Ranchi, Aug. 26: The controversy over the second official language in the state appears headed to the law court even as human resource development minister Pradeep Yadav, today put an end to the ongoing suspense by declaring that Urdu is no longer the second official language in the state.

A section of Muslim intellectuals had argued that since Urdu was the second official language in Bihar, and since Jharkhand did not promulgate an Ordinance or enact any law to do away with the provision, Urdu remained a second official language here, one of the three now with Santhali and Bengali.

The HRD minister?s assertion came on a day when Muslim organisations all over the state observed a black day to protest the decision to ?drop? Urdu and divest it of its official status.

The minister asserted that Santhali and Bengali-speaking people were larger in number than the Urdu-speaking population.

While he did not have the comparative figures, he claimed that the census data had been taken into account before taking the decision. In areas like Dhanbad and Pakur, he pointed out, there are many Muslims who speak Bengali.

Asked to comment on the claim that Urdu continues to be the second official language by default, Yadav said, ?This was perhaps valid before we took the decision to confer the status on Santhali and Bengali.?

Reminded that many non-Muslims too speak Urdu, the minister replied: ?Their number is small. They are exceptions because some non-Muslims learn Urdu as a hobby; but we cannot possibly call them Urdu-speaking.?

?Even I learnt Urdu when I was in jail for a month,? he argued, ?but that does not mean that I speak Urdu.?

The decision to grant second-official-language status to Santhali and Bengali, was seen by several people as a political gimmick with an eye to the panchayat election. But the state government had maintained a studied silence on the controversy till now.

City lawyer Suhail Anwar had argued, ?The (unified) Bihar government had, in 1981, notified Urdu as the second language, by an Act. Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in November 2000. As per the Bihar Reorganisation Act, all the laws of Bihar came into force in Jharkhand as well.

However, the Jharkhand government could have changed the rule within three months through an executive order or within one year through legislation or ordinance.

Anwar faults the government notification, which, he points out, does not say whether Santhali and Bengali are in addition to Urdu or have substituted Urdu as the second official language.

Reader in psychology, Ranchi University, Shahid Hassan, claimed 14 per cent of Jharkhand?s population is made up of Muslims and about 7 per cent people speak Urdu and therefore the government should not ignore the language.

?A large Urdu-speaking population of the state goes to West Asia for employment. Giving second language status to Urdu will widen the scope of employment to a large population of the state,? he said.

Giving second language status means that besides Hindi, all government communication will be made in the second language too; all the laws made by the government will be translated into the second language and equal facilities for the study of the second language in schools and colleges will be provided.

Besides, anybody can write application for any government department in that language.

While A.H. Rizvi and Md Sayeed, president of Anjuman Islamia, felt that the status would help give a boost to language, literature, media and employment, the Marwari college principal, Javed Ahmed, declared that it was much ado about nothing.

In the new order, everyone, including Muslims, is rushing to learn English, he felt. The status or its withdrawal, he felt, would make no difference to Urdu or Bengali.