Aamaan Alam Khan is a Senior Sub Editor at ThePrint. He joined the organisation in 2024 and is part of the Opinion and Ground Reports team. Aamaan can be reached at aamaan.khan@theprint.in
Another ploy to influence the youth. If the influx of Western culture and the English language caste system were not enough, now we have attempts to revive Urdu imperialism.
Meanwhile Bharatiya languages remain neglected as always, the infinitely rich literature of Bharata unread, and thus the minds of the next generation of the nation chronically underdeveloped.
Bharatiyas must never forget that the so-called language of tehjib (by implication: other languages are not cultured/civilised) has invaded not just the everyday vocabulary and pronunciation of many Bharatiya languages but also the cultural idiom of expression (from supposedly benign phrases like uparwala to slurs like the omnipresent kufr metaphor), in the end diluting sanskriti (sometimes turning it into unambiguous vikriti e.g. aurat for women!) while doubling as a vehicle for poisoning the everyday language and literature with irrational (e.g. 7 skies), regressive (e.g. parda) and foreign (e.g. deen, iman) ideas.
Even today, the most popular in Urdu literature (which I call subliterature) is dominated by one genre, and that is the ilk of Jannat ke Pattay, Mushaf, Peer e Kamil, Alif, Rab se Jurnay ka Safar (I’ve read all these titles and know firsthand) – proselytism thinly disguised as literature.
Another ploy to influence the youth. If the influx of Western culture and the English language caste system were not enough, now we have attempts to revive Urdu imperialism.
Meanwhile Bharatiya languages remain neglected as always, the infinitely rich literature of Bharata unread, and thus the minds of the next generation of the nation chronically underdeveloped.
Bharatiyas must never forget that the so-called language of tehjib (by implication: other languages are not cultured/civilised) has invaded not just the everyday vocabulary and pronunciation of many Bharatiya languages but also the cultural idiom of expression (from supposedly benign phrases like uparwala to slurs like the omnipresent kufr metaphor), in the end diluting sanskriti (sometimes turning it into unambiguous vikriti e.g. aurat for women!) while doubling as a vehicle for poisoning the everyday language and literature with irrational (e.g. 7 skies), regressive (e.g. parda) and foreign (e.g. deen, iman) ideas.
Even today, the most popular in Urdu literature (which I call subliterature) is dominated by one genre, and that is the ilk of Jannat ke Pattay, Mushaf, Peer e Kamil, Alif, Rab se Jurnay ka Safar (I’ve read all these titles and know firsthand) – proselytism thinly disguised as literature.