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A Worldly Vernacular: Urdu at Osmania University

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

KAVITA DATLA
KAVITA DATLA*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Mount Holyoke College, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075, USA Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Twinned as Urdu has become with the fate of India's largest religious minority, Muslims, and with the emergence of the independent state of Pakistan, for which Urdu is the official national language, the story of Urdu holds a peculiar place and a special significance in histories of the subcontinent. Stories of the Urdu language are dramatic, bound up as they are in questions of politics, the fate of Hindus and Muslims and the vicissitudes of both the Urdu and the Hindi languages. Though Hindi–Urdu language politics are an important part of these languages' colonial history, this article emphasizes another story. For, like the other vernaculars of south Asia, Urdu had to contend as much with English as with Hindi, and it is that story that is emphasized here. This article details how early-twentieth-century Hyderabad's Urdu educators engaged with questions of native education, language, and Western science. It highlights the discussions and disagreements that accompanied this educational project as Urdu advocates re-evaluated their language and its sources of authority, attempting to make the Urdu language a worldly vernacular, useful for more than the subcontinent's Muslim population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 5 , September 2009 , pp. 1117 - 1148
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Reproduced many times, this essay was included as a preface to all of the Osmania University textbooks published in 1920 and many of those published in 1919 and 1921. I use Maulvi Abdul Haq, ‘Muqadama,’ in Mohammad Barni, Elias, M’āshīāt-i hind (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Osmania University Press, 1920)Google Scholar.

2 Aydin, Cemil, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prakash, Gyan, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University, 1999)Google Scholar.

3 Hardy, Peter, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1972), p. 190CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 In this, Urdu was not unlike other Indian vernaculars, like Tamil and Hindi. Venkatachalapathy, A. R., ‘Coining Words: Language and Politics in Late Colonial Tamilnadu,’ in Kaiwar, Vasant and Mazumdar, Sucheta (eds.), Antinomies of Modernity (Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Rai, Alok, Tracts for the Times/13: Hindi Nationalism (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2000)Google Scholar.

5 Kaviraj, Sudipta, ‘Writing, Speaking, Being: Language and the Historical Formation of Identities in India,’ in Hellman-Rajanayagam, Dagmar and Rothermund, Dietmar (eds.), Nationalstaat und Sprachkonflikte in Sud- und Sudostasien (Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), pp. 43–46Google Scholar.

6 Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia, p. 9.

7 For biographical information on Ross Masood, see Jalil A. Kidwai (ed.), Khayābān-e-Masood: A Collection of Writings, Speeches, etc., on and by Nawab Masood Jung Sir Syed Ross Masood (Karachi, Pakistan: Ross Masood Educational and Cultural Society, 1970). Maulvi Abdul Haq describes Masood's Bismillah ceremony in ‘Sayyid Ross Masood,’ in Jalil A. Kidwai (ed.) Muraqqa-i Masood, (Karachi, Pakistan: Ross Masood Education and Culture Society of Pakistan, 1966). Abdul Haq also explains that Masood originally had to be convinced about the scheme for Urdu education at Osmania before he took it up wholeheartedly.

8 Others had gone from India to Japan and reported on its educational system. One such person was W. H. Sharp, professor of philosophy at Elphinstone College, though he was not at all convinced of the benefits of education in the Japanese language. See W. H. Sharp, Occasional Reports, No. 3: The Educational System of Japan (Bombay, Maharashtra, India: Government Central Press, 1906), pp. 395–403.

9 For more on the relationship between Forster and Masood, see Kidwai, Jalil Ahmad (ed.), Forster-Masood Letters (Karachi, Pakistan: Ross Masood Education and Culture Society, 1984)Google Scholar.

10 Hyderabad Government, Installment 80, List Number 4, Serial Number 663, Andhra Pradesh State Archives and Reseach Institute (APSA). After leaving Hyderabad, Masood served as vice-chancellor at Aligarh Muslim University and in 1933 was knighted.

11 Masood, Sayyid Ross, Travels in Japan: Diary of an Exploring Mission (Karachi, Pakistan: Ross Masood Education and Culture Society, 1968), p. 30Google Scholar.

