ONE LANGUAGE, TWO

SCRIPTS
The Hindi Movement
in Nineteenth Century
North India

Christopher R. King

Bombay
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Delhi Calcutta Madras
1994
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP
OXFORD NEW YORK TORONTO
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© Oxford University Press 1994

ISBN 0 19 563565 5

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 Preface

I owe thanks to many people over the years for helping me with the
learning, research and writing that eventually led to this book. For my
formal academic training in Hindi and Urdu I am indebted to: Dr
Manindra Verma, Dr Usha Nilsson and Dr G. C. Narang at the
University of Wisconsin; Dr Bruce Pray at the University of California,
Berkeley; and Dr K. K. Mishra and Dr H. C. Nayyar at Banaras Hindu
University. For my less formal but equally valuable language learning I
must thank: the students of Birla Hostel at Banaras Hindu University
during 1966-67 for patiently listening to my initially halting attempts to
speak Hindi and furnishing me with many hours of conversation; many
Indian friends and acquaintances who provided me with practice; Shri
Kailash Nath Chaube who became not just my Hindi tutor but also a
good friend; and especially the many people of India whose pleasure in
my attempts to communicate with them sustained my efforts. Thanks to
these many teachers all translations in this book, including any
mistakes, are my own.
I am also grateful to many other people and institutions who helped
me in a variety of ways: the Fulbright Foundation for giving me a year
in Banaras to learn Hindi and Urdu; the Foreign Area Fellowship
Program, and especially my interviewer Barney Cohn, for supporting
my dissertation research in the United States, England, and India; the
India Office Library for countless hours of research in comfortable
surroundings, and especially Alf and Fred; the University of Windsor
for a sabbatical year in India; Frank Conlon, Chris Bayly, and several
others who helped guide me in the mysteries of finding materials in the
IOL; the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras and its Pradhan Mantri
Shri Sudhakar Pandey for providing a treasure house of information,
and especially the late Shri Sadanand Shastri and Shambhunath Vajpeyi
whose memories I cherish; my dissertation adviser and well-wisher at
the University of Wisconsin, Bob Frykenberg; Jim Nye of the
University' of Chicago and Jerry Barrier of the University of Missouri;
my research assistants Shri Ibadur Rahman Ansari and Shri Vidya Nath
Chaube, my frequent host Shri Chandra Prakash, and my several
informants, especially the late Shri Ray Krishna Das, all of Banaras;
and my publishers, Oxford University Press, India. To Leela, my wife,
my gratitude beyond measure.
vi One Language, Two Scripts

I have long thought that each book which purports to describe and
analyse complex human affairs should include a 'statement of bias' or
perhaps better, a 'statement of perspective' from the author so that
readers can know something of the values and attitudes that lie behind
the often impersonal-seeming text. I have done this to some extent in
Chapter I, and to a greater extent in Chapter VI, but something more
personal seems appropriate here. Very briefly, I value Hindi and Urdu
equally, but have more acquaintance with and more facility in the
former. I have a strong distaste for extremists on either side of an
artificially created linguistic divide. I cannot but feel that such
extremism rests on a basic intolerance of differences, whether they are
linguistic or religious, which threatens to destroy the unity in diversity
which is India at its best. Let me say with Kabir that:
For Muslims in mosques and for Hindus in temples
both Khuda and Ram are there; Where
mosque and temple do not exist
who is it that rules supreme there ?

Windsor, Ontario
December 1993
 Contents

Preface v
Tables ix
Chronology x
Transliteration Scheme xii
I Introduction 1
Theoretical Background 1
Historical Background 4
Linguistic and Social Background 7
Recent Studies 11
The Present Study 13
Main Themes and Precis 15
Notes 19
II The Development of Differentiation 23
Introduction 23
The Early Literary History of Urdu and Hindi 24
The College of Fort William 25
Early Nineteenth Century Prose Writers in Hindi and Urdu 28
Later Writers in Hindi and Urdu Prose 29
The Language of Poetry: Braj Bhasha vs. Khari Boli 33
Patterns of Publishing: Languages 37
Patterns of Publishing: Geographical 41
Conclusion 47
Notes 49
III Government Language Policy 53
Introduction 53
The Replacement of Persian 54
Indian Reactions to the Replacement of Persian 58
The Nagari Script in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories 60
The Persianization of Urdu 63
The Kaithi Script 65
The Nagari Script in the Central Provinces 69
The Nagari and Kaithi Scripts in Bihar 72
An Analysis of Language Policy 75
Notes 79
viii One Language, Two Scripts

IV Language, Education and Employment 88

Introduction 88
Attitudes Towards the Vernaculars 89
Indigenous Schools in the North-Western Provinces 94
Government Schools in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh 97
The Language of School Textbooks 102
Hindus and Muslims in Government Employment 108
The Relationship of Education and Employment 110
The Basic Contradictions in British Language Policy 116
Notes 118
V The Hindi-Nagari Movement 126
Introduction and Overview 126
The Hindi-Urdu Controversy of the 1860s and 1870s 128
The Hindi-Nagari Campaign of 1882 133
The Hindi-Nagari Movement in Vernacular Literature 135
Precursors of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha 139
The Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras 141
The Hindi-Nagari Campaign of 1895-1900 148
The 1900 Decision: The Machinery of Deliberation 153
The Aftermath of the 1900 Decision 156
Epilogue 162
Notes 164
VI Conclusion 173
Introduction 173
Assimilation and Differentiation 176
Virtue and Vice: The Manipulation of Symbols 183
The Ambiguous Role of Government 185
What If?: Concluding Speculations 187
Notes 190
Appendix 193
Glossary 197
Abbreviations 203
Bibliography 204
Index 217
 Tables

