The Global South Project
  • Home
  • About
  • Forums & Essays
    • Forum: Chauvinism, Indian Literature, World Literature
    • Forum: World Literature and Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing
  • Contributors
  • Guidelines
  • Participating Journals
  • Contact

The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu

Sanjay Kumar

Download printable PDF


Notes

1 See Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur, “Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: From Indian Literature to World Literature“ In Conversation with Satya Mohanty. Frontline 6 April 2012: 90.

2 For more details about the genealogy of Urdu see Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History (2001), especially the first chapter “History, Faith, Politics−Origin Myths of Urdu and Hindi,“ pp. 21-42.

3 Most historians claim that it got eclipsed in the North between fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, a claim which I examine later in this paper.

4 It had also spread to Gujarat, again with the Sufis, in the late 13th and early 14th centuries after the annexation of Gujarat by Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296-1316) and was practiced as Gujari.

5 Premchand’s short story “Shatranj ke Khiladi“ gives a picture of this decadent culture.

6 While describing it as the root cause of subsequent separation between Hindi and Urdu, Amrit Rai and Tariq Rahman blame the Mughal nobility which deliberately promoted this culture to compensate for their declining political fortunes. See Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi Urdu (1984) and Tariq Rahman, From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History (2011).

7 These Muslims came from different parts and cultures and in different waves. One cannot treat them as one homogenous or monolithic group. See Faruqi

(2001).
8 See Alok Rai, “Making a Difference: Hindi, 180-1930.“ Annual of Urdu Studies

10 (1995): 138.
9 See Christopher King, “Forging a New Linguistic Identity: The Hindi

Movement in Banaras, 1868-1914“ in Sandria B. Freitag. Ed. Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance and Environment, 1800-1980, p.192.

10 Kaithi was more popular than Devanagari, but since it was used both by common Hindus as well as Muslims, this was not acceptable to Hindu nationalists.

11 See Francesca Orsini, Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture (2010:

5).
12 See Imre Bangha, “Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language,“ in Orsini, p. 83.
13 See Allison Busch, “Riti and Register: Lexical Variation in Courtly Braj

Bhasa Texts,“ in Orsini, p. 89
14 I am grateful to my colleague in the Urdu Department at Banaras Hindu

University, Prof. Aftab Ahmad, for drawing my attention to these examples.


Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Picture

Essays in this Forum


Rethinking the Global South
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

From Indian Literature to World Literature: A Conversation with Satya P. Mohanty
by Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur

Asia in My Life
by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

The Global South and Cultural Struggles: On the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization
by Duncan Mceachern Yoon

The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu
by Sanjay Kumar

Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature
by Gurminder K. Bhambra

Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies
by Tilottoma Misra

Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: A Response
by Shivani Jha

Is There an Indian Way of Thinking about Comparative Literature?
by E. V. Ramakrishnan

Modernity and Public Sphere in Vernacular

by Purushottam Agrawal

West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism

by Jerome Teelucksingh

Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred

by Fatima Sadiki








Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Forums & Essays
    • Forum: Chauvinism, Indian Literature, World Literature
    • Forum: World Literature and Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing
  • Contributors
  • Guidelines
  • Participating Journals
  • Contact