New Delhi: The release of former Union minister Ashwani Kumar's curation of Urdu poetry turned into a debate on the purity of language and script on Monday.
At the event where former Vice-President Hamid Ansari and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released the Ehsas-o-Izhar (Expression of Feelings), former Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur objected to the poems being published in Devanagari and not the Persian script.
"The poems are in Urdu but written in Devanagari with English translations. Won't Urdu complain? Why did you forget the love for the language which your grandfather, Seth Pindi Das, gifted you?" Justice Thakur ribbed Ashwani Kumar.
He suggested that Urdu is for all Indians: "It is not a Muslim language.... It is our heritage like the Taj Mahal and the Qutb Minar."
Ansari said it was quite easy to have a book with the original Urdu text alongside translations. He too ventured into the subject of Urdu's purity and Indian provenance by mentioning Hindustani, the Hindi-Urdu blend spoken across north India.
"Article 351 (of the Constitution) mentions a language called Hindustani. But it is missing in the Schedule of Languages, and the Linguistic Survey of India's very comprehensive report," he said.
"What is it? There are no members of the Constituent Assembly around to tell us what it is, but Granville Austin (American historian and expert on India's Constitution) wrote a 50-page chapter on it (Article 351)."
Poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar and former diplomat Pavan Varma came to Ashwani Kumar's rescue, saying the script was not the most important aspect of a language.
"Often, when people hear something they don't understand, they think it's Urdu. If a language is too pure, people don't understand it and it is artificial. Most of you speak Urdu without knowing you are (doing so)," Akhtar said.
Manmohan, however, steered clear of the debate on the script. "Some things need to be said, some can be left unsaid, but I would like to say this on Ashwani Kumar's book: Hazaron jawabon se achhi hai khamoshi meri/ Na jane kitne sawalon ki abaru rakhti hai (My silence is better than thousands of answers/ Who knows how many questions' blushes it saves)."
Manmohan had recited the same poem when the BJP stalled Parliament demanding his resignation over the coal allocation scandal in 2012.
Singh then quoted Allama Iqbal: "In the end I would like to tell Ashwani Kumarji, ' Mana ki teri deed ke qabil nahin hoon main/ Tu mera shauq dekh, mera intizar dekh (Agreed, I'm not worthy of your vision divine/ Behold my passion, see how I wait and pine)'."
In the book, Ashwani Kumar has collected poems by others and categorised them into themes like life, love and so on. He said: "All my life's feelings are in this.... Urdu is read by a few. It is important to stir the love for Urdu. I had to write in Devanagari so it could reach the maximum number of people. I have not betrayed Urdu."