Editing Urdu (section)

=== Post-Partition ===
Before independence, Muslim League leader [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]] advocated the use of Urdu, which he used as a symbol of national cohesion in Pakistan.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rahman |first=Tariq |date=1997 |title=The Urdu-English Controversy in Pakistan |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/312861 |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=177–207 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X00016978 |jstor=312861 |s2cid=144261554 |issn=0026-749X}}</ref> Like other Muslim religious and political leaders, The scholar and linguist [[Abdul Haq (Urdu scholar)|Maulvi Abdul Haq]], who has been called ''Baba-e-Urdu'' (''Father of Urdu''), also demanded that Urdu be the national language of Pakistan, calling it the lingua franca and a unifying force of the country.<ref name=Dawn>{{cite news|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1278009 |title=Homage paid to Baba-e-Urdu on his 55th death anniversary|newspaper= Dawn newspaper|date= 17 August 2016|access-date=25 December 2023}}</ref> Abdul Haq also stated: "Urdu Language placed the first brick in the foundation of Pakistan."<ref>{{cite web|title=Lecture-5 Factors Leading to Muslim S eparatism|url=https://www.studocu.com/row/document/university-of-engineering-and-technology-taxila/pakistan-studies/lecture-5-factors-leading-to-muslim-s-eparatism/9491351|website=StuDocu}}</ref>

In the early years of Pakistan, the finance departments, bureaucracy, and other major institutions of the country were mostly managed by Urdu-speaking population of the country.<ref>{{cite web|title=How Urdu-Speaking Muhajir Domination Shaped Pakistan|url=https://mypluralist.com/2022/12/18/urdu-speaking-muhajir-domination-pakistan/|website=MyPluralist|date=18 December 2022 |quote=Urdu-speaking Muhajirs accounted for 3.5% of united Pakistan’s population in the 1960s but they occupied 21% of the positions in the civil services that helped them shape the country in its infancy including through the adoption of their mother tongue as the national language}}</ref>{{Sfn|Lieven|2011|p=311}} After the [[Bengali language movement]] and the separation of former [[East Pakistan]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Oldenburg |first=Philip |date=1985 |title="A Place Insufficiently Imagined": Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=711–733 |doi=10.2307/2056443 |jstor=2056443 |s2cid=145152852 |issn=0021-9118|doi-access=free }}</ref> Urdu was recognised as the sole national language of Pakistan in 1973, although English and regional languages were also granted official recognition.<ref name="Raj-2017">{{Cite web|url=http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153737|title=The case for Urdu as Pakistan's official language|last=Raj|first=Ali|date=30 April 2017|website=Herald Magazine|language=en|access-date=3 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028222041/https://herald.dawn.com/news/1153737|archive-date=28 October 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref> When the [[1972 Language violence in Sindh|1972 language violence]] in [[Sindh]] occurred, the poet [[Rais Amrohvi]], who played a significant role in promoting Urdu and supporting the Urdu-speaking population of Pakistan,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.brecorder.com/news/4022427|title=Rais Amrohvi's 24th death anniversary observed|newspaper=BUSINESS RECORDER|date=23 September 2012}}</ref> wrote his famous poem ''Urdu ka janaza hai zara dhoom say niklay'' (It's Urdu's funeral, make it befitting!) as a tribute to the language.<ref name="google">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FddJQi1dQ30C&pg=PA53 |title=Speakin Like a State-page.53|via= Google Books|date=23 July 2009|isbn=9780521519311|accessdate=10 September 2014|last1=Ayres |first1=Alyssa |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> Following the 1979 [[Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan]] and subsequent arrival of millions of [[Afghan refugees]] who have lived in Pakistan for many decades, many Afghans, including those who moved back to Afghanistan,<ref name="Hakala-2012">{{Cite web|url=http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/asia_8.pdf|title=Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures|last=Hakala|first=Walter|date=2012|website=Afghanistan: Multidisciplinary Perspectives}}</ref> have also become fluent in Hindi-Urdu, an occurrence aided by exposure to the Indian media, chiefly Hindi-Urdu [[Bollywood]] films and songs.