1. Trends in the Growth Rates of the Production of Books

and Periodicals in the United Provinces, 1868-1925 38
2. Trends in the Growth Rate of Publications in Various Languages in
Selected Cities of the United Provinces between 1868 and 1925 43
3. Proportions of Hindi and Urdu Publications in Three Regions of the
United Provinces between 1868 and 1925 45
4. Newspaper Circulation in Various Vernaculars in the United
Provinces from 1869 to 1900 46
5. Numbers of Non-Official Letters in Hindi, Urdu, and English
Received in District and Imperial Post Offices in
the NWP&O in the Second Week of December 1875 47
6. Teachers in Persian and Hindi Schools of Agra District
c. 1845 96
7. Students in Persian and Hindi Schools of Agra District
c. 1845 96
8. Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Regions of
the NWP in Schools of All Levels in 1860 99
9. Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Levels of
Schools in the North-Western Provinces in 1860 100
10. Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Levels of
Schools in the Province of Oudh in 1869
10
1
11. Castes of Successful Candidates in the Anglo-Vernacular
and Vernacular Middle Examinations for 1887 112
12. Proportions of Students of Various Castes Passing the Anglo-
Vernacular and Vernacular Middle Examinations for 1887
Compared to their Proportions in the Population in 1881
11
3
13. Candidates Taking Hindi or Urdu in the Vernacular Middle
Examinations from 1874-75 to 1895-96
115
14. Labels of Virtue and Vice for Hindi and Urdu: Hindi Viewpoint
18
4
15. Labels of Virtue and Vice for Urdu and Hindi: Urdu Viewpoint
18
4
 Chronology

1775 Banaras area ceded to British

1792 Benares Sanskrit College founded
1800 College of Fort William founded
1832 English and vernaculars replace Persian in Presidencies of
Bombay and Madras
1835 Shore establishes Nagari in Saugor and Nerbudda
Territories
1837 English and vernaculars replace Persian in Bengal
Presidency
1839 Petitions against replacement of Persian
1845 Survey of indigenous schools in the NWP
1847 Dr Ballantyne attempts to improve the Hindi of his
Benares Sanskrit College students
1852 Board of Revenue of NWP orders Nagari, not Kaithi, for
village papers
1865 Anjuman-i-Punjab founded
1867 British Indian Association of the NWP petitions for Vernacular
University
1868 Shiva Prasad writes Memorandum against Urdu
1872 Use of Nagari script authorized in Central Provinces
1873 Hindi and Nagari supporters in NWP present memorial to
provincial government
1875 Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh founded, uses
Urdu as medium of instruction
1875 Arya Samaj founded, helps to promote Hindi in north India
1877 Government of NWP&O prescribes Middle Class Vernacular
and Anglo-Vernacular Examinations for government service, and
recognizes Urdu as the superior vernacular language
1880 Nagari and Kaithi made official scripts in Bihar
1882 Hunter Commission serves as focus of linguistic controversy
1882 Memorial of National Muhammadan Association of Calcutta
1887 Khari Boli vs. Braj Bhasha controversy begins
1893 Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras founded
1897 Malaviya publishes Court Character and Primary Education
1898 Central Hindu College of Banaras founded, includes Hindi in
curriculum
1898 Delegation of prominent Hindus meets with Lieutenant-
Governor of NWP, MacDonnell, to plead for Hindi and Nagari
 Chronology xi

1900 NWP&O Resolution gives Nagari equal status with Urdu script

1900 Urdu Defence Association of Allahabad publishes A Defence of

the Urdu Language and Character

1903 Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu founded

1910 Hindi Sahitya Sammelan founded

1913 UP Committee on Primary Education debates question of

proper language for primary readers

1921 Indian National Congress accepts principle of linguistic

provinces

1923 Hindi and Urdu become regular degree courses in UP

universities

1925 Gandhi persuades Congress to accept Hindustani as official

language
1947 Uttar Pradesh adopts Hindi in Devanagari as official state
language
1948 Linguistic Provinces Commission report
1950 Constitution of India provides that Hindi become official
language in 1965
1952 Creation of linguistic state of Andhra Pradesh
1955 Report of States Reorganization Commission
1965 Official Languages Act gives Hindi status of official language
and English status as additional official language
1968 Official Languages (Amendment) Act strengthens status of
English
1989 Urdu becomes additional official language of Uttar Pradesh
 Transliteration Scheme

For Urdu words, I have used for the most part the system of G. C.
Narang in Urdu: Readings in Literary Urdu Prose (Madison,
Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968). For Hindi words I
have used the system of Rupert Snell and Simon Weightman in Teach
Yourself Hindi (London: Random House, 1989). Where places,
personal names, and terms have a commonly-used English spelling
(e.g., Varanasi, Shyam Sundar Das, and Nagari) I have not used
diacriticals.
 CHAPTER I

Introduction

We do not clearly understand what you Europeans mean by the term

Hindi, for there are hundreds of dialects, all in our opinion equally
entitled to the name, and there is here no standard as there is in
Sanskrit.1

The Hindi movement in nineteenth century north India provides an

interesting and extremely complex example of the relationships
between language, religion, and nationalism. No scholar of modern
Indian history would dispute the assertion that language and religion
have had an enormous influence on the development of nationalism in
South Asia. The creation of Pakistan in 1947, the inauguration of
linguistic states in India in 1955, the anti-Hindi agitation in South India
in 1965, the emergence of a Punjabi Suba in 1966, the independence of
Bangladesh in 1971—these and many other similar events testify to the
great importance of these two symbols in recent times. To understand
the contemporary manifestations of language and religion, however,
one needs to study their earlier expressions by those Indians who used
them as the central symbols of competing nationalisms. The Hindi
movement of the nineteenth century, copiously documented but little
studied outside India, furnishes an excellent opportunity to examine an
important aspect of the development of Hindu nationalism in north
India.

Theoretical Background
Many scholars have exercised their ingenuity in attempts to create a
satisfactory conceptual framework for the pervasive phenomenon of
nationalism. One of the most instructive of these attempts appears in
the writings of Karl Deutsch, especially his Nationalism and Social
Communication, where he sets forth the idea of a 'people' as a large
group characterized by a complementarity of social communication.
This complementarity means that members of the group can
communicate more effectively over a wider range of subjects with each
other than with outsiders. A people struggling to gain control over the
behavior of its members becomes a 'nationality' which in turn becomes
a nation' once this control has been added to the previously existing
cohesiveness and shared symbols.2
2 One Language, Two Scripts

