Focus

The word Muslim is no longer co-terminus with Urdu. Traditional Muslim leadership may attribute this to Urdu being confused with Hindi in rural settings due to the mutual intelligibility of the two languages.


Urdu is a stateless language. It is both the strength and the weakness of the language that it is generally associated with Muslims. In an India that is divided into linguistic states for administrative facility, Urdu is spoken in tiny enclaves across the states. Most of these enclaves coincide with the urban concentration of Muslims in the Gangetic basin states and the Deccan Plateau. The latest Language Atlas of India published by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner has in a special exercise cross tabulated the Urdu and Muslim population in the country. Produced under the general direction of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Mr. Jayant Kumar Banthia, the Atlas uses the Census data pertaining to 1991, a year in which the data could not be gathered in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.


The exercise in cross tabulation should be of interest to Muslims and the activists working for the promotion of education within the community as language has a special relationship with education, particularly in spreading literacy. Spatial aspects of data about Urdu language should arouse more curiosity as the language is spoken or used in enclaves separated by physical distances and surrounded by areas where overwhelming numbers owe allegiance to the principal language of the state. A better perception of the correlations with other languages would enable the Muslims to arrive at a facile language curriculum for the students.


Perhaps the most significant aspect of the outcome of the exercise is the fact that only a little over half of Muslims (i.e., 51.5 %) residing within Uttar Pradesh have recorded Urdu as their mother tongue. In case of Bihar, this proportion is about two-thirds (i.e., 66.8 %) of the Muslims in the state. In contrast, a vastly preponderant majority of Muslims living in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra—states of Deccan plateau have registered Urdu as their mother tongue. To be precise, 93.86 per cent Muslims in Andhra Pradesh, 85.50 per cent in Karnataka and 75.17 per cent in Maharashtra speak or use Urdu. Other principal state where proportion of Urdu speakers among Muslims is significant is Tamil Nadu (34 %), Rajasthan (27%) and Madhya Pradesh (37%). Though even in Orissa, as many as 87 per cent of Muslims have stated Urdu to be their mother tongue, in absolute numbers, the Muslim population is miniscule i.e., 5.77 lakh, hence not of much consequence. So, all said and done, the Urdu speaking population is significant only in UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, AP, Karnataka, TN, Rajasthan and MP.


There are new markers of linguistic identity due to spread of literacy and education. Earlier, Muslims could be ticked as Urdu speakers. But now with education, an individual identifies himself more through the medium of script which he uses, rather than the spoken language.


To sum up the position of the Urdu vis-à-vis Muslims, it would be sufficient to point out that while there were 101,596,057 Muslims in India (1991 Census which excludes Jammu and Kashmir), 43,406,932 or 42.72 per cent recorded Urdu to be their mother tongue. Perhaps addition of Jammu and Kashmir would not have made any material difference to the number or proportion as people in the state spoke an amalgam of languages like Kashmiri, Dogri, Punjabi and Ladakhi.


This is to say that less than half of Indian Muslims speak or use Urdu language. But let us go into the linguistic composition of Muslims in India in a little more detail. At least in three more states, Muslims make up a good chunk of population. These are Kerala (23.33 %), Assam (28.43 %) and West Bengal (23.61 %). But Urdu speakers among the Muslims native to the state are merely 0.19 per cent, 0.06 per cent and 9.05 per cent. As for Kerala and West Bengal, it is known that Muslims speak the local Malayalam and Bengali language, while in Assam a majority of Muslims speak Bengali language.


It is also instructive to find that in Gujarat while Muslim population was 36 lakh, only 5.4 lakh, or 15 per cent of them recorded Urdu to be their mother tongue. Similarly, in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, where Muslims are generally considered to be Urdu speaking, the proportion of Urdu speakers is 27 per cent. 37.40 per cent and 34 per cent have mentioned Urdu to be their mother tongue.


However, the biggest surprise comes from Uttar Pradesh where only a little over 51 per cent (or 1.24 crore) Muslims have recorded Urdu to be their mother tongue. It clearly points to changes in linguistic demography of Muslims in a key state associated with Urdu’s development and politics. An unmistakable implication emerging from this is that the word Muslim is no longer co-terminus with Urdu. Traditional Muslim leadership may attribute this to Urdu being confused with Hindi in rural settings due to the mutual intelligibility of the two languages and Census enumerators ticking Hindi against all in a village. But it calls for another factor to be taken into account. Even as formal literacy is on the rise in the doab region of Uttar Pradesh, the fault lines between Hindi and Urdu are more distinct due to Devanagari script of Hindi and Persian-Arabic script of Urdu. This new shift in markers of linguistic identity now compels even Urdu-speaking but educated Muslims in Uttar Pradesh to identify with Hindi than Urdu. Previously, in the absence of literacy and formal education, the two sister languages were easily clubbed under Hindustani. But no longer so now. Perhaps this reality pervades the Muslim existence in the entire North Indian states and calls for its factoring into the educational, curricular, media and communication strategy.


(The writer can be reached at maqbool_siraj@rediffmail.com)