<ref name="Hakala2012">{{cite magazine|url=http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/asia_8.pdf|title=Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures|last=Hakala|first=Walter N.|year=2012|magazine=[[National Geographic]]|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=In the 1980s and '90s, at least three million Afghans--mostly Pashtun--fled to Pakistan, where a substantial number spent several years being exposed to Hindi language media, especially Bollywood films and songs, and being educated in Urdu-language schools, both of which contributed to the decline of Dari, even among urban Pashtuns.}}</ref><ref name="Krishnamurthy2013">{{cite web|url=http://www.gatewayhouse.in/kabul-diary-discovering-the-indian-connection/|title=Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection|last=Krishnamurthy|first=Rajeshwari|date=28 June 2013|publisher=Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.}}</ref><ref name="Achakzai-2019">{{Cite magazine |last1=Achakzai |first1=Malik |date=11 October 2018 |url=https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/who-can-be-pakistani/ |title=Who Can Be Pakistani? |magazine=[[The Diplomat (magazine)|The Diplomat]] |access-date=1 February 2024}}</ref>

There have been attempts to purge Urdu of native [[Prakrit]] and [[Sanskrit]] words, and Hindi of Persian loanwords – new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and from Sanskrit for Hindi.<ref name="Vanita2012">{{cite book |last1=Vanita |first1=R. |title=Gender, Sex, and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, 1780-1870 |date=2012 |publisher=[[Springer Publishing|Springer]]|isbn=978-1-137-01656-0 |language=en |quote=Desexualizing campaigns dovetailed with the attempt to purge Urdu of Sanskrit and Prakrit words at the same time as Hindi literateurs tried to purge Hindi of Persian and Arabic words. The late-nineteenth century politics of Urdu and Hindi, later exacerbated by those of India and Pakistan, had the unfortunate result of certain poets being excised from the canon.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSGiAwAAQBAJ&q=urdu+increasing+persianized&pg=PA71|title=Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India: Moving Lines|last=Zecchini|first=Laetitia|date=31 July 2014|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9781623565589|language=en}}</ref> English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language.<ref>{{citation|last=Rahman|first=Tariq|title=Pakistani English|url=http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/scholorly_articles/pak_english.pdf|page=9|year=2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022010344/http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/scholorly_articles/pak_english.pdf|publisher=Quaid-i-Azam University=Islamabad|access-date=18 October 2014|archive-date=22 October 2014|author-link=Tariq Rahman|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to Bruce (2021), Urdu has adapted English words since the eighteenth century.<ref>Bruce, Gregory Maxwell. "2 The Arabic Element". Urdu Vocabulary: A Workbook for Intermediate and Advanced Students, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 55-156. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474467216-005</ref> A movement towards the hyper-Persianisation of an Urdu emerged in Pakistan since its independence in 1947 which is "as artificial as" the hyper-Sanskritised Hindi that has emerged in India;<ref name="Shackle-1990">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0X1jAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CHyper-persianized%E2%80%9D|title=Hindi and Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader|last=Shackle|first=C.|year=1990|publisher=Heritage Publishers|isbn=9788170261629|language=en}}</ref> hyper-Persianisation of Urdu was prompted in part by the increasing Sanskritisation of Hindi.<ref name="Sahitya Akademi-1991">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2v_2Ce_xf1IC&q=urdu+persianization|title=A History of Indian Literature: Struggle for freedom: triumph and tragedy, 1911–1956|date=1991|publisher=Sahitya Akademi|isbn=9788179017982|language=en}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2020}} However, the style of Urdu spoken on a day-to-day basis in Pakistan is akin to neutral Hindustani that serves as the ''lingua franca'' of the northern Indian subcontinent.<ref name="Kachru2015">{{cite book |last1=Kachru |first1=Braj |title=Collected Works of Braj B. Kachru: Volume 3 |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-3713-5 |language=en |quote=The style of Urdu, even in Pakistan, is changing from "high" Urdu to colloquial Urdu (more like Hindustani, which would have pleased M.K. Gandhi).}}</ref><ref name="Ashmore1961">{{cite book |last1=Ashmore |first1=Harry S. |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica: a new survey of universal knowledge, Volume 11 |date=1961 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |page=579 |language=en |quote=The everyday speech of well over 50,000,000 persons of all communities in the north of India and in West Pakistan is the expression of a common language, Hindustani.}}</ref>