12 Masood, Sayyid Ross, Japan and Its Educational System: Being a Report Compiled for the Government of His Exalted Highness the Nizam (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Government Central Press, 1923), p. iiiGoogle Scholar.

13 For Masood, the most important events in the political history of Japan were the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and the constitution of 1889 granted by the emperor. He was particularly impressed by the respect shown for the emperor as patriarchal head with semi-divine status.

14 Ibid., p. 82.

15 Ibid., p. 84.

16 Masood, Sayyid Ross, ‘Mass Education Possible through Mother Tongue Alone,’ in Kidwai, Jalil A. (ed.), Khayābān-e-Masood (Karachi: Ross Masood Educational and Cultural Society, 1970), pp. 148–149Google Scholar. Though this quote is taken from the last years of Masood's life, he had also mentioned it on early occasions.

17 Ibid., pp. 181–182.

18 This was to some extent true. Aligarh Muslim University did not have MA Urdu courses until Masood himself instituted them, after he left Hyderabad and returned to Aligarh as vice-chancellor. And the first full-fledged departments in Hindi were not at Benares Hindu University, until 1922, and Allahabad University, until 1926. See Orsini, Francesca, The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 105Google Scholar.

19 This translation bureau was referred to, for the main part, by two different names; officially Sar-rishta tālīf-va tarjuma (department for compilation and translation), it was more often referred to as Dār-ul tarjuma (literally the abode of translation or the translation bureau). The second title is perhaps more accurate since the bureau was much more engaged in translation than it was in the compilation of new texts. For the sake of simplicity, I have used the English, translation bureau, throughout. For an introduction, see Lelyveld, David, ‘The Osmania University Translation Bureau: A Brief Account,’ in Osmania University Diamond Jubilee Souvenir (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Osmania University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

20 For an account of the tension produced by this recruitment see Leonard, Karen, ‘The Mulki–Non-Mulki Conflict,’ in Jeffrey, Robin (ed.), People, Princes and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

21 Minault, Gail, ‘Qiran Al-Sādain,’ in Malik, Jamal (ed.), Perspectives of Mutual Encounters in South Asian History, 1760–1860 (Leiden, Boston, MA, USA: Brill, 2000)Google Scholar; Haq, Maulvi Abdul, Marhōm Delhi College (New Delhi: Anjuman-i Taraqqī-i Urdu Hind, 1945)Google Scholar; Andrews, C. F., Zaka Ullah of Delhi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Minault, Gail, ‘Sayyid Ahmad Dehlavi and the “Delhi Renaissance,”’ in Frykenberg, R. E. (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Rahman, Tariq, ‘The Teaching of Urdu in British India,’ in Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 15, (2000), pp. 31–57Google Scholar.

22 Hyderabad Government, Installment 80, List Number 4, Serial Number 661, p. 11, APSA.

23 Report on the Administration of His Exalted Highness the Nizam's Dominions for the Year 1327 Fasli (6th October 1917 to 5th October 1918) (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Government Central Press, 1919), p. 37. The college department was reported to operate at a net cost of Rs 34,397.

24 See Annual Administration Report of the Osmania University for the year 1335 F./Oct. 1925–Oct. 1926 (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Government Central Press, 1928); Annual Administration of the Osmania University for the year 1340 F./Oct. 1930–Oct. 1931 (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Government Central Press, 1933).

25 Hyderabad Government, Installment 36, List Number 5, Serial Number 11, APSA.

26 Hyderabad Government, Installment 80, List Number 4, Serial Number 661, p. 65, APSA.

27 ul-Islam, Mujib, Dār-ul tarjuma osmania kī ‘ilmī aur adabī khidmāt aur urdu zabān-va adab par us kē asrāt, (Delhi: Urdu Academy, 1987) p. 144Google Scholar. His list of Osmania University textbooks, by title, is the most complete. He has not only cross-referenced official translation bureau lists of publications but has also compared and listed collections of these books that exist at Delhi University, Jamia Milia and Aligarh, Kashmir and Hyderabad Universities. For annual reports from the translation bureau for several of these years, see Hyderabad Government, Installment 80, List Number 4, Serial Number 672, APSA. In addition, in 1946, the translation bureau published a list of publications. Nizamuddin, M., Literary Services of the Compilation and Translation Bureau, Osmania University, Hyderabad-Deccan, 1917–1946 (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Osmania University Press, 1946)Google Scholar. Many of the government publications, however, yield contradictory statistics.

