Ladakh authorities have scrapped the requirement for revenue department recruits to know Urdu, with the local BJP parliamentarian terming the language an “imposition” and a remnant of “colonialism”.
The move has outraged the region’s majority Muslims, who see in it the BJP’s “hate politics” and an attempt to divide the Union Territory’s Buddhists and Muslims who have jointly been fighting for the restoration of statehood and special status for Ladakh.
Urdu is spoken widely in Ladakh, as in neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir. The erstwhile Hindu Dogra rulers had made
Urdu the official language of the princely state, of which Ladakh was a part, in 1889.
Now the Ladakh administration has removed the mandatory requirement of a “knowledge of Urdu along with bachelor’s degree” for recruitment to revenue jobs, including those of naib tehsildar and patwari.
Officials said the revenue records of Kashmir and Ladakh were in Urdu, and those of Jammu predominantly in Hindi.
Ladakh MP and BJP politician Tsering Namgyal announced the change on Tuesday. He tweeted that it was “true freedom from psychological colonialism of #Art370 as well as liberation from the imposed Urdu language by Kashmiri rulers over Ladakh”.
In a video, Namgyal said the “imposition” of Urdu was a discrimination against the Union Territory’s Muslim and Buddhist populations.
Kargil politician Sajjad Kargili said Urdu was widely spoken in Ladakh by Muslims and many non-Muslims, including Buddhists.
“Ladakh has five or six tribal languages of which Purgi (a dialect of Balti, a Tibetic language) is spoken by the majority. Urdu is the common language, spoken by all. Even those speaking against Urdu themselves use Urdu at their news conferences,” Sajjad told The Telegraph.
“Ladakh’s Muslims use the Persian (or Urdu) script while writing Purgi while Buddhists use the Bhoti or Tibetan script.
There are reports that (the administration) is trying to impose the Bhoti script on all Ladakhis. All this is being done as part of cultural politics (by the Centre).”
Hanifa Jan, president of the National Conference’s Ladakh unit, said the “anti-Urdu step” would hurt the working of the revenue department where “all revenue records are in Urdu language”.