In India, since at least 1977,<ref name="Oh Calcutta">{{Cite book |last= |first= |date=1977 |title=Oh Calcutta, Volume 6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lwpDAAAAYAAJ&q=urdu+%22dying+language%22 |location= |publisher= |page=15 |isbn= |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=It is generally admitted that Urdu is a dying language. What is not generally admitted is that it is a dying National language. What used to be called Hindustani, the spoken language of the largest number of Indians, contains more elements of Urdu than Sanskrit academics tolerate, but it is still the language of the people.}}</ref> some commentators, such as journalist [[Khushwant Singh]], have characterized Urdu as a 'dying language.' However, others, such as Indian poet and writer [[Gulzar]]—who is popular in both countries and both language communities but writes only in Urdu (script) and has difficulties reading Devanagari, so he lets others transcribe his work—disagree with this assessment and state that Urdu 'is the most alive language and moving ahead with times' in India.<ref>{{cite web |title=Urdu Is Alive and Moving Ahead With Times: Gulzar |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/urdu-is-alive-and-moving-ahead-with-times-gulzar/930302 |publisher=[[Outlook (Indian magazine)|Outlook]] |access-date=20 September 2021 |language=English |date=13 February 2006}}</ref><ref name="Gulzar2006">{{cite web |author1=[[Gulzar]] |title=Urdu is not dying: Gulzar |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/urdu-is-not-dying-gulzar/story-aEHNoUFysqZaXmvTxDNMKP.html |publisher=[[The Hindustan Times]] |language=English |date=11 June 2006}}</ref><ref name="Daniyal2016">{{cite web |last1=Daniyal |first1=Shoaib |title=The death of Urdu in India is greatly exaggerated – the language is actually thriving |url=https://scroll.in/article/809102/the-death-of-urdu-in-india-is-greatly-exaggerated-the-language-is-actually-thriving |publisher=[[Scroll.in]] |access-date=19 September 2021 |language=English |date=1 June 2016}}</ref><ref name="Oh Calcutta"/><ref name="Mir">{{Cite book |last1=Mir |first1=Ali Husain |last2=Mir |first2=Raza |date=2006 |title=Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KYbGBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT118 |location=New Delhi |publisher=Roli Books Private Limited |page=118 |isbn=9789351940654 |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=Phrases like 'dying language' are often used to describe the condition of Urdu in India and indicators like 'the number of Urdu-medium schools' present a litany of bad news with respect to the present conditions and future of the language.}}</ref><ref name="Aligarh">{{Cite book |last= |first= |date=1996 |title=Journal of the Faculty of Arts, Volume 2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sH5D1FkXMDIC&q=urdu+dying+language |location= |publisher=Aligarh Muslim University |page=42 |isbn= |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=Arvind Kala is not much off the mark when he says 'Urdu is a dying language (in India), but it is Hindi movie dialogues which have heightened appreciation of Urdu in India. Thanks to Hindi films, knowledge of Urdu is seen as a sign of sophistication among the cognoscent of the North.'}}</ref><ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry">{{Cite book |last=Singh |first=Khushwant |date=2011 |title=Celebrating the Best of Urdu Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4V5CDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |location= |publisher=Penguin UK |pages=9–10 |isbn=9789386057334 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref> This phenomenon pertains to the decrease in relative and absolute numbers of native Urdu speakers as opposed to speakers of other languages;<ref name="Irfan">{{Cite web |url=https://livewire.thewire.in/politics/the-burden-of-urdu-must-be-shared/ |title=The Burden of Urdu Must Be Shared |author=Hanan Irfan |work=LiveWire |date=15 July 