New Delhi: In recent years, 79-year-old screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar has taken up the mantle of a language activist. Many would mistakenly say he is an advocate of Urdu. But actually, he is an advocate of language. Akhtar will passionately argue about the beauty of the Devanagari script as much as Urdu. He urges Indians to separate politics and religion from language and delights in telling people that the demand for language purity is dangerous and uninformed.
Urdu has had a tumultuous history through the centuries. It was 1798 when the Quran was first translated into Urdu by Abdul Qadir. But qazis of the time issued a fatwa of blasphemy against him because they thought Urdu was a sloven language.
Almost 150 years later, Urdu was sacrificed for the two-nation theory, and this sentiment had gained momentum even before the formation of the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha, according to Akhtar. “At the cultural level, the work of separating Hindi and Urdu was going on. Urdu had become so popular that by that time (Independence), they wanted this vehicle to separate the country,” Akhtar said at Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC), where a four-day cultural festival, ‘Meer Ki Dilli, Shahjahanabad: The Evolving City’, was held to remember Urdu poet Meer Taqi Meer and Delhi’s history. He was in conversation with lawyer and author Saif Mahmood. Eminent professors, history enthusiasts, and college students showed up at the CD Deshmukh Auditorium of IIC to attend the session.
Author and historian Narayani Gupta, professor Sadiq ur-Rahman Kidwai, and former Jammu & Kashmir Governor NN Vohra launched the first translation of the complete text of Meer’s poetry and other censored material.
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Language belongs to regions
Akhtar took a dig at Pakistan by saying it is the first country in human history where the majority asked for the partition. There were many reasons for the demand of Bangladesh but the primary reason was that 10 crore Bengali-speaking Muslims were not ready to accept Urdu as the national language. “The language is not of religions, it belongs to regions,” he said.
The session turned into a cocktail mix of history, Mughals, language, and society. “There can be no one else who can speak better than Javed Akhtar on the languages of Shahjahanabad,” Mahmood said, asking the screenwriter about the role of language in the history of society. Akhtar replied subtly, saying that the relationship between language and society isn’t one-way traffic—they influence each other.
“Social structure definitely influences language, but once language forms, it continues to strengthen the social structure,” he said. Taking an abstract, freewheeling view of language, Akhtar added that it is just a syntax in which words can come from anywhere—you can write it in any script.
And his choice of script is Devanagari. He says the best literature of Urdu and Hindi should be collected and written in this script, and it should be called ‘Hindustani’. “There is no script more scientific than Devanagari. If you know Devanagari, then you cannot read any word wrongly. This facility is not available in English, German, and Urdu scripts,” Akhtar added.
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Urdu’s place in the political scene
In his usual insightful way, Akhtar commented on India’s perception of humour and poetry.
He observed that India has never had a figure like Charlie Chaplin because as a society, we tend not to regard humour with great respect. On the topic of poetry, he said that dismissing someone’s poetry as “light” or lacking depth is a boring, lazy criticism because not everyone can become Ghalib. He suggests Indians to appreciate lighter or more humorous poetry.
He then turned his attention to Urdu poetry, which he said has had its own place in all political movements of India. And even after Independence, especially until 1960, very good Urdu poetry was being written and read. “My father [Jan Nisar Akhtar] published a history of the last 350 years of Urdu poetry in Devanagari. Urdu poetry was against Partition. No great poet of Urdu was a Right-wing poet except Iqbal. On his behalf, I apologise to you,” he said amusedly.
He mentioned some famous Urdu poems on Partition, written by Faiz in Pakistan and Jan Nisar in India, and spoke about how they are poems of regret and sadness.
An audience member asked the poet why Urdu is being marginalised today and how to mitigate the decline of this language. Akhtar’s answer left everyone speechless. “In the last 30-40 years, language hasn’t been given importance in schools and colleges. Religion is not even taught in school, but why do you teach religion to your children? The Jews kept their language alive for 2,000 years. You gave up in just 75 years,” he said, with a sarcastic smile on his face.
Then Mahmood broached the idea of different dialects of Urdu and their tussle for cultural pride. When he asked Akhtar what the difference between the Urdu of Delhi and that of Lucknow is, the latter replied, “The difference is you are from Delhi and I am from Lucknow.”
Some peculiarities could be explained, though. “Delhi was the capital, hence there was more influence of Persian on the language here. Lucknow has its own distinct tradition. The use of ijaphat (like dil-e-nadan, mughal-e-azam) in Lucknow is less whereas it is more in Delhi,” he said.
Capturing mixed emotions
Akhtar expressed great admiration for Meer’s ability to capture mixed emotions. There’s no man’s land between emotions and feelings, he said, and only some actors may be able to express the liminality. “You find this in great poets like Meer. The nuances are the speciality of a good actor and writer,” he added. The screenwriter then proceeded to recite one of Meer’s couplets: “Door betha gubaar-e-meer unse / Ishq bin ye adab nahi aata.”
And there’s a key difference between Meer and the other Urdu stalwart, Ghalib. “Mir is a poet of sorrow, reaction, and authenticity, while Ghalib is a poet of hope and thoughts,” he said.
Akhtar recited another of Meer’s couplet to much delight among the audience. “Ameerjado se Dilli ke mat milakar Meer/ ki hum gareeb huye hain inhi ki daulat se (Meer, Don’t meet the rich people of Delhi, we’ve become poor because of their wealth).”
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)