the national agenda by Gandhi.

Around the 1930s, the national leaders, especially Gandhi and Nehru, were clamouring for a ‘national language’ along with the ongoing struggle for freedom. With the aim of national unity, they were advocating Hindustani – the fusion of Hindi and Urdu. In 2007, the British Museum had passed on a bunch of letters by Gandhi to the Government of India. Among them was an excerpt written on January 9, 1948, in which M.K. Gandhi writes to Krishnadas Gandhi, ‘It is quite correct that you should write in Hindustani… All our dealings should be in Hindustani, not in Hindi or Urdu. Hence I would not regard the expression "nirvachit" which has been used in the resolution that we have passed, as Hindustani. There must be a simpler equivalent for it. If "nirvachit" means "one who has been elected", why can’t we say "chuna hua"? This is only by way of an illustration. Why should the constitution of our organisation be in English? It should be in beautiful Hindustani.’¹¹

Again, quoting from the same manuscript, on January 18, 1948, Gandhi, working from his bed, in the early hours of the morning, wrote an article for the Harijan stating, ‘I am writing this after prayer in the morning of the sixth day of my fast… there should be no squabble over Hindi and Urdu. Is there any Indian whose heart will not exult listening to Sare Jahan se Achcha Hindustan Hamara? Should I regard these lines as Hindi, or Hindustani, or Urdu? Who can say that it is not the national language of India, or that it is not sweet and mature? We should forget our artificial quarrels and forget our internal jealousies.’¹²

 

Tracing the ‘three language formula’ of the Government of India, one can attempt to understand the state and status of Hindustani, of Hindi and Urdu, all intertwined at some point, and how they were separated per force. The National Policy Resolution of 1968 stipulated that three languages be taught in every state of the country – the first being the language of the state (the mother tongue of the state), the second being ‘another modern language and Hindi would be chosen where it was not the mother tongue, and the third was ‘one other language.’ In connection with Uttar Pradesh, Russell points out that U.P. might rightly be called the heartland of Urdu, but the U.P. government decided to declare Sanskrit a modern language, although it was Urdu that was taught in all schools before independence. Whether this helped in the rise of Sanskrit is debatable, but one cannot deny that it did imply the decline of Urdu.¹³

Another aspect worth emphasising here is the fact, as pointed out by Ali Hussain Mir and Raza Mir, that the 1931 census of the subcontinent did not list Hindi and Urdu as separate languages. Moreover, by 1961, Hindustani had been eliminated from the census as a language, forcing respondents to choose between Hindi and Urdu, further deepening the divide¹⁴ between languages, and later, between people.

 

In 1972, a committee headed by I.K. Gujral when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, was mandated to recommend how the cause of Urdu could be advanced. The report, presented in 1975, had 187 recommendations. Later, two more committees were set up, again for the cause of Urdu – one in 1979, which submitted its report in 1983, headed by Ale Ahmad Suroor, and the second in 1990, which submitted its recommendations the same year, headed by Ali Sardar Jafri. The Jafri committee discovered that 95 per cent of the recommendations made by the Gujral committee had not been adopted!¹⁵

Tracing the background of the birth and development of Urdu, followed by the linguistic debate between Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani, one needs to grapple with translation between these languages and their minimal boundaries, vocabulary blending and overlapping. The subject is further complicated when transliteration is irreverently replaced by translation, as has been elaborated in this paper, referring to a few selected short stories by Sadaat Hasan Manto.

Alok Bhalla, referring to translating Manto, points out that it is not very difficult because, as a storyteller, Manto never ‘retreats from the complexity of a lived experience to find refuge in political posturing or moral or religious sermonizing.’¹⁶ It is interesting that in this very essay, Bhalla does not use the word ‘translation’ but instead, ‘version’. Here the case study is not of a translation of Manto’s selected works but its transliteration. In course of time, there were fewer and fewer people who could read Urdu in the Persian script. In fact, Ralph Russell brings to our notice that Ismat Chughtai had mentioned to him that she could always find a publisher for her stories in Devanagri first, than for those written in the Persian script.¹⁷

 

Although the familiarity with the script has decreased, the fondness for the language and its literature has not. As a result, many publishers started publishing Urdu literature in Devanagri, as it had a wider audience and readership. The debate is: would it mean the death of a language if it adopted a change in the script? Or, would the fine line between Urdu merging with Hindustani, and further blending with Hindi, ring the death knell for Urdu? What is it that the lovers of Urdu desire – are they ready to forgo the script for the continuum of the longevity of their language? Works of most prominent Urdu poets are published in Devanagri as well. Rahi Masoom Raza, in an article in Akhbar i Nau, went to the extent of asserting that it would be impossible to save classical Urdu texts for future generations unless they are published in the Devanagri script.¹⁸

 

A few publishers went ahead¹⁹ as in the case at hand, and instead of transliteration, specific Urdu words were replaced with Hindi words. Largely due to the politics of language over the last 50 decades or so, the distinction between Hindi and Urdu has widened, as more and more Sanskritised words have seeped into Hindi, and Persian words into Urdu. To elaborate, discuss and analyse this, the opening lines of the sketch of Sitara Devi are quoted here, first in Urdu (from the original), and then in Hindi (from the book edited by Nand Kishore Vikram, Sakshi Publcations), though, here, both are in the Roman script:

‘Likhne ke muamle mein, maine bade bade marahil tay kiye hain lekin mashoor raqqasa aur actress Sitara Devi ke baare mein apne taasuraat kalamband karne mein mujhe badi hichkichahat ka samnaa karna pada hai. Aap to use ek actress ke haisiyat se jaante hain jo nachti bhi hai aur khoob nachti hai lekin mujhe uske ke kirdaar ka mutala karne ka bhi mauka mila hai jo ajeeb-o-ghareeb hai.’

