PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH OF SHRI I. K. GUJARAL, UNION MINISTER OF STATE FOR WORKS AND HOUSING AND CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FOR PROMOTION OF URDU AT ITS INAUGURAL MEETING AT VIGYAN BHAVAN, NEW DELHI ON MAY 22, 1972 AT 4.00 P.M.
When Prof. Nurul Hasan asked me to shoulder the responsibility of presiding over this learned body, my reaction was a mixed one. I am a great admirer of the language and its literature which I continue to enjoy even when other responsibilities of office leave little time for artistic and literary pursuits. I have no claims to any specialisation in the language, I hesitated for a while whether I should accept this challenging assignment. But I decided to accept it in all humility because I thought that perhaps, I may be able to make my own little contribution to the promotion of a language that has meant so much to me in my intellectual so journ.
During our younger days, the robust outlook of the progressive writing which was then the vogue in Urdu literature had inspired us and had won me many a friend among that generation of writers and poets. I have continued to take interest in the literature that was produced in post-Independence India and have always noted with a sense of admiration, the agility and the adaptability of the Urdu writers.
In my younger days, knowledge of three or four languages was a common phenomenon among educated people. Apart from my mother tongue Punjabi, I know Urdu, Hindi with a sprinkling of Persian and Sanskrit, besides, of course, English which was the medium of instruction right, upto the University level. The raging political controversies could not change popular attitudes towards languages. We were fond of Waris Shah as of Ghalib, Kabir or Tagore, of Sarat Chand and Bankim Chatterjee as of Premchand Krishan Chand and Rajinder Singh Bedi. Punjab had been an active a Centre of Urdu Literature and journalism as Delhi, Utter Pradesh, or Andhra Pradesh and I have drunk deep at the foundations of that centre.
Politics intervened in the pro-Partition days and continued to poison the atmosphere for some time even after the partition. The result was that a purely linguistic and literary problem became the plaything of the politicians. A great deal of unnecessary wordage has been wasted on fulminations, accusations and counter-accusations. In that hue and cry, attention was diverted to tribles and the problems of Urdu could not be considered in their proper perspective by quite large sections of our people.
However, the Government of India under the inspiring leadership of Pandit Jawahar lal Nehru, took the correct stand that the promotion and development of Urdu was very much the concern of the Central and State Governments because Urdu was an important Indian languages whose contribution to the cultural and political life of our country was undeniable. A number of steps were taken to improve matters but complaints of non-implementation continued to pour in and it appeared that efforts in the past had not been productive of tangible results.
Our dynamic Prime Minister. Shrimati Indira Gandhi has been unswerving in her devotion to the cause of secularism and democracy and in her belief in the equality of opportunity to be ensured to all citizens irrespective of creed or region. She is keen that Urdu should get its due place in the educational, cultural and administrative spheres and steps taken to promote and develop it. It is in accordance with her known wishes that i he Educational Ministry has set up this Committee.
It is a very high-power Committee, on which experts from the educational, journalistic, administrative and literary fields are respresented. At this stage, it will be premature to go into the Various aspects of the question but it is worth-while reiterating that our recommendations must be in accord With the various guarantees and safeguards provided under the Constitution to which my learned colleague Prof. Nurul Hasan has already referred.
In making our recommendations, we must also bear in mind that these recommendations are of interest rot only to the lovers of Urdu but to all the workers in the educational, literary and journalistic fields. The development of language is not an isolated phenomenon. If the speakers of one language feel neglected or frustrated, it affects the creative will of the society as a whole. When all the languages grow and blossom forth, they make society happier and more contented. This is a cultural gain for the entire country. We are making one of the greatest experiments in history by tacking the problems of so many languages in such varying stages of development. The success with which we are able to solve these problems is being watched with interest not only in this country but in the entire Afro- Asian region where languages are faced With Similar problems of development. A great responsibility is, therefore cast on this Committee to take a wider view of the question and to find solutions of universal acceptability, which will be progress in approach and practical in implementation.
Broadly speaking, we have to cover four major aspects, namely, educational, literary, journalistic and administrative. These are inter-related, though each sphere has some distinctive problems of its own.
The Committee must go deep into the accomplishments and failures of the approaches formulated by the Centre and the States during the past 25 years and draw up a programme of short-term and long-term development which would avoid the common pitfalls. We must ensure that at the primary stage of education all those who want to educate their children in the mother tongue are given that facility. I am conscious of the difficulties but if an honest and sincere effort is made, we will have removed one of the major impediments. it will not pay to stick to the old rut. If the earlier approach has not paid, we can search out newer avenues. It can be a population based solution, as Education Minister has suggested elsewhere.
The problems at the secondary and University levels are more amen able to easy solutions, but let us spell them out, clearly.
In the field of literature, including the scientific and children's literature, the requirements of the modern age of the fast advancing sciences and technology will have to be kep in mind. The difficulties which printing and production pose must also be thoroughly gone into.
As a Minister of Information and Broadcasting, I have had some experience of Urdu newspapers and Journals. Most of these are of the medium or small size, There is great room for improvement in production as well as in the content. The economics of the Urdu newspaper industry, if it can be termed as an industry, also has got to be studied.
In the administrative field also our approach must be to inform all sections of the population about what the Government is doing and to receive from them in their own words whatever they want to convey to the Government. These seem to be of essence to democratic functioning.
Urdu has a great future, in India, which is its birth place and to which it essentially belongs. It has played a significant role during our freedom struggle. It must continue to play its role in the emergence of India of our dreams. I have every hope that with your co-operation and assistance we will be able to lay secure foundations for a dynamic programme in its development. Thank you.
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