Deutsch offers a number of analytical concepts to determine whether

widely diverging cultural and linguistic traditions within a single
political framework will result in the formation of one or more than one
nationality or nation. 'Social mobilization', a process of change
occurring in areas undergoing modernization, brings increasing
numbers of the more isolated portions of the population into an ever
denser 'net of social communication'. This 'mobilized population'
includes literates, newspaper readers, people residing in cities and
towns, people in non-agricultural occupations, and others.
'Assimilation', another process of change, brings different peoples
within the same political system into the same network of social
communication, while the opposite process, 'differentiation', separates
peoples into different networks. When the rate of social mobilization
outstrips that of assimilation, differentiation results; when the rate of
assimilation keeps ahead of that of social mobilization, the former
proceeds apace. Various features hasten or retard the process of
assimilation: the different rates at which different peoples are
mobilized, the proportion of the population which is assimilated into
this or that cultural tradition, the degree of similarity of linguistic and
cultural habits, the frequency of contacts between different peoples,
and the scale of material rewards for assimilation.'
The general nature of these concepts makes them applicable to a
wide range of historical cases, but only a few scholars have attempted
to apply them systematically to the development of nationalism in
India, where extraordinary cultural and linguistic diversity occurs
within a single political system. The most thorough-going attempt to
date is Paul Brass's Language, Religion and Politics in North India, in
which the author applies Deutsch's theories to three cases. In the first of
these he deals with the Maithili language movement of northern Bihar,
in the second and third with the more complex issues of Urdu and the
Muslim community in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and of Punjabi and the
Sikh and Hindu communities in the Punjab. Discussion of the Hindi
movement occurs throughout the work as a necessary counterpoint to
the other three movements.4
While Brass accepts the basic approach of Deutsch, he makes a
number of additions and modifications. Since his theoretical framework
provides the analytical basis of this study, we will examine it with
some care. Like Deutsch, he posits three levels of groups, an 'ethnic
group', a 'community', and a 'nation' or 'nationality'. The first term,
defined as any group of individuals with some objective characteristics'
in common, also refers to groups whose members do not necessarily
give any
 Introduction 3

subjective importance to their objective distinctness. The second term

refers to an ethnic group whose members have developed an awareness
of their common identity and seek to define group boundaries. The
third term refers to a community which makes political demands with a
significant degree of success. The focus of Brass's work lies in the
relationships between these three levels of groups: how do objective
differences among ethnic groups become transformed into the
subjective awareness of communities, and then into 'symbolic referents
for political demands'? In short, how do ethnic groups change into
communities, and then into nationalities?6
Brass seeks the answer to this fundamental question through four
'categories' of questions. The first deals with the importance of
objective differences between ethnic groups. Language and religion,
two of the most important 'objective' criteria, themselves show great
variation. Moreover, neither is 'given' since either can be altered for
political purposes. Of the two, religion has proved a more important
'line of cleavage' in north India than language. The second category
concerns internal values and internal processes of change in groups.
Here the author emphasizes the construction of myths of 'internal value
creation', and the role of elites as that segment of a group which takes
the lead in attaching value to symbols of group identity. The third
category has to do with inter-group relations. Brass asserts that the
perception of uneven rates of social change between different groups
stimulates the development of group consciousness. Hence the
existence of another different or potentially different group is essential.
He adds two modifications to Deutsch's fundamental theory: first, for
assimilation to proceed, there must be not just the capacity to
communicate but also the willingness, and second, political
organization and government policy often play decisive roles in
shaping inter-group relations and group consciousness. The fourth and
final category relates to political action. Here we learn that elite
consciousness precedes mass consciousness and that political
organization bridges the gap between the two. Political leaders and
parties have an independent role in shaping the social environment. 7
Brass emphasizes three major themes which he combines into the
central argument of his book. First, objective characteristics or 'givens'
such as language or religion are not givens and can be altered. Second,
political elites choose one symbol as primary and strive to bring other
symbols into line. This process, which the author labels 'multi-symbol
congruence', is the book's central concept. Finally, political
organizations
4 One Language, Two Scripts

do not merely reflect or transmit group consciousness, they also shape

it by the deliberate manipulation of symbols. Ethnic groups change into
communities and then into nationalities through the efforts of political
elites who choose a decisive cultural symbol and manoeuvre other
symbols into congruence. Political conflict can induce cleavages as
well as reflect them, and objective characteristics can be changed
during this process. In north India, Brass argues, political elites have
selected religion as the primary symbol and have exerted themselves to
make language and other symbols congruent.8
Two stages mark this process of transformation. In the first, ethnic
groups become subjectively conscious communities. An elite takes the
lead, attaches value to certain objective characteristics, defines group
boundaries, creates and communicates a myth, especially to the socially
mobilizing elements of the group. This stage requires four essential
components: the elite, the socially mobilizing population, another group
or groups from whom the first can be differentiated, and a 'pool of
symbols' suitable for differentiation. In the second stage, communities
become nationalities through articulating and acquiring political rights
for themselves. Although political demands can be made and even
conceded before a group becomes cohesive, 'the only proof of the
existence of a nationality is the achievement and maintenance of group
rights through political activity and political achievement'. 9

Historical Background
Few nations present a spectacle of greater linguistic diversity than
India. To those only casually acquainted with her, modern India must
seem a veritable jungle of languages, and authoritative sources
reinforce this impression. The massive Linguistic Survey of India listed
179 languages, the 1921 Census of India showed 188, and the
distinguished Indian linguist, S. K. Chatterji rounded the figure off to
180.10 If one looks more closely, however, these apparently
overwhelming numbers shrink to manageable proportions. The really
significant languages are about a dozen and include the vast majority of
India's population. The four major languages of the Dravidian language
family of South India— Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam—
along with the eight major languages of the Indo-European family of
north India—Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Punjabi,
and Assamese—accounted for 93 per cent of the 1981 population of
India." From this perspective India's linguistic diversity seems not
particularly remarkable for a continent-sized nation; Europe west of
Russia, roughly comparable in
 Introduction 5

