The Endangered Urdu

I cannot recall my last “pure” Urdu conversation with someone, not even with a person who has a university degree in Urdu literature. It is very unfortunate that most of the times we struggle to find appropriate Urdu words for a situation, although we know English words for the said situation. Our conversations are a mix of Urdu, English and regional languages. The more a person uses English words in his or her conversation, the highly educated he is considered. I have also seen people get into a fit of laughter because someone used a common Urdu idiom; it was like meeting entitled tourists.

Same is the case with Urdu writing. More than two third of the young generation are not proficient in Urdu writing due to the excessive use of Roman Urdu. This generation has actively helped blur the distinction between Urdu and English in Pakistan. At first, they started sneaking in an English noun or two despite the presence of perfectly serviceable Urdu words. We went from skipping some words, to fading them out, all the way to practically revolting against the language.

English language is considered as a social status symbol in big cities. In small cities and remote areas, regional languages dominate Urdu. Whenever we meet a person from our native region we switch from Urdu to our shared regional language which means we do not feel comfortable in communicating in Urdu and always wait for a chance to switch to our mother tongue or English. It is like we do not want to communicate in Urdu unless we are forced to do so. Same is the case with our national media.

We hardly see a TV program in “pure” Urdu. Dialogues in Urdu drama are a mix of Urdu and English and the proportion of English words is increasing with time. Programs related to the promotion of Urdu literature have disappeared from TV, even from the state owned Pakistan Television. PTV was not able to build on the platform given by the likes of Zia Mohyeddin, Obaidullah Baig, Qureshpur, Ghazi Salahuddin, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Tariq Aziz and many other renowned figures.

Our national television used to celebrate the birthdays and death anniversaries of renowned Urdu writers and poets and telecast programs related to their contribution to Urdu language. These programs were a great source of information and inspiration for our young generation but for the last decade or so we haven’t seen such programs.

Unfortunately, the younger lot failed to continue the legacy of the aforementioned legends amid commercialization and competition. We have subconsciously declared Urdu incompatible in the modern world. It has been presumed that Urdu language was meant to lose its legacy with technological revolution but in reality we created an unfavorable environment for it.

Importance of English language cannot be denied. In order to survive in an international environment, English is considered as the lifeline. Our education system is mostly based on the aforementioned notion. In schools all of the courses are taught in English except a few, which is why Pakistani students and professionals do not face any trouble in communication when they go abroad. However, this proficiency in English comes at the expense of gradual extinction of Urdu.

Previously Urdu used to be the medium of instruction in public schools and that was one of the reason parents hesitates to send their children to those schools. Reason behind this state of affairs was that education system in colleges and universities is in English. It was not an easy task for these students to survive in that English dominated environment. Secondly, our civil services structure, judicial system and corporate sector are all based on English. If one is not proficient in English, he or she cannot compete in civil service exams or other competitive examinations. Now most of the government schools have switched to English as medium of instruction and only a couple of subjects are taught in Urdu.

In short, the Urdu language is in a crisis. We have not taught properly our younger generation about our national language. We failed to inculcate an affinity for our national language in them. They are not aware of the works of Ghalib, Yusufi, Insha, or at the very least have not gone over Zia Mohiuddin’s readings. There are those who have developed an affinity towards Saadat Hussain Manto of late, thanks to Sarmad Sultan Khoosa’s movie on Manto’s life. But Manto’s popularity is because of the subject matter of his writings more than his literary style.

Specifically, it is the lack of interest in its preservation which is disturbing. We have not tried seriously to promote and develop Urdu as a language. As a consequence of all the lack of effort towards helping it grows, its progress has stagnated. Now we are at the mercy of whoever decides to write whatever they like in the language and subject the public to read it.

We are coming dangerously close to “illiteracy” in our own national language. But apart from lamenting its decline, there is, perhaps, nothing much we can do with educational authorities like ours. Like in all other cases, our priorities are misplaced here as well. There are no incentives for the writers, poets and people engaged in Urdu language promotion from the government. Students are reluctant to major in Urdu literature because they don’t see any future in this field. Some of legendary Urdu writers and poets are living miserable lives.

Urdu is the insignia of our culture. The unfortunate dilemma is that we find it ‘cool’ or trendy to dissociate ourselves from it. If we want to preserve and promote our cultural values, we need to pay due attention to the dismal state of Urdu language but if we continue as we are today, Urdu, along with our identity may eventually cease to exist.