A report making recommendations on the promotion of Urdu in India has been submitted to the government. It stressed that Urdu is a language that symbolizes India’s cultural synthesis, national integration and harmonious coexistence. It noted that since independence, it has been greatly marginalized and made a victim of linguistic injustice, and as such the situation calls for concern and redressal both at governmental as well as non-governmental levels.

Human Resource Development Minister M.M. Pallam Raju, who is chairman of the National Monitoring Committee for Minorities Education, had appointed a sub-committee on promotion of Urdu language and enhancement of compatibility among minorities through knowledge of English.

Noted academic Akhtarul Wasey was the committee chairman, and Professor S.R. Kidwai, Syeda Bilgrami Imam, Syed Hasan Shuja, Dr. Majid Deobandi, Dr. Khwaja Ekramuddin were members, and S.K. Mohanty was special invitee and member secretary.

The report was presented to Pallam Raju by Wasey and others.

Some of the major recommendations include setting up of a monitoring committee of experts to ensure the implementation programs related to promotion of Urdu in the light of the recommendations of the sub-committee and other proposals that might come up as the offshoots of these recommendations.

These should include principals of Urdu-medium schools and Urdu teachers from Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University and other institutions and some other eminent Urdu scholars, to review the ground realities.

As none of the schools run by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan in the country provide Urdu education due to the condition of minimum of 20 students for providing such a facility, it has been recommended that Section 122 of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan Code may be suitably amended to bring down the number to 5 or 6 students as is being done in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi respectively.

It is also recommended that Urdu should be introduced as a subject in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas as well as Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.

Another suggestion is that Urdu-medium schools should be granted a 5 per cent exemption and a quota for admission to government colleges.

Students having training to teach Urdu as a subject and not teaching through Urdu as a medium should also be provided the required training. This would include madrasa pass-outs. A teacher-training diploma course should be introduced for the madrasa pass-outs and the diploma in Madrasa Teacher Education (MTE) be made at par with the Diploma in Elementary Teacher Education (ETE).

It has been recommended that since Urdu medium schools cannot be opened in Uttar Pradesh and many other states because they have some legal provisions that make the use of the official language of the state mandatory as medium of instruction and examination, the government may form such laws that may allow the state governments to establish Urdu-medium educational institutions and conduct examinations in Urdu language in Uttar Pradesh and such other states.