Explainer: Why SC ruling snubs language chauvinists

In dismissing a petition challenging the use of Urdu on the signboard of a municipal council building in Maharashtra, the Supreme Court has sent out a clear and loud message to language chauvinists.

“Language is a medium for exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division,” a Bench led by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said. It also included Justice K Vinod Chandran.

MISCONCEPTIONS

The Bench said, “Language is not religion. Language does not even represent religion. Language belongs to a community, to a region, to people; and not to a religion.”

It 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.”

IMPLICATIONS

The verdict comes at a time when there is vehement opposition in Tamil Nadu to alleged imposition of Hindi under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which recommended that students in both government and private schools should learn three languages — at least two of which must be native to India.

While aiming for early implementation of the three-language formula to “promote multilingualism and national unity from the school level”, the NEP gave flexibility to states to choose languages.

SC ON URDU

Describing Urdu as “the finest specimen of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb” in India, it said, “Urdu developed and flourished due to the need of people belonging to different cultural milieus who wanted to exchange ideas and communicate. Over the centuries, it attained… greater refinement and became the language of choice for many acclaimed poets.”

The Bench said, “The prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India. 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.”

EVOLUTION

Tracing the evolution of Hindi and Urdu, the top court said, “Hindi and Urdu met a roadblock in the form of the puritans on both sides and Hindi became more Sanskritised and Urdu more Persian. 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.”

URDU IN COMMON USE

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Dhulia 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. For that matter, even though the official language of the Supreme Court and the high courts as per Article 348 is English, yet many Urdu words continue to be used in this court till date. These include vakalatnama, dasti, etc.”

It said, “Even today, the language used by the common people 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.”

LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY

The Bench said, “We must respect and rejoice in our diversity, including our many languages. India has more than a hundred major languages. Then there are other languages known as dialects or ‘mother tongues’ which also run into hundreds.”

Citing the 2001 Census, the Bench highlighted that “India had a total of 122 major languages, including 22 scheduled languages, and a total of 234 mother tongues. Urdu was the sixth most spoken scheduled language of India”.

“In the 2011 Census, the number of mother tongues increased to 270. However, it is to be noted that this number was also arrived at by taking into consideration only those mother tongues which had more than 10,000 speakers. Thus, it would not be wrong to say that the actual number of mother tongues in India would run into thousands. Such is the immense linguistic diversity of India,” it noted.

TOLERANCE

The top court said, “We have to keep in mind that language is not just a language, it is also representative of a culture. That makes a discussion on language both sensitive and delicate and this is where one of our principal constitutional values of ‘tolerance’ must also come into play.”

India