28 Biographical information in Masarrat Firdaus, Bābā-i urdu maulvī Abdulhaq kī khidmāt qiyām-i Aurangabad kē daurān (Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India: Muhammad Ahsan Siddiqi, 1999).

29 Hardy, Muslims of British India, p. 143; King, Christopher, One Language, Two Scripts: the Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1994) pp. 163–164Google Scholar.

30 Anjam, Khaliq, Maulvi Abdul Haq: Adabī-va lisānī khidmāt (New Delhi, India: Anjuman-i Taraqqī-i Urdu Hind, 1992), pp. 7–10Google Scholar.

31 Haq, ‘Muqadama.’

32 Ibid., p. 5.

33 Ibid., p. 6.

34 Ibid., p. 10.

35 Susie Tharu analyses the language of the colonial vernacularist position in Tharu, Susie (ed.), Subject to Change: Teaching Literature in the Nineties (New Delhi, India: Orient Longman, 1997), p. 12Google Scholar.

We cannot afford to forget that to represent and define humanity thus is also to subject it to strict control. Vernacularist metaphors like those of Enlightenment humanism, betray this double agenda. They speak of awakening, vitalizing, vivifying the subject and of breathing life into him or her in a final totalizing move. However key terms in the vernacularist texts—manly, noble, trustworthy, honourable, mature, capable of independent reasoning—make it quite clear that personal awakening and the designs of government were closely bound together.

36 Haq, ‘Muqadama,’ p. 20.

37 Ibid., p. 5.

38 Maurice Olender, The Languages of Paradise: Aryans and Semites, a Match Made in Heaven, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Other Press, 1992).

39 Ibid., p. 4.

40 Hyderabad Government, Installment 80, List Number 4, Serial Number 660, APSA. Chaudary Barkat Ali received his BSc from Allahabad University, was a professor of chemistry at Aligarh College from 1909 to 1917 and later became a professor of chemistry at Osmania University and a member of the translation bureau.

41 Hyderabad Government, Education Department, 1328 Fasli, Record 1036, File 959, APSA.

42 In understanding the relationship between colonial philology and the deployment of developmental terms to understand Indian languages, I am indebted to Rama Mantena, ‘Vernacular Futures: Colonial Philology and the Idea of History in Nineteenth-Century South India,’ in Indian Economic & Social History Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2005), pp. 513–534.

43 Hyderabad Government, Education Department, 1328 Fasli, Record 1036, File 959, APSA.

44 John Roosa, ‘The Quandary of the Qaum: Indian Nationalism in a Muslim State, Hyderabad 1850–1948’ (PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1998), pp. 180–254.

45 Olender, Languages of Paradise; Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia; Keddie, Nikki R., An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-din ‘al-Aghani (Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press 1968)Google Scholar.

46 Metcalf, Barbara, ‘Nationalist Muslims in British India: The Case of Hakim Ajmal Khan,’ Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and Pakistan (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 122Google Scholar.

47 Leonard, ‘The Mulki–Non-Mulki Conflict,’ p. 88.

48 Syed Ameer Ali, “The Modernity of Islam,” in Islamic Culture, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan. 1927), pp. 1–5; Syed Suleyman Nadvi, “The Muslims of the Greek Schools of Philosophy,” in Islamic Culture, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan. 1927), pp. 85–91; Abdus Sattar Siddigi, “Construction of Clocks and Islamic Civilization,“ in Islamic Culture, Vol. 1, No. 2 (April 1927), pp. 245–251; Harun Mustafa Ieon, “Physiology and Medicine Under the Khalifs,” in Islamic Culture, Vol. 1, No. 3 (July 1927), pp. 388–405.