size and population, includes more than twenty different nations using
more than twenty major languages.
This comparison draws attention to a remarkable fact. Faced with
continental-scale language problems, India has adopted an unusual
solution. Unlike most other modern nations, she has chosen to draw
many of her internal political boundaries on the basis of language. Of
the more than twenty states included in the Republic of India in 1990,
ten comprising approximately 55 per cent of the 1991 population
acquired their present borders for mainly linguistic reasons. 12 The great
majority of the population in each of these states speaks one language,
and in most cases the majority of the speakers of that language live in
that state.13 Moreover, each of the twelve languages listed above—with
the exception of Urdu14—is the chief (and official) language of at least
one major state, and every major state has one major language.
The idea of political units based on language appeared as early as
1921 when the Indian National Congress accepted the principle of
linguistic provinces. The Congress periodically reaffirmed its
commitment to this principle thenceforward, and as a result, shortly
after independence the Government of India appointed a Linguistic
Provinces Commission to study the question of establishing linguistic
states. In December 1948 the Commission unanimously concluded that
the formation of such states was 'not in the larger interests of the Indian
nation'.15 Clearly adopting an assimilationist view of nation-building,
the Commission warned that the demand for linguistic states would
'bring into existence provinces with a sub-national bias at a time when
nationalism is yet in its infancy'.16 Popular agitation, however,
eventually forced Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to agree to the
formation of a Telugu-speaking state, Andhra Pradesh, in 1952, and to
appoint a States Reorganization Commission in 1953 to resolve the
issue. Within a few years of the Commission's report in 1955, most of
the existing linguistic states had come into being, and India, willy nilly,
found herself far down the road towards a multi-nationalism.
The development of linguistic states has been partially countered by
the gradual growth of a national language, Hindi. This language serves
as the official medium of local government and also (with regional
variations) as the language of the vast majority of the population in a
large block of north Indian states, namely, Rajasthan, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. These
six states, with approximately 42 per cent of India's total population in
1991, give Hindi a commanding position, since no other language can
claim more
6 One Language, Two Scripts

than 8 per cent of the population. Hindi's only serious rival has been
English, which, although spoken as a mother tongue by only a tiny
fraction of the population and as a second language by a somewhat
larger number, still retains the prestige acquired under British rule and
boasts the advantage of being the communication medium of an all-
India elite.
Nationalist support for some form of Hindi as the national language
predated the founding in 1885 of the Indian National Congress itself. In
1882, Babu Syamcharan Ganguli predicted in The Calcutta Review that
a language he called 'Hindustani' which took the form of Urdu among
Muslims and Hindi among Hindus would eventually become the lingua
franca of India.17 By the early twentieth century the use of Hindi as the
national language had begun to be proposed by national leaders. By
1925 Mahatma Gandhi had persuaded the Congress to accept as its
official language a 'Hindustani' similar to that espoused by Ganguli.
Nationalist opposition to English continued to grow, and by 1947 the
need for an all-India official language to replace English had become
widely accepted by Indian patriots. Accordingly, the Constitution of
India included a provision that the official language of the Union
should continue to be English for a period of fifteen years until 1965,
when Hindi would replace it in most areas of official life. l8 During this
period the Government of India was to promote the use of Hindi in
order to gradually replace English.
Anti-Hindi feeling had existed for some time in non-Hindi-speaking
areas of India, however, particularly in Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where
what some called 'Hindi imperialism' was resented. Many non-Hindi-
speakers felt that Hindi's proposed role as sole official language would
give Hindi speakers an unfair advantage in the competition for
government employment. The Official Languages Act of 1963
intensified the controversy by giving Hindi the status of 'official
language' and English the status of 'associate or additional official
language'. Hindi advocates protested against what they considered to be
the postponement of Hindi becoming the sole official language, while
English supporters objected to the permissive rather than mandatory
continuance of English. Widespread violence in Tamil Nadu and
Andhra Pradesh marked the elevation of Hindi to the status of official
language in January 1965.19
The Official Languages (Amendment) Act of 1968 strengthened the
existing duality by not only stating (as did the 1963 Act) that English
might continue to be used for all those official purposes for which it
had
 Introduction 7

been used previously, but also by adding a list of specific purposes for
which English would continue to be used. Moreover, the 1968 Act gave
non-Hindi areas veto power over any displacement of English in this
list and did not declare any time limit by which Hindi should become
the sole official language. This situation has remained essentially
unchanged to the present. Both English and Hindi share the position of
official language, 'one de facto and the other de jure but hopeful of
becoming de facto eventually, even though without any certain
deadline'.20
The most vocal support for Hindi has come from the Hindi-speaking
areas of the north, particularly from India's most populous state, Uttar
Pradesh. Much of the intensity of the Hindi movement has come from
attitudes shaped during the long struggle of Hindi with Urdu, the chief
rival for an alternative indigenous national language for more than
three-quarters of a century before India's independence. Before Hindi
supporters could launch their language on the high seas of national
affairs in the twentieth century, they had to engage in a lengthy and
often bitter struggle to keep it afloat in the more sheltered waters of
provincial politics. While the Hindi movement in the nineteenth century
sprawled across several areas of British India, including the Punjab, the
Central Provinces, and Bihar, it reached the greatest intensity in the
United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh).21 Here, more than
anywhere else, the process of the identification of language and religion
envisaged in the 'multi-symbol congruence' of Brass dominated
provincial language politics.
Linguistic and Social Background
To understand the Hindi movement of the nineteenth century, one must
first become acquainted with some of the linguistic and social
characteristics of the Hindi-speaking area. Language maps of India
often show a single large area labelled 'Hindi' stretching across much of
northern India, suggesting a homogeneous linguistic region. Such an
image would be highly misleading, however, since this area displays
immense diversity. One American linguist, John Gumperz, has
characterized the internal complexities of the Hindi area by
distinguishing three strata of speech. The first lies at the village level,
where local dialects form a continuous chain from one end of the Hindi
area to the other and beyond. While speakers from widely separated
points along this linguistic continuum would have great difficulty in
making themselves understood to each other, those from adjacent
points would not.2' The second stratum, that of 'regional standards',
overlies the first.
8 One Language, Two Scripts

