A language that refused to be caged

Renu Behl, author of a story on gender discrimination, Draupadi Has Woken Up, reminds the reader that Urdu was and continues to be the language of the land of the five rivers. This is one of the 16 short stories written by non-Muslims in the volume Whose Urdu Is It Anyway, collated to support the argument that religion is not connected to language. And if language gets yoked to a religion, in this case, Urdu with Muslims, it does no good to either the language or the religion.

Ever since Urdu was adopted as the official language of Pakistan, it has been considered the language of Muslims, or to be more precise, the language of Indian Muslims. However, this is erroneous because Urdu was born of the cultural hybridisation in the Indian subcontinent during the 18th century. What we know as Urdu today has heavy Turkish, Arabic, and Persian influences, all of which arrived in the country through waves of trade and conquests. Eventually, Urdu became the preferred language of the masses.

However, identifying Urdu with Muslims has political implications, although there is not much empirical evidence in favour of this relationship. Can language belong to a religion, or can a geographical claim be laid over a language? Literary historian Rakhshanda Jalil explores the question through 16 carefully selected Urdu short stories by non-Muslim writers to help bust stereotypes and misconceptions. Any attempt at identifying a language with religion is fraught with a cruel denial of heritage, she argues. 

Stories by well-known non-Muslim writers, to name a few, like Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Kanhaiyalal Kapoor, Devendar Issar, Ramanand Sagar, and Gulzar, speak of the glorious diversity of issues the language has tackled, in different tones and tenors. The idea of objectively selecting these stories affirms the ‘idea of India’, showcasing that Urdu as a language is alive and that it does not belong to Muslims only. Apart from these short stories, there is a vast treasure of Urdu literature that can still reach the nooks and crannies of popular imagination.

Whose Urdu Is It Anyway? is a loaded query on a hybrid language that borrowed words from many languages — mostly from Persian — and became the elite lingua franca of medieval India. The evolution of ‘rekhta’ (hybrid) acknowledges Urdu as a hybrid language and seeks to popularise it. Interestingly, such is the trend that more people today pursue it orally than those who may choose to study it as written language. Urdu is growing irrespective of its religious identity, for it locates itself in the heart of Hindustan.   

Do a handful of stories address the question of so-called proprietorship over the language? Rakhshanda Jalil has tried to be objective in selecting stories that remain representative of the time and the people. Most narratives focus on those who live on the margins of public consciousness, gently eke out a living, and are set in a time when gender discrimination was more of a norm than an exception. The stories are located in the early years after Independence, when a new kind of nativism was being talked about, and when the fledgling nation was grappling with issues of identity and nationhood. It reminds us starkly of the present times when a similar surge of hyper-nationalism is being witnessed.

The collection of short stories by non-Muslim writers represents the region to which they belong, and not their religion. That’s why Muslims in Kerala speak Malayalam, whereas those in Bengal feel at home in Bengali. Not without reason, Urdu is and continues to be the language in Punjab. As a region and not as a state. That is why Urdu as a language is not confined to a religion. ‘It belongs to whoever is willing to embrace it and, in their capable hands, it is willing to be moulded like pliable clay.’

Rakhshanda Jalil expects the reader to take her time for the essence of these stories to sink in. After all, Urdu itself took its own sweet time to evolve, did it not!