 "The Supreme Court has ruled that Urdu can be used on signages. File Photo/PTI")
“Language is not religion. Language does not even represent religion. Language belongs to a community, to a region, to a people; and not to a religion,” the Supreme Court ruled while upholding the use of Urdu on the signboard of a municipal council building in Maharashtra.
A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran was hearing a petition by Varshatai Sanjay Bagade, a former councillor of Patur, who challenged the use of Urdu with Marathi on the signboard of the Patur Municipal Council building in Maharashtra’s Akola district.
Let’s take a look at what the Supreme Court said.
What’s the case?
The Supreme Court said in its judgement on Tuesday (April 15) that Urdu and Marathi have been accorded the same status under the Constitution, rejecting the petition that demanded the use of only Marathi on the signboard, as per a Bar and Bench report.
Urdu “is the finest specimen of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, or the Hindustani tehzeeb”, the court said.
Bagade had moved the top court claiming the use of Urdu was not permitted by the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022. The court dismissed this, holding there was no legal provision that bans the use of Urdu along with Marathi.
In 2020, the Patur Municipal Council had dismissed Bagade’s plea, saying Urdu has been used since 1956 and was generally understood by the locals.
She went to the Bombay High Court, which also rejected her plea in 2021. The court said the use of Urdu is not barred by the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022, or any other provision of law.
The former councillor then approached the Supreme Court.
Urdu is not ‘alien’ to India
The top court declined to interfere with the Bombay High Court’s judgement and has upheld the use of Urdu.
The bench observed that language is culture and should not be used to divide people.
“Our misconceptions, perhaps even our prejudices against a language, have to be courageously and truthfully tested against the reality, which is this great diversity of our nation: our strength can never be our weakness. Let us make friends with Urdu and every language,” the apex court said.
As per Bar and Bench, the Supreme Court said that the Patur Municipal Council had long been using local signage. It also noted that the challenge was filed by a councillor and not by the Chief Officer, who was solely empowered by the law to oppose under the Maharashtra Municipal Councils Act.
The court said in its ruling that it is a “misconception that Urdu is alien to India” and that “it is a language which was born in this land”.
“Language is culture. Language is the yardstick to measure the civilisational march of a community and its people. So is the case of Urdu, which is the finest specimen of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, or the Hindustani tehzeeb, which is the composite cultural ethos of the plains of northern and central India,” Justice Dhulia wrote for the bench in the judgement, reported Indian Express.
The Supreme Court said that the use of Urdu on the nameboard was for the purpose of communication, not politics or religion.
“The purpose here for the use of Urdu is merely communication. All the municipal council wanted to do was to make an effective communication. This is the primary purpose of a language, which the Bombay High Court has laid emphasis on,” the court said, as per Indian Express.
“We must respect and rejoice in our diversity, including our many languages. India has more than [a] hundred major languages. Then there are other languages known as dialects or ‘mother tongues’ which also run into hundreds. According to the 2001 Census, India had a total of 122 major languages including the 22 scheduled languages, and a total of 234 mother tongues. Urdu was the sixth most spoken scheduled language of India. In fact, it is spoken by at least a part of the population in all States and Union Territories, except perhaps in our North-Eastern States,” it added.
The court also lamented that the colonial powers, despite the Indian origin of Urdu, associated the language with Muslims and Hindi with Hindus. It also pointed out that Urdu has been adopted by many states and Union Territories as the second official language. “When we criticise Urdu, we are in a way also criticising Hindi, as, according to linguists and literary scholars, Urdu and Hindi are not two languages, but one language,” it said.
“Hindi and Urdu met a roadblock in the form of the puritans on both sides and Hindi became more Sanskritised and Urdu more Persian. A schism exploited by the colonial powers in dividing the two languages on religion. Hindi was now understood to be the language of Hindus and Urdu of the Muslims, which is such a pitiable digression from reality; from unity in diversity; and the concept of universal brotherhood,” the court stated.
The apex court highlighted that Urdu has its origin in India and cannot be attached to any particular religion.
“The prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India. This opinion, we are afraid, is incorrect as Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. It is a language which was born in this land. Urdu developed and flourished in India due to the need for people belonging to different cultural milieus who wanted to exchange ideas and communicate amongst themselves. Over the centuries, it attained ever greater refinement and became the language of choice for many acclaimed poets,” the court’s judgement was cited by Bar and Bench.
The Supreme Court said that “under Article 343 of the Constitution, Hindi is the official language, while the use of English was made permissible for official purposes for a period of 15 years”. “But this does not mean that Hindustani and Urdu have become extinct. This was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution.”
The bench observed that the language used by the locals is full of Urdu words even if one is not aware of them. “It would not be incorrect to say that one cannot have a day-to-day conversation in Hindi without using words of Urdu or words derived from Urdu. The word ‘Hindi’ itself comes from the Persian word ‘Hindavi’. This exchange of vocabulary flows both ways because Urdu also has many words borrowed from other Indian languages, including Sanskrit,” it said.
The court stated that a municipal council’s job is to provide services to the local community and look after their daily needs. “If people or a group of people, residing within the area covered by the municipal council are familiar with Urdu, then there should not be any objection if Urdu is used in addition to the official language i.e. Marathi, at least on the signboard of the municipal council. Language is a medium for exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division.”
Dismissing the petition, the top court ruled, “The entire case of the appellant to our mind is based on a misconception of law. We see no reason therefore to interfere in the present case.”
With inputs from agencies