These regional standards occur in relatively homogeneous forms over

large areas, and some of them possess literary traditions of several
centuries. In Bihar, for example, three such standards, usually included
under the rubric of Hindi, exist: Maithili, Magahi, and Bhojpuri. In
Uttar Pradesh, the focus of our interest, four have importance: Bhojpuri
in the eastern, Avadhi in the central, Braj Bhasha in the southwestern,
and Khari Boli in the northwestern districts. Each of these has large
numbers of speakers: the 1901 Census, the last to list such figures,
showed that they included about 95 per cent of the population of the
province.23 Some of these languages—Maithili, Avadhi, Braj Bhasha,
and Khari Boli—have literary traditions of several centuries, while
others— Bhojpuri and Magahi—have rich oral folk literatures. Similar
regional standards exist in other parts of the Hindi area. Villagers use
these to talk with merchants in nearby trading centres and with
villagers from other areas. Small town residents use them as their
mother tongue, while both educated and uneducated city dwellers use
them at home or among friends.24
The third speech stratum, that of the 'standard' or 'Hindi-Urdu'
overlies the first two. The various styles of this stratum serve as the
mother tongue of only a minority of city residents; for most of those
who speak it, the standard is a second or third speech variety.
Historically this stratum originated in the Khari Boli regional standard
area, and all of its styles share this common grammatical basis.
Language scholars usually designate its two major divisions as Hindi
and Urdu, though some argue these should be considered two different
languages on political and cultural—not linguistic—grounds.25 Aside
from unimportant grammatical variations, vocabulary and script
constitute the principal differences between the two. The most formal
level of Hindi, sometimes referred to as 'high Hindi', uses a vocabulary
saturated with Sanskrit, while the corresponding level of Urdu,
sometimes called 'high Urdu', draws heavily on Persian and Arabic. On
this level the two come close to mutual unintelligibility. Other less
formal levels of Hindi and Urdu approach complete mutual
intelligibility, the main difference being the script employed.
The Urdu script, a modified version of the Persian script, itself a
modified version of the Arabic script, and the Nagari or Devanagari
script usually used for Hindi make very contrasting visual impressions.
The Urdu script flows across the page from right to left in graceful
curves and loops accentuated by long connecting lines, while the
Nagari marches from left to right in chunky blocks accompanied by a
nearly
 Introduction 9

continuous horizontal line above each word. While a consonantal

principle in which vowels receive only secondary importance at best
underlies the Urdu script, a syllabic principle in which both vowels and
consonants receive nearly equal treatment underlies the Nagari. Each
script has strong links with the sacred languages of different religions.
Most of the Sanskrit texts of Hinduism appear in Nagari, while most
versions of the Koran use the Arabic script. This connection of script
and language reinforces the tendency for Persian and Arabic words to
flow into Urdu, and Sanskrit words into Hindi.
Hindi and Urdu also look to different literary pasts. Historians of the
literatures of both claim traditions of several centuries. Those of Hindi
include most of the literature written in Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, and other
regional standards before the full development of Khari Boli Hindi
literature in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Those of Urdu
include the literature of Dakani (a regional variety of Urdu used in
medieval central India) as well as the later-developing Urdu of
northern India. Moreover, while Hindi turns to Sanskrit literature for
many literary forms, Urdu draws inspiration from Persian and Arabic
forms.
Urdu's association with Persian links this variety of the standard with
a political past of Muslim dominance. From the founding of the Delhi
Sultanate in the thirteenth century until the decline of the Mughal
Empire in the eighteenth century, much of north India came under
continuous Muslim rule. Even after British hegemony in the late
eighteenth century, Muslim kingdoms continued to exist in this area;
the most notable of these, Oudh, did not become part of British India
until 1856. Along with the lengthy continuity of Muslim supremacy
went the even lengthier continuity of the official language, Persian.
Throughout the period of Muslim dominance Persian remained the pre-
eminent language of administration in north India. Long after the
power and prestige of its imperial patrons had declined, Persian's own
prestige endured. Nearly eighty years after the battle of Plassey
established the rule of the East India Company in Bengal in 1757,
Persian still remained the official language of administration. Even
after this status was lost, Persian remained a popular subject of study in
parts of north India up to the beginning of the twentieth century.
When the Government of India replaced Persian in 1837, its
surrogate Urdu (also known as Hindustani) provided linguistic
continuity in much of Persian's former domain. Urdu kept some of the
grammatical forms, much of the vocabulary, and the script of its more
illustrious predecessor. Some writers of 'high Urdu' as one observer
noted, carried
10 One Language, Two Scripts

the use of Persian words to 'almost incredible extremes' so that one

could find 'whole sentences in which the only Indian thing is the
grammar, and with nothing but Persian words from beginning to end'. 26
The same observer contended that Hindus, not Muslims, had created
this highly Persianized language. Employed in the Muslim
administration and familiar with Persian, they had created Urdu by
using the Persian script for their vernacular and introducing Persian
words in place of their own.27 Whatever the truth of this contention, it
points to the undisputed fact that in much of nineteenth century north
India those familiar with Urdu and Persian included both Hindus and
Muslims. Even by the middle of the century, the process of multi-
symbol congruence which identified Hindus with Hindi and Muslims
with Urdu had not begun in earnest.
Three Hindu communities had particularly strong ties with Urdu and
Persian, namely, Kayasths, Kashmiri Brahmans, and Khatris. While
other Hindu communities also studied Urdu and Persian, these three
were the most disproportionately represented among Urdu users in
terms of their numbers in the general population. The Kayasths, known
for their attachment to literary occupations, government service, and
Islamic culture, were the most numerous of the three.28 In the United
Provinces, the principal centre of the Hindi movement, the bulk of this
community lived in the eastern portion of the province. Kashmiri
Brahmans, coming from an area famed for Sanskrit learning, included
some of the social and political elite of north India, the Nehrus of
Allahabad being the best-known. Khatris, who had proved equally
adept in trade and government service in the Punjab, were spread all
over north India, and some could even be found as far afield as Central
Asia. In the United Provinces during the second half of the nineteenth
century the largest concentrations of this community lived in Banaras
and Allahabad. Two of the three—Kayasths and Khatris—could claim
relatively high status among their fellow Hindus, while the third—
Kashmiri Brahmans—ranked among the very highest of Brahman
castes. The linguistic predilections of these communities rested on the
assumption that one could share the Urdu-Persian cultural tradition
with the Muslim community without jeopardizing one's status as a
Hindu.29
The Hindi movement, however, began to challenge this assumption
in the latter half of the century. Led by Hindu caste groups whose close
association with Sanskrit and Hindi learning handicapped them in the
increasing competition for government service, the essence of the
movement lay in efforts to differentiate Hindi from Urdu and to make
 Introduction 11

Hindi a symbol of Hindu culture. Seen in this light, the Hindi movement
formed part of a much broader process of the heightening of communal
awareness in pre-independence India, a transformation of ethnic groups into
communities and nationalities which culminated in the birth of Pakistan in
1947. The Hindi movement not only expressed but also reinforced this
awareness.