2021 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref><ref name="Daniyal">{{Cite web |url=https://scroll.in/article/884754/surging-hindi-shrinking-south-indian-languages-nine-charts-that-explain-the-2011-language-census |title=Surging Hindi, shrinking South Indian languages: Nine charts that explain the 2011 language census |author=Shoaib Daniyal |work=Scroll.in |date=4 July 2018 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref> declining (advanced) knowledge of Urdu's Perso-Arabic script, Urdu vocabulary and grammar;<ref name="Irfan"/><ref name="Willoughby & Aftab">{{Cite web |url=https://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/Working%20Paper/WorkingPaper-2020-29.pdf |title=The Fall of Urdu and the Triumph of English in Pakistan: A Political Economic Analysis |author=John Willoughby & Zehra Aftab |work=PIDE Working Papers |publisher=Pakistan Institute of Development Economics |date=2020 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref> the role of translation and transliteration of literature from and into Urdu;<ref name="Irfan"/> the shifting cultural image of Urdu and socio-economic status associated with Urdu speakers (which negatively impacts especially their employment opportunities in both countries),<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/><ref name="Irfan"/>  the ''de jure'' legal status and ''de facto'' political status of Urdu,<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> how much Urdu is used as language of instruction and chosen by students in higher education,<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/><ref name="Irfan"/><ref name="Daniyal"/><ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry"/> and how the maintenance and development of Urdu is financially and institutionally supported by governments and NGOs.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/><ref name="Irfan"/> In India, although Urdu is not and never was used exclusively by Muslims (and Hindi never exclusively by Hindus),<ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry"/><ref name="Brass"/> the ongoing [[Hindi–Urdu controversy]] and modern cultural association of each language with the two religions has led to fewer Hindus using Urdu.<ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry"/><ref name="Brass">{{Cite book |last=Brass |first=Paul R. |date=2005 |title=Language, Religion and Politics in North India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SylBHS8IJAUC&pg=PA136 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=136 |isbn=9780595343942 |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=The third force leading to the divergence between Hindi and Urdu was the parallel and associated development of Hindu and Muslim revivalisms and communal antagonism, which had the consequence for the Hindi–Urdu conflict of reinforcing the tendency to identify Urdu as the language of Muslims and Hindi as the language of Hindus. Although objectively this is not entirely true even today, it is undeniable historical tendency has been in this direction. (...) Many Hindus also continue to write in Urdu, both in literature and in the mass media. However, Hindu writers in Urdu are a dying generation and Hindi and Urdu have increasingly become subjectively separate languages identified with different religious communities.}}</ref> In the 20th century, Indian Muslims gradually began to collectively embrace Urdu<ref name="Brass"/> (for example, 'post-independence Muslim politics of [[Bihar]] saw a mobilisation around the Urdu language as tool of empowerment for minorities especially coming from weaker socio-economic backgrounds'<ref name="Irfan"/>), but in the early 21st century an increasing percentage of Indian Muslims began switching to Hindi due to socio-economic factors, such as Urdu being abandoned as the language of instruction in much of India,<ref name="Daniyal"/><ref name="Irfan"/> and having limited employment opportunities compared to Hindi, English and regional languages.<ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry"/> The number of Urdu speakers in India fell 1.5% between 2001 and 2011 (then 5.08 million Urdu speakers), especially in the most Urdu-speaking states of [[Uttar Pradesh]] (c. 8% to 5%) and Bihar (c. 11.5% to 8.5%), even though the number of Muslims in these two states grew in the same period.<ref name="Daniyal" /> Although Urdu is still very prominent in early 21st-century Indian pop culture, ranging from [[Bollywood]]<ref name="Aligarh" /> to social media, knowledge of the Urdu script and the publication of books in Urdu have steadily declined, while policies of the Indian government do not actively support the preservation of Urdu in professional and official spaces.