49 Metcalf, ‘Nationalist Muslims,’ p. 123.

50 Dr. Abdur Rehman Bijnori, a German PhD, had been involved in the movement to make the college in Aligarh into a university. He was one of those largely responsible for drafting the constitution of the Muslim University at Aligarh and was also involved in a scheme to start another Muslim college in Dehradun, independent of government control and patronage. See Minault and Lelyveld, ‘The Campaign for a Muslim University,’ in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1974) pp. 145–189; notes on Bijnori are to be found on pp. 179–82, especially footnote 178, and 182.

51 Dr. Abdur Rehman Bijnori, ‘Vaz’ Istalahāt,’ in Urdu, Vol. 5, No. 3 (July 1925), p. 333.

52 Ibid., p. 327.

53 Metcalf, Barbara, Islamic Revival in British India, reprint edition (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 100–104Google Scholar.

54 Kaifiyat nazm-va nasq jamia osmania, 1335 fasli (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Matbua Dar-ul Tab’ Jamia Osmania).

55 Proceedings of His Highness the Nizam's Government in the Judicial, Police and General Departments—(Education.) No. 9/3 Misc (13 December 1913), Hyderabad Government, Installment 39, List Number 9, Serial Number 47, APSA.

56 Catalogue of Books Published in His Highness the Nizam's Dominions [Hyderabad State]. Hyderabad 1909–1956, IOL Shelfmark SV 412/26. These lists are perhaps most frustrating in the scanty though interesting glimpses they provide of publications in other vernacular languages, Telugu, Marathi and Kannada.

57 Orsini, The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920–1940, p. 70.

58 Anwaruddin, Mohammad, Hyderbad Deccan kē ‘ilmī-va adabīrisā‘il (Hyderabad: Maktaba Shādāb, 1997), p. 37Google Scholar.

59 Irfan Habib and Dhruv Raina, ‘The Introduction of Scientific Rationality into India: A Study of Master Ramchandra—Urdu Journalist, Mathematician and Educationalist,’ in Annals of Science (Great Britain), Vol. 46, No. 6 (1989), pp. 597–610; Dhruv Raina and Irfan Habib, ‘Ramchandra's Treatise through “The Haze of The Golden Sunset”: An Aborted Pedagogy,’ in Social Studies of Science (Great Britain), Vol. 20, No. 3 (1990), pp. 455–472.

60 ‘Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the United Provinces, Registered Under Act XXV of 1867 during the Quarter Ending May 1910,’ also consulted Statements for June, September and December 1910 in United Provinces Catalogues of Books, 1910–1912, IOL Shelfmark SV 412/38.

61 Bijnori, ‘Vaz’ Istalahāt,’ p. 334.

62 Ibid., p. 336.

63 Bidar, Majid, Dār-ul tarjuma jamia osmania kī adabī khidmāt (Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India: Urdu Academy Andhra Pradesh, 1980), p. 57Google Scholar. Estimates of the numbers of words that were created vary. Bidar explains that records for quite a few of the years do not exist, which is why he gives this figure for a 22-year period, instead of the whole period.

64 Haq, ‘Muqadama,’ p. 7.

65 Bijnori, ‘Vaz’ Istalahāt,’ p. 336.

66 I will be using the Taraqqi Urdu Bureau edition which is based on the 1921 edition of the book. Salim, Syed Vahiduddin, Vaz’ Istalāhāt (New Delhi, India: Taraqqi Urdu Bureau, 1980)Google Scholar.

67 Maulvi Ghulam Rasool, ‘Vahiduddin Salim,’ in Sab ras, Vol. 27, No. 6 (June 1964), pp. 32–35.

68 Naqvi, Manzar Abbas, Vahiddudin Salim: hayāt aur adabī khidmāt (Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India: Muslim University Press, 1969), p. 118Google Scholar. Naqvi says that these were translations from English, while Khaliq Anjam claims that they were translations of Arabic and Persian texts. See Khaliq Anjam, ‘Introduction,’ in Salim, Vahiduddin, Ifādāt-i Salim (New Delhi: Maktabah-i Jamia, 1972)Google Scholar.