Recent Studies
Several scholars have dealt with various aspects of the relationships of
language, religion, and politics in north India during the nineteenth century.
Jurgen Liitt's Hindu Nationalisms in Uttar Prades 1867-1900.30 discusses the
development of a sense of common identity among Hindus in nineteenth
century Uttar Pradesh. He deals with several aspects of this process including
the cow protection movement, the Hindi movement, and the lives and thought
of several leading Hindus. The largest single portion of his work presents a
detailed study of the political and social thought of Bharatendu Harishchandra
(1850-85) of Banaras, generally considered to be the earliest major writer of
modern Hindi literature. Liitt's study covers much of the intellectual history of
Hindu nationalism in the province, and devotes some attention to the political
and cultural rivalries between Hindus and Muslims. His work gives little or no
space to other important aspects of Hindu nationalism and the Hindi
movement, however, such as Hindu-Muslim competition for government
service, the role of voluntary associations in giving organizational expression
to linguistic rivalries, the comparative development of Hindi and Urdu
publications, the place of Hindi and Urdu in the educational system, and the
relevant aspects of British language policy in neighbouring provinces.
Another relatively recent study by a German scholar, Kerrin Dittmer's Die
Indiscben Muslims and die Hindi-Urdu Kontroverse in den United Provinces,31
contains a considerable amount of material on the Hindi-Urdu controversy in
the United Provinces. Dittmer's work, unlike Liitt's, focuses on the Muslim
community of UP and covers both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This
study provides a valuable supplement to Liitt's through focusing more sharply
on one of several areas of Hindu-Muslim relations, and by giving more space
to the role of voluntary language associations and the place of Hindi and Urdu
in the educational system. Dittmer's account of Hyderabad as a centre of
patronage for Urdu is particularly useful. Yet Dittmer's study, like Liitt's, pays
little or no attention to the comparative development of
12 One Language, Two Scripts

Hindi and Urdu publications, gives only sketchy accounts of Hindu-

Muslim competition for government service and British language
policy in neighbouring provinces, and fails to mention the challenges
from within the Hindu cultural tradition-Braj Bhasha and the Kaithi
script —faced by Hindi and the Nagari script. Moreover, the author's
description of the voluntary organizations lacks careful analysis of their
structure, leadership, membership and finances.
A work by an Indian scholar, Jyotirindra Das Gupta's Language
Conflict and National Development,32 deals chiefly with the language
problems of India since independence, though giving some space to a
discussion of the origins and development of the Hindi movement.
After setting forth the theoretical background of the role of language in
national development and giving a general description of the linguistic
situation in contemporary India, Das Gupta turns to survey the rise of
voluntary language organizations and their politics in pre-independence
India. His discussion of nineteenth century language politics, unlike
Liitt's and Dittmer's, relies mostly on secondary works. After analysing
post-independence language politics, he presents a detailed description
of several major Hindi and Urdu language associations, giving brief
accounts of their origins and development, and more detailed analysis
of their organizational structure, leadership, and finances. Das Gupta
gives greater emphasis to the economic rivalries of Hindus and
Muslims and attempts more analysis of language associations than
either Liitt or Dittmer. Since his chief concern centres on twentieth
century language politics, however, he too passes over many
complexities of the Hindi movement of the nineteenth century.
Another work by an Indian scholar, Amrit Rai's A House Divided:
The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi,33focuses chiefly on the
history of Hindi and Urdu up to the early eighteenth century, with some
discussion of the implications of their relationship for subsequent
events in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The hea rt of Rai's
thesis lies in two assertions: first, prior to the decline of the Mughal
empire, a common language known as Hindi or Hindavi united many
Hindus and Muslims over wide areas of north and central India;
second, during this decline the nature of Hindi/Hindavi changed by the
deliberate removal of Sanskrit and Sanskrit-derived words and the
addition of Persian and Arabic words. The divisive consequences of
this 'reform', he contends, helped lead to the partition of British India
and still plagues the subcontinent today. Rai presents a detailed and
convincing analysis of the linguistic evidence, including copious
samples
 Introduction 13

from numerous texts. Since he gives his attention mainly to pre-British

India, however, he also must perforce present a much less detailed
picture of many facets of the later Hindi movement.

The Present Study

This study differs from those described above in two major ways. First,
I focus on the Hindi movement in nineteenth century north India and
attempt to deal with all the relevant aspects of the movement,
especially those ignored or only superficially dealt with in the previous
studies. Thus I include detailed analyses of the comparative
development of Hindi and Urdu publications, of the role of different
languages and scripts in both indigenous and British educational
institutions, of government language policy in education and
administration in neighbouring provinces as well as in UP, of
challenges to the dominance of Khari Boli Hindi and the Nagari script
from Braj Bhasha and the Kaithi script, of voluntary language
organizations, and of several other issues. Second, I try to
systematically apply some of the theories of Karl Deutsch as modified
by Paul Brass to the Hindi movement without sacrificing factual
materials or analytical insights which do not fit neatly into their
framework.
Although this study deals with the Hindi movement throughout north
India, Uttar Pradesh receives the bulk of the attention for several
reasons. First, the Hindi movement originated and remained centred in
this province. Here were founded the two most important voluntary
organizations for the promotion of the Hindi language and the Nagari
script, namely, the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras (1893) and the
Hindi Sahitya Sammelan of Allahabad (1910). Second, during the
nineteenth century the movement reached its greatest intensity in UP.
To the west in the Punjab, the dominant position of Urdu remained
practically undisputed during our period. To the south in the Central
Provinces and to the east in Bihar, the Nagari script won victories two
or three decades before the turn of the century. In UP, however, the
struggle continued to the end of the century, marked by a significant
political victory in 1900 when the provincial government issued a
directive declaring Hindi and the Nagari script equal to Urdu and the
Urdu script in the courts and offices. Finally, the bulk of the sources
concern the UP as a direct consequence of the two preceding reasons.
In dealing with a movement characterized by strong partisan
feelings, one needs to become aware not only of the biases of one's
sources but also of one's own biases. Perhaps the most important bias
comes from
14 One Language, Two Scripts

