INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR S. NURUL HASAN, MINISTER OF EDUCATION, SOCIAL WELFARE AND CULTURE AT THE FIRST MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE FOR PROMOTION OF URDU HELD IN NEW DELHI ON MAY 22, 1972
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural meeting of the Committee for the Promotion of Urdu. The constitution of the Committee, as this learned gathering is aware, was announced recently in the Lok Sabha. It is indicative of the concern for and the importance that the Government of India attaches to the development of Urdu, one of the Languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
The energetic development of our languages an literature is necessary not only to raise the standards of education but also to release the creative energies of the people. The concept of national development is not complete without ensuring at all sections of society a sense of full participation in the process. There should, therefore, be effective communication between the administrators and organisers on the one hand, and the masses on the other, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of all progress. It is not enough to have communicated to the small group of the so called elites. There is a gaping gulf between the intelligentsia and the masses and it cannot be bridged so long as our languages remain under-developed, thirsting for acquistion of modern knowledge. The full un-fettered development of languages is, therefore, a social necessity.
In multi-lingual society that we are, it is but natural that the problems of all the major languages should receive the attention of the Governments at the Centre and in the State. The need for encouraging Urdu spoken and used by considerable numbers of people, was realized by the Union Government in Independent India, even before the framing of the Constitution. Immediately after Independence a conference of provisional educationists was convened be the Centre and the first all-India level decisions were taken in August, 1949, to provide safeguards. An attempt was made to spell out the steps for providing educational facilities at the primary and secondary levels in languages other that the regional or State languages.
Later, the framers of our Constitution also bestowed thought on the problem. They wrote into the Constitution safeguards for the right to conserve a distinct language, script or culture of any section of the citizens, the right to establish and administer educational institution of their choice and the entitlement of individuals to submit representations for the redress of thier grievances to any officer or authority of the Union. The addition of Articles 350-A and 350-B in the Constitution through the Seventh Amendment in 1956, further guaranteed adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education of all children.
The office of the Linguistic Minorities Commissioner was created to ensure that the safeguards provided under the Constitution were implemented.
These Constitutional provisions are unambiguous and should be effectively implemented to ensure the success of the programme for mass literacy and mass communication, the two basic premises of national development.
The Central and the State Governments are fully aware of the duties cast on them for the imparting of primary education in the mother tongue. At the implementation level, however, we have come up against a variety of problems and the solutions offered in the past have not succeeded in climerating a continuing grievance of large sections. A fresh look at this deficiency is, therefore, necessary. In doing so, we must be realistic and practical in our thinking so that the conclusions that are reached can be implemented forthwith without delay and much difficulty. The demand based approach to the provision of educational facilities having failed to deliver goods, we must explore other avenues. The one idea that comes readily to mind is to adopt a population based approach. It is just a suggestion and I would like to inhabit your thinking.
I wish, however, to warn against the argument in certain quarters that the madarasa schools can be depended upon for the preservation of minority language. These schools, as I have stated earlier, enjoy the Constitutional protection, but Segregated schools cannot provide the answer to the complex problem of ensuring adequate educational facilities in the mother tongue. It is but proper that facilities for the teaching of Urdu are provided through the regular school system after taking into consideration the composition of the population and the census statistics of different localities. We must emphasize the role of the common rather than the sagregated schools.
I have referred in passing to the Constitutional safeguards for primary education in the mother tongue. The committee has also to see what facilities are needed for those students who want to continue thier education further through the medium of Urdu.
You will have to examine whether the present norms for providing these facilities are working satisfactorily or need revision. You have also to work out the basis on which facilities for teaching of Urdu are to be provided in schools where Urdu is not the medium of instruction. There are, also the problems of imparting training to would be teachers at all levels and of the preparation and production of text-book and general books.
The Problems of Urdu are basically the same as of other languages, with the one difference that it does not belong to any particular State. It is, however, widely spoken in the country by people professing different faiths and belonging to different castes. It has a rich literary heritage and a cosmopolitan and secular outlook. Writers and poets of all faiths and regions have contributed in making its literature great. Over the centuries, a substantial volume of literature on all the Major religions of India, as also on our freedom struggle, has developed in Urdu. Of this we are proud. But, it is also a fact that Urdu like many other Indian languages, is deficient in scientific literature. A dynamic language should constantly strive to acquire modern knowledge to be able to serve it more meaningfully. It is this realisation which promoted my Ministry to set up the Taraqqui-e- Urdu Board for the production of academic, science and children`s literature, with an allocation of Rs. one crore for the Fourth Five Year Plan.
As a potent means of communication at social and administrative levels, a knowledge of the State languages has to be acquired. For a fuller participation in the collective life, it is necessary to allow complete freedom of growth to all the major languages in a region. A two-way communication between the various sections of the society and the Government should be developed. In the complex life of today, a number of administrative measures are taken, developmental projects initiated and reforms introduced or sought to be introduced. It is in the interest of both the Government and the community at large to share all this information so that impediments are not created by a lack of proper appreciation of the social philosophy that is seeking the changes and of the responses that are expected of the citizens.
Admittedly, Urdu has to ply an important role in all these spheres. The problem today is of finding appropriate answers to peculiar problems thrown up in different sectors and recording and removing obstacles to growth. I do not want to anticipate your deliberations but want to caution you against ignoring the practical aspects of the problem.
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In the past, Urdu has gathered a good deal of political dust, which it must shed in the interest of its health and growth. The basic problems of a language are educational, literary or administrative and if we confine ourselves to these spheres, we will discover that solutions become easier to find.
The Government is determined to do all that is valid and feasible and is desirous of taking measures for the promotion of Urdu. This concern stems from the realization that the development of linguistic minorities strengthens and augments the development of the culture of the masses. It is in that context that we must look upon the whole question and not in a spirit of political partisanship, linguistic cheuvenism or parochialism.
Urdu can take pride in its long and chequered history of journalism. Even today it publishes a large number of newspapers and periodicals. There is still much to be desired from the point of view of content and production. You would, perhaps, like to consider what steps are needed to improve and strengthen Urdu newspapers.
We have associated a number of administrators with the Committee in the hope that the question of providing adequate facilities for the Urdu-speaking people in administrative matters will also be gone into in detail and the requirements both at the Central and the State levels worked out in practical terms.
I have tried to pose some of the problems. I am sure that these and many other aspects of the development and promotion of the Urdu language will be gone into in depth and the recommendations made will represent the collective wisdom of the members of the Committee, who are experts in their respective lines and whose ideas we greatly value .
I am grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, for having accepted our invitation to shoulder this onerous responsibility. I am also grateful to the other members for having agreed to serve on this Committee. I wish you every success in the difficult task you have been good enough to undertake.