For over a decade, Hindutva bigots have systematically attacked Muslims across India, sometimes for simply existing. Many of us in Hyderabad watched these incidents as mute spectators thinking, “It only happens in the north; it’ll never happen in the south, especially not in Hyderabad.”
A recent incident, however, should serve as a wake-up call for all those who assumed they were insulated from such violence. A Muslim school principal was assaulted, in police presence, by BJP’s Armoor president Vandula Balu, over allegations of teaching Urdu to non-Muslim students in a school in Telangana’s Nizamabad district. The principal later explained that the non-Muslim students were merely seated there due to ongoing construction in another class.
This incident is a terrible sign of things to come. More troubling is the silence of Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy and other Congress leaders on the growing communalism in the state. It’s like there is a silent acceptance of communalism, which is only emboldening the right-wing.
But the incident is shocking also because Urdu is the second official language of Telangana. Not only is the language intrinsic to the very being of Hyderabad, but it also traces its origins back to Delhi. And even though Urdu is associated with Muslims today, some of the most notable Urdu poets have in fact been Hindus.
Then why should anyone take issue with Urdu being taught in a school?
Urdu was the official language of the erstwhile Hyderabad state under the Nizams from the late 1880s to 1956, after which Hyderabad was carved out on a linguistic basis.
Grandparents of many Hyderabadis still share pleasant memories of studying in Urdu. Although Urdu has seen a gradual decline in Telangana after Telugu became the official state language and medium of instruction along with English, it continues to be relevant. The language still serves as a medium of communication for lakhs of people in the state.
Urdu newspapers continue to be published and read while events are often held to celebrate Urdu literature.
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History of Urdu in Hyderabad
Both Urdu and Dakhni (the spoken language in Hyderabad and the Deccan even now) come from Dehalvi, the language spoken in Delhi in the 13th century. While Dakhni developed in the Deccan in the 1400s, Urdu developed gradually in northern India.
It is important to note that the literature in the 1500s and 1600s in Hyderabad was in Dakhni and not Urdu, which travelled to the Deccan only through Mughal conquests.
During Aurangzeb’s rule, Hyderabad became the capital of the Deccan in the 1760s, even as Persian remained the official language of the state. The shift to Urdu began around the 1700s when Wali Dakhni, a 17th-century poet widely regarded as the ‘father of Urdu’, visited Delhi.
As Urdu gained prominence, it became the medium of instruction in the Mughal courts in the 1830s. However, Persian was still considered superior. It was in the 1880s that Urdu was formally adopted as the official language of the Hyderabad state, which was assimilated into the British empire as a princely state after the collapse of the Mughal Sultanate in 1857.
After the revolt of 1857, Urdu started losing relevance and poets lost their patronage in Delhi after the 1857 war of independence. It is then that Hyderabad’s role becomes crucial. Hyderabad’s Nizams not only gave them patronage but also a space for Urdu to thrive.
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Urdu isn’t a language of Muslims in Hyderabad
Urdu became a language for everyone in Hyderabad, not just Muslims. Some of the most notable Urdu poets were in fact Hindus who formed a core part of the Nizams’ administration.
Remember the famous Urdu poet ‘Shad’? His actual name is Maharaja Kishen Pershad, who belonged to a noble family and served as Prime Minister under the sixth Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan. Similarly, one of the state’s most popular communist leaders and former MP Raj Bahadur Gaur was a champion of Urdu literature, and served as the president of the All India Anjuman-Taraqqi-e-Urdu, an organisation established in 1903 to promote Urdu language. Gaur’s cousin Oudesh Rani Bawa is one of Hyderabad’s most well-known personalities for her scholarly work on Urdu.
The list is long, but the point here is that Urdu was certainly not a ‘Muslim language,’ and nobody had a problem with it. The BJP’s narrative of treating it as an alien language is not just wrong, but also unacceptable.
I can only hope this does not get normalised.
Yunus Lasania is a Hyderabad-based journalist whose work primarily focuses on politics, history and culture. He posts on X @YunusLasania. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)