knowing how things turned out, in this case the ultimate triumph of
Hindi over Urdu, an outcome by no means obvious to the opposing
partisans of the nineteenth century. This bias may well have led me to
give greater importance to certain events which contemporary
observers might have disregarded, and less importance to other events
which they might have emphasized.
Another bias might appear to come from the use of a greater number
of Hindi as compared to Urdu sources, from which a critic might well
argue that a pro-Hindi perspective becomes a near-certainty. In rebuttal,
I would point out that the great majority of the non-English sources for
the Hindi movement are in Hindi. Moreover, the extensive sources in
English include several which ably present the viewpoint of Urdu
supporters. Lastly, I would argue that to understand the Hindi
movement, one must attempt to see the process through the eyes of
Hindi supporters, something best accomplished through using the
sources in the language in which they customarily expressed
themselves.
Yet another bias stems from the fact that I am a foreigner in India,
and no foreigner, a critic might maintain, can hope to approach the
detailed and intimate knowledge possessed by Indian scholars in
dealing with the manifold complexities of Indian languages and
literatures. True, few foreigners can hope to compete with Indians in
mastery of Indian languages, and no foreigner can hope to compete
with them in the intuitive understanding of the social and cultural
context of these languages. Such shortcomings seem to inevitably
dilute foreigners' understanding of what they study and unconsciously
distort their judgements. While admitting the validity of such criticism,
I would counter by asserting that the very shortcomings cited can
become important assets. Thus, foreign scholars do not share the biases
of Indian scholars. They bring viewpoints which, although subject to
other biases, allow them to see and interpret events differently from
Indian scholars. I would also argue that foreigners can more easily
reach a more impartial position because they are more removed from
the personal vested interests and influences of environment and
education which give Indians both their superior intuitive
understanding and their greater likelihood of unconscious bias.
Our imaginary critic might ask one last question: if we grant that
foreigners may have certain advantages in reaching a more impartial
standpoint, does this not mean that they become at the same time more
neutral, more indifferent? To this I would reply with two statements.
First, no scholar, whether foreign or Indian, can ever be completely
 Introduction 15

impartial. All of us, by virtue of being born in a certain place at a

certain time, of being a certain sex or a certain age, of being educated
in a certain way, etc., etc., must necessarily possess various largely
unconscious habits of perception and interpretation of whatever we
experience.34 None of us can more than partially free ourselves from
these inescapable sources of bias. Second, to attempt to become
impartial does not necessarily mean to become neutral or indifferent.
To be impartial means to weigh the evidence as even-handedly as
possible before taking some definite stand, while to be neutral or
indifferent means not taking a definite stand. I beg the reader's
indulgence for first attempting to present the evidence before explicitly
presenting a viewpoint in my conclusion.

Main Themes and Precis

The principal thesis of this book is that the Hindi movement of
nineteenth century north India expressed a Hindu nationalism whose
essence lay in the denial of existing assimilation to cultural traditions
associated with Muslim rule and the affirmation of potential
differentiation from these traditions. In this the Hindi movement
overlapped with other expressions of Hindu nationalism such as the
cow protection agitation in eastern UP in the 1890s, Tilak's revival of
Hindu festivals in Maharashtra, and the growth of the Arya Samaj in
the Punjab and other provinces of north India. In other words, one can
view the Hindi movement as part of a process of multi-symbol
congruence in which Hindu supporters of Hindi strove to transform the
existing equations of Urdu = Muslim + Hindu and Hindi = Hindu +
Muslim into Urdu = Muslim and Hindi = Hindu. In the twentieth
century this process resulted in the coining of slogans such as 'Hindi,
Hindu, Hindustan', a three-fold assertion of the identity of language,
religion, and motherland.
This thesis needs qualification, however, for the major 'objective
characteristics' of language and religion display considerable diversity.
To begin with, some Hindus supported Hindi, while others opposed
Hindi and promoted Urdu. Still other Hindus gave only lukewarm
encouragement to Hindi, and the great majority remained uninvolved.
Similarly, some Muslims supported Urdu, a very few supported Hindi,
while many showed little concern. Moreover, Hindi included not only
Khari Boli but also other literary dialects, and Urdu incorporated
competing styles. Thus the Hindi movement consisted of certain
groups of Hindus advocating a certain kind of Hindi asserting their
differences from certain Muslims and attempting to impose their views
on other
16 One Language, Two Scripts

Hindus. Advocates of Khari Boli Hindi encountered opposition not

only from Muslims, but also from other Hindus who had vested
interests in Urdu and Persian or strong attachments to the literary
traditions of other regional standards. Similarly advocates of the Nagari
script faced a challenge not only from the Urdu script but also from the
Kaithi script, a cursive version of the Nagari widely used in eastern UP
and Bihar.
This study also suggests that the growth of the government's
vernacular educational system in both Hindi and Urdu played a crucial
role in the mobilization of those groups of Hindus who took the lead in
the Hindi movement. The same groups who traditionally studied Hindi
and Sanskrit in indigenous schools before the spread of government
education continued their linguistic loyalties in the new system and
eventually furnished much of the membership of the voluntary
language organizations which espoused the cause of Hindi. Finding
themselves in a linguistically bifurcated educational system whose
main purpose lay in qualifying thousands of students for government
service, but also in an administrative system which favoured one of the
two vernacular mediums of education, Urdu, these groups naturally
supported a movement which aimed at a rectification of this imbalance
among other things. In Brass's terms, the perception of uneven rates of
social change between different groups stimulated the development of
group consciousness.
Economic motives alone, however, cannot explain the mobilization
of Hindi supporters, for while the Hindi movement had strong anti-
Muslim overtones, many of the Urdu-speaking elite who monopolized
government, service were Hindus. Cultural and emotional attitudes
towards language, script, and literary traditions had as much
importance as economic rivalry, for they furnished the channels
through which this rivalry could be expressed. The promoters of Hindi
engaged in Brass's process of 'internal value creation' by creating myths
of the antiquity of Hindi and by attaching value to Hindi as a symbol of
group identity.
For some of the most important leaders of the Hindi movement,
cultural and emotional attitudes proved far more important than any
personal economic gain to be realized through the government's
potential adoption of Hindi and Nagari. Such attitudes led to the anti-
Muslim aspects of the movement, for Hindi and the Nagari script, and
Urdu and the Urdu script looked to different religious and historical
traditions which had often clashed. Those who looked to the past
glories of Hindi literature simultaneously looked to the splendour of
periods of Hindu rule in which Muslims acted as invaders and villains.
In other words, to
 Introduction 17

