MUMBAI, 7 May 2008 — Raj Thackeray’s Marathi pride campaign has now made even the Muslims to toe his line of action. Muslim scholars and academics including representatives of more than 400 Urdu schools in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra at a convention held in Akola on Monday demanded that Marathi be made compulsory in Urdu schools right from kindergarten. They felt such a step would open opportunities for Muslim students across the state.
Haider Ali Dosani, the organizer of the convention said: “It is productive and important for Muslims students to learn Marathi, read, write and speak the local language, besides being proficient in their mother tongue and the national language Hindi.”
Dosani argued that Muslim students were put at a disadvantage as Marathi was taught in Urdu schools from grade five. There are as many as 2,000 Urdu schools spread across Maharashtra, with the majority of about 300 being in the Vidarbha region with 25,000 students.
The convention was held to make a strong pitch for change and was planned after intense discussions with community scholars and leaders, Dosani said.
He said Muslim children are cut off from the mainstream due to their inability to communicate in Marathi. “As the Muslim children don’t understand Marathi, they remain aloof from important social, cultural, economic and political process of the state.”
Sahil Dosani, another academic said: “When (Mogul Emperor) Akbar issued an order making Farsi an official language, the Sanskrit-speaking non-Muslims did not oppose the move, but learned the language and controlled the administration.” He said Muslims across the state, except Vidarbha, gel well with other communities due to their fluency in Marathi.
Shafuddin Sahil, a Muslim historian and poet said people who wanted to reside and work in Maharashtra must learn the local language. “This is not related to religion. It is a bread-and-butter issue.”
Convention participant Zafar Hayat said that if Marathi were to be taught from kindergarten, students would pick up the language better. By the time they reached grade five, they would speak Marathi fluently. “After all, Marathi is the language of social and official communication in the state. So, fluency in Marathi is essential for social and career development,” Sahil said Most of Vidarbha’s Urdu schools cater to the economically weaker sections among Muslims. But a majority of the students in these schools cannot read or write Marathi.