69 Salim, Vaz’ Istalāhāt, pp. 7–8.

70 Ibid., p. 12.

71 Ibid., pp. 13–17.

72 Ibid., p. 20.

73 Ibid., pp. 26–28.

74 The Farhang-i āsafia was compiled in the nineteenth century by Maulvi Sayyid Ahmed Dehlavi (not to be confused with Sayyid Ahmed Khan). It was published with the help of the Hyderabad government, which also patronized the compiler and later his son. For more details, see Dr Syed Dawood Ashraf, Guzishta Hyderabad: Archives kē ainē mein (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Shagufa Publications, 2003), pp. 134–143; and Minault, ‘Syed Ahmad Dehlavi.’

75 The numbers according to Vahiduddin Salim: 54,009 total words of which 21,644 are Hindi (includes Punjabi and Purabi), 17,505 are Urdu (meaning Hindi words joined with foreign words), 7,584 are Arabic, 6,041 are Persian, 554 are Sanskrit, 50 are English and 181 are others (includes Turkish, Greek, Portuguese, Latin, French and Pali amongst others); Salim, Vaz’ Istalāhāt, pp. 168–169.

76 Vahiduddin Salim, ‘Usūl-i vaz’ istalāhāt,’ in Qamar Rais (ed.), Tarjuma ka fan aur ravā’yat (Delhi, India: Taj Publishing House, 1976), p. 45. Unfortunately, the editor does not indicate when or where any of these essays was previously published. From details within the essay, however, it is clear that Vahiduddin Salim wrote this essay while employed at Osmania University, after the publication of the book cited above.

77 Olender, Languages of Paradise.

78 Mujib ul-Islam, Dār-ul tarjuma, pp. 260–313.

79 Ibid., p. 197. There is a discrepancy between the total numbers presented by me here for the sciences and the social sciences/humanities and those recorded by Mujib ul-Islam. Mujib ul-Islam counts law amongst the science subjects. He estimates the total number of law terms coined was approximately 18,000. So, if law terminology were included in the total of science terms, as Mujib ul-Islam does, one would have a total of 36,407 science terms and 24,288 arts and social science terms. A majority of the terms created by the bureau would still be terms for the sciences.

80 Masood, Travels in Japan, p. 180.

81 Mujib ul-Islam, Dār-ul tarjuma, p. 151. Also in Bidar, Dār-ul tarjuma jamia osmania kī adabī khidmāt, p. 50.

82 Mohammad Inayatullah (comp.), Majmu'a istalāhāt (Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India: Osmania University Press, 1926).

83 Bidar, Dār-ul tarjuma jamia osmania kī adabī khidmāt, p. 50. He explains that separate meetings were held for the sciences and for the arts. These meetings included the translators in these subjects, and the select group of five ‘Orientalists’ mentioned by Masood earlier.

84 Bidar, Dār-ul tarjuma jamia osmania kī adabī khidmāt, p. 50; Sayyid Suiaiman Nadwi, Yād-i Raffgān (Karachi: Majlis-i Nashariyat-i Islam, 1983), p. 354; Mujib-ul Islam, Dār-ul tarjuma, pp. 151–152, 158. In the last reference, Mujib-ul Islam quotes from an interview with Haroon Khan Sherwani, describing the type of argument that happened between Salim and Taba Taba'i.

85 Mujib-ul Islam, Dār-ul tarjuma, pp. 160–199; Leonard, Karen, Social History of an Indian Caste: The Kayasths of Hyderabad (Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, 1978), p. 218Google Scholar.

86 In thinking through this question, David Lelyveld's review of Amrit Rai's A House Divided has been of great significance to my own thinking; David Lelyveld, ‘Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla and the Idol of Linguistic Origins,’ in Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 9 (1994), pp. 57–67.

87 Rai, Tracts for the Times/13, p. 60. Particulary useful is the dialogue between Alok Rai and Shahid Amin over this issue; Alok Rai and Shahid Amin, ‘A Debate between Alok Rai and Shahid Amin Regarding Hindi,’ Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 20 (2005), pp. 181–202.).

88 Inayatullah, Majmu'a istalāhāt, p. 25.

89 Mujib-ul Islam, Dār-ul tarjuma, pp. 161–162, gives a similar example. He explains that Osmania University used the Arabic term tassajail for ‘registration,’ because it was more common in the Deccan, as opposed to andarāj, which was used more frequently to mean registration in north Indian Urdu.