‘Likhne ke maamle mein maine badi badi manzilein tay kiye hain lekin mashoor nritaki aur actress Sitara Devi ke baare mein apni pratikriyayein likhne mein mujhe badi hichkichahat ka samnaa karna pada hai. Aap to use ek actress ke haisiyat se jaante hain jo nachti bhi hai aur khoob nachti hai lekin mujhe uske ke charitra ka adhhyankarne ka bhi avsar mila hai jo ajeeb-o-ghareeb hai.’

 

To analyse the above transliteration/translation, certain words have been changed or replaced without following any systematic pattern. Tracing the liminal and fluid boundaries between Hindi and Urdu (I am unsure if I can use the term ‘Hindustani’ as an example here, though it is a spoken language, but not recognized as one after being dropped from the list of Scheduled Languages), one wonders at the choice of words. To begin with, the opening line of the paragraph quoted above, the Urdu word ‘muamala’ has been replaced by ‘mamala’, which is more a conversational Hindustani word rather than a Hindi one. As the word means, ‘in this connection’, ‘sandarbh’ would have been a more appropriate choice. In the same sentence, the phrase ‘bade bade marahil’ has been replaced with ‘badi badi manzilein’.

This, in actuality, confounds the confusion. The editor, under the garb of transliteration, is engaging in translation from Urdu into Hindi. Again, as in the earlier example, ‘manzilein’ would be yet another Urdu word, maybe more conversational, and therefore, one can place it in the category of Hindustani. An unrecognized language, as it may be, Hindustani is the most spoken one in the Hindi-speaking belt of the nation. Continuing the analysis of the very same sentence, one notices how the editor moves from Hindustani to a rather Sanskritised Hindi when he replaces ‘raqqasa’ with ‘nritaki’ (dancer), Urdu to Hindi while replacing ‘taasuraat’ with ‘pratikiriyan’ (ideas and opinions), and Urdu to Hindustani when he replaces ‘kalamband’ with ‘likhna’ (writing). All of these examples are from the very first sentence of the sketch on Sitara Devi. One must question the decision of the editor, or a not-so-famous publisher, to take the liberty to replace words at his discretion.

Translation is always an attempt to search for equivalence, an effort to find the right word in the target language (TL), retaining the cultural ethos of the source language (SL) whereas, transliteration is merely the changing of the script. W. Haas in ‘The Theory of Translation’, questions Dr Johnson’s definition of translation as the changing of the language and retaining the sense. He wants to know if the outcome of this ‘exchange of language’, was a change of the ‘horse’ or the ‘carriage’?

To quote yet another example from the sketch on Nargis, the original goes as:

‘Main bahut masroof tha, jab Saleem mere yahan aaye. Unse meri pehli mulaqaat thi. Aur baqaul Tasneem ke, woh mere behenoi the. Isliye unki khatirdari ke sewa koyi chaara nahin tha. Ghar mein jo haazir tha, unko aur unke musahibon ki khidmat mein pesh kar diya.’

‘Main bahut wyast tha, jab Saleem mere yahan aaye. Unse meri pehli mulaqaat thi. Aur Tasneem ke kathan anusaar, woh mere behenoi the. Isliye unki khatirdari ke sewa koyi chaara nahin tha. Ghar mein jo haazir tha, unko aur unke musahibon ki khidmat mein pesh kar diya.’

 

If ‘masroof’ and ‘baqaul’ are replaced with ‘wyast’ and ‘kathan anusaar’, ‘khatirdari’, ‘haazir’, ‘musahibon’ and ‘khidmat’ are retained, it further complicates the case as there is no pattern that is followed. However, what I would insist on bringing forth is the fact that the language used is, yet again, Hindustani. Without a distinct script of its own, without a place in the list of recognized languages, having the informal acceptance of being only a spoken language, it is still finding its ‘place’.

 

Footnotes:

1. Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir, Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry. India Ink, 2006, p. 12 (quoting from Sahir’s Parchaiyan).

2. Ralph Russell, ‘Introduction’ in Hidden In The Lute: An Anthology of Two Centuries of Urdu Literature. Viking, Delhi, 1995, p. 1.

3. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2001, p. 23.

4. Ibid., p. 25.

5. Gopi Chand Narang, Urdu Language and Literature: Critical Perspectives. Sterling Publishers, Delhi, 1991, p. 19.

6. Ibid., p. 19.

7. Aijaz Ahmad, with William Stafford, Adrienne Rich et. al. (trns.), The Poetry of Ghalib. The Hudson Review, New York, 1969.

8. Sadiqur-Rahman Kidwai, Gilchrist and the ‘Language of Hindoostan’. Rachna Prakashan, Jaipur, 1872, p. 25.

9. Alok Rai, Hindi Nationalism. Orient Longman, Delhi, 2001, p. 26.

10. David Lelyveld, ‘Colonial Knowledge and the Fate of Hindustani’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 35(4), October 1993, p. 5.

11. V. Ramamurthy, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last 200 Days. Kasturi & Sons, Chennai, 2003, p. 441.

12. Ibid., p. 458.

13. Ralph Russell, How Not to Write the History of Urdu Literature. Oxford University Press, Delhi 1999, p. 95.

14. Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir, 2006, op. cit., p. 136.

15. Ralph Russell, How Not to Write the History of Urdu Literature, 1999, op. cit., p. 103.

16. Ibid., p. 111.

17. Ibid., p. 114.

18. Sakshi Prakashan, Delhi.

19. Alok Bhalla, ‘The Politics of Translation: Manto’s Partition Stories and Khalid Hasan’s English Version’, Social Scientist 29(7/8), July-August 2001, pp. 19-38.