revive Hindi literature meant to revive the communal rivalries

expressed therein.
Throughout the nineteenth century government played an important
but inconsistent role, which added to linguistic and communal rivalry,
especially in UP. First, while some government policies encouraged
and patronized both Hindi and Urdu as two distinct entities, others
sought to minimize the difference, while still others favoured Urdu. On
the one hand, government helped to create and maintain two separate
vernacular linguistic traditions, and on the other hand, thwarted the
prospects of one of them. Moreover, British perceptions of 'Hindu' and
'Muslim' as the two fundamental divisions of Indian society," despite
the manifest diversity of these 'objective characteristics' intensified
communal rivalries. These perceptions served to weaken what Hindus
and Muslims perceived themselves to have in common, and to
strengthen what the two perceived as differences. In short, government
aided the process of the identification of language and religion, i.e., the
process of multi-symbol congruence. Persistent support of Urdu went
hand-in-glove with government's special interest in maintaining the
loyalty of Muslims. Where Muslims were numerous or influential—
Punjab and UP—Urdu remained entrenched until independence; where
they were not—Bihar and the Central Provinces—Hindi and the Nagari
script replaced Urdu. Lastly, government, which held the power to
grant or withhold recognition and patronage, served as the final arbiter
to whom both Urdu and Hindi supporters appealed. Language agitators
attempted to influence key officials through meetings, petitions with
hundreds or thousands of signatures, delegations, letters, books and
pamphlets. These officials could balance the claims of the contending
parties, or throw their weight to one side or the other.
We can view the Hindi movement as a reactive force to
contradictions in government policy, a force channelled through
already existing cultural patterns. We can also see the movement as an
active force to which government and the defenders of Urdu reacted.
Both interpretations have merit, nor does one exclude the other. In
either case, the supporters of Hindi needed some form of organization
to transmit their aims to the literate public. (The rural masses were left
almost entirely untouched by the Hindi-Urdu controversy.) During the
latter part of the nineteenth century the Hindi press and a number of
voluntary associations provided the necessary organization. Since
newspapers and associations often had ephemeral existences and
numerous other concerns besides Hindi, the movement lacked
continuity for most of
18 One Language, Two Scripts

this period, flaring up and dying down as circumstances shifted. With

the founding of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion
of Nagari).36 in 1893, the first important (and still existing) organization
devoted exclusively to the progress of Hindi and the Nagari script, the
movement gained greater force and stability. A few years later in 1900,
Hindi advocates won their first major victory when the government of
UP officially recognized Hindi and the Nagari script as equal to Urdu in
the provincial courts and offices. Members of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha had much to do with this success.
At first glance, the course of the Hindi movement in the nineteenth
century seems to fit the sequence of transformation from ethnic group
to community to nationality posited by Brass. Before the 1860s no
Hindi movement existed, as contemporary statements make clear,
although the efforts of vernacular authors and the establishment of a
linguistically bifurcated vernacular education system had created the
potential for differentiation between Hindi and Urdu. During the 1860s
the first statements identifying Hindi with Hindus and Urdu with
Muslims appeared, and the process of developing an awareness of a
common identity on the basis of language and religion began. This
process continued during the rest of the century, and by 1900 the
movement had won a major political victory. At this point, then, we
should arrive at a Hindi-speaking Hindu nationality, for 'a community
becomes a nationality ... when it makes political demands and achieves
a significant measure of success by its own efforts.'37
But the complexities of the linguistic situation and the composition
of the community which won the victory conditioned the nature of the
success. In brief, the political victory of those groups of Hindus who
composed the 'community' behind the Hindi movement was vitiated by
the open or tacit opposition of other groups of Hindus who continued to
value the Urdu-Persian tradition for economic and cultural reasons.
Hindi's supporters had failed to make the entire educated Hindu
community identify itself with Hindi. Moreover, they faced challenges
from another literary dialect (Braj Bhasha) and another script (Kaithi),
both from within the Hindu cultural tradition. Khari Boli Hindi, then,
was only one of several competing linguistic traditions and involved
only part of even the educated Hindu community. Hence to speak of a
Hindi-speaking Hindu nationality in 1900 would be premature, despite
an apparently major political victory. This victory proved hollow
precisely because advocates of Khari Boli Hindi could not speak for the
entire Hindu community or even its educated portion. In short, the
 Introdu
ction 19

community behind the Hindi movement cannot be said to have become a

nationality in Brass's sense by 1900. This community was rather a small
portion of a much larger body of Hindus, a portion attempting to convert other
Hindus to a particular idea of Hindu nationality, the congruence of language
and religion.
In the remainder of this study, I examine the development of the Hindi
movement by presenting the relevant cultural, political, and economic
background and then turning to a detailed history of the movement itself, using
but not bound by the theoretical framework offered by Deutsch and Brass.
Chapter II analyses the development and expansion of the printing of books
and periodicals in UP, traces certain aspects of the history of Hindi and Urdu
literature from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, and discusses
the challenge posed by Braj Bhasha. Chapter III outlines the essential features
of government language policy in several provinces of north India through
most of the nineteenth century, demonstrates the important and contradictory
role of government in laying part of the necessary groundwork for and shaping
the development of the Hindi movement, and analyses the claims of Kaithi.
Chapter IV deals with the character of both indigenous and governmental
educational systems in terms of languages studied, the social background of the
students, and the relationship of education to employment, especially
government employment. This chapter also argues that the social origins of the
Hindi movement can be determined by comparing patterns of membership in
educational systems and in voluntary Hindi associations. Chapter V describes
and analyses the history of the Hindi movement from the initial controversies
of the 1860s to the government decision of 1900 favouring Hindi and the
Nagari script, while Chapter VI provides a summary and conclusion. The
organization of this study is thus both chronological and topical, each
succeeding chapter beginning its narrative and analysis at a later date than the
preceding chapter and dealing with a different aspect of the subject. All
through the study my principal concern focuses on describing and analysing
the process by which some Hindus strove to bring 'Hindi' and 'Hindu' into
congruence.

NOTES

1. NWP Educ Rpt. 1846-47, p. 32. Spoken in 1847 by a Hindu student of Sanskrit at
Benares College to Dr Ballantyne, Principal of the English Department. See the
section of Chapter IV entitled 'Attitudes towards the Vernaculars'.
20 One Language, Two Scripts

2. Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication, 2nd edition