<ref name="Irfan" /> Because during the partition, Urdu became the national language of Pakistan, the Indian state and some religious nationalists began in part to regard Urdu as a 'foreign' language, to be viewed with suspicion.<ref name="Mir" /> Urdu advocates in India disagree whether it should be allowed to write Urdu in the [[Devanagari]] and [[Latin script]] ([[Roman Urdu]]) to allow its survival,<ref name="Best of Urdu Poetry" /><ref name="Everaert">{{Cite book |last=Everaert |first=Christine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqZ-6QRKc7wC&pg=PA78 |title=Tracing the Boundaries Between Hindi and Urdu: Lost and Added in Translation Between 20th Century Short Stories |date=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004177314 |location=Leiden |pages=77–79 |access-date=1 August 2021}}</ref> or whether this will only hasten its demise and that the language can only be preserved if expressed in the Perso-Arabic script.<ref name="Irfan" /> There are some Hindu poets in India who continue to write in Urdu after the partition, including [[Gopi Chand Narang]] and Gulzar Dehlvi.<ref name="Ahmad2017">{{cite book |last1=Ahmad |first1=Irfan |title=Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace |date=20 November 2017 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1-4696-3510-1 |language=en|quote=There have been and are many great Hindu poets who wrote in Urdu. And they learned Hinduism by readings its religious texts in Urdu. Gulzar Dehlvi—who nonliterary name is Anand Mohan Zutshi (b. 1926)—is one among many examples.}}</ref> Throughout India, various states have established an [[Urdu Academy]] to promote the use of Urdu and Urdu literature.<ref>{{cite book |last1=S.H |first1=Patil |title=The Constitution, Government and Politics in India |date=2016 |publisher=Vikas Publishing House |isbn=978-93-259-9411-9 |page=566 |language=en}}</ref>

For Pakistan, Urdu originally had the image of a refined, elite language of the Enlightenment, progress, and emancipation, and the language contributed to the success of Pakistan’s independence movement.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> But after [[Partition of India|the 1947 Partition]], when it was chosen as the national language of Pakistan to unite all inhabitants with one linguistic identity, it faced serious competition primarily from Bengali (spoken by 56% of the total population, mostly in East Pakistan until that [[Bangladesh Liberation War|attained independence in 1971]] as [[Bangladesh]]), and after 1971 from English. Both pro-independence elites that formed the leadership of the Muslim League in Pakistan and the Hindu-dominated [[Indian National Congress|Congress Party]] in India had been educated in English during the British colonial period, and continued to operate in English and send their children to English-medium schools as they continued dominate both countries' post-Partition politics.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> Although the Anglicized elite in Pakistan has made attempts at Urduisation of education with varying degrees of success, no successful attempts were ever made to Urduise politics, the legal system, the army, or the economy, all of which remained solidly Anglophone.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> Even the regime of [[Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq|general Zia-ul-Haq]] (1977–1988), who came from a middle-class Punjabi family and initially fervently supported a rapid and complete Urduisation of Pakistani society (earning him the honorary title of the 'Patron of Urdu' in 1981), failed to make significant achievements, and by 1987 had abandoned most of his efforts in favour of pro-English policies.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> Since the 1960s, the Urdu lobby and eventually the Urdu language in Pakistan has been associated with religious Islamism and political national conservatism (and eventually the lower and lower-middle classes, alongside regional languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, and Balochi), while English has been associated with the internationally oriented secular and progressive left (and eventually the upper and upper-middle classes).<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/> Despite governmental attempts at Urduisation of Pakistan, the position and prestige of English only grew stronger in the meantime.<ref name="Willoughby & Aftab"/>