“They say that Urdu is a Muslim language. Really?"
Renowned Bollywood lyricist Javed Akhtar has spoken about the origins of the Urdu language and boldly stated that it does not belong to Muslims.
Javed Akhtar stated that languages belong to a region rather than religion and shared his opinions that Urdu was as much a Hindustani language as Hindi itself.
At the India International Centre, he said:
“Hindi and Urdu were equals until about 200 years ago, when, for political reasons, they were separated.
“You would not be able to tell if certain poems were written by a Hindi poet or an Urdu poet.
“This was done by the British to create a cultural difference in North India.
“They say that Urdu is a Muslim language. Really?
“What about the 10 crore Bengalis in the erstwhile East Pakistan? Malayalam giants like Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, were they writing in Urdu?
“All the Arabs in the Middle East, do they speak Urdu? In Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, where do they speak Urdu? Only in the Indian subcontinent.
“True, we were split 70 years ago, but it was all Hindustan was it not?
“They say Hindi is the language of Hindus. Why don’t you go and tell that to the people in Tamil Nadu? Let’s see what happens. All this is nonsense.
“Languages cannot belong to a religion. They belong to regions. Can English be the language of Christians? No.”
Javed Akhtar went on to say that Urdu was a Northern Indian language that could not be divided.
In 2023, Javed Akhtar ruffled feathers when he said Urdu did not belong to Pakistan.
“Urdu has not come from any other place, it is our language. It isn’t spoken outside of Hindustan.
“Pakistan also came into existence after partition from India, earlier it was a part of India only. So the language isn’t spoken outside of Hindustan.
“Punjab has a big contribution towards Urdu and it is the language of India! But why did you leave this language? Because of partition? Because of Pakistan?
“Now Pakistan said that Kashmir is ours. Will you believe that? I think not!”
Javed Akhtar also shared his opinions about the younger generation and said they focused on speaking in English rather than in their mother tongue and advised the youth to concentrate more on speaking in their national language.
He concluded: “If language was based on religion the whole of Europe would have one language. That’s why the language is not of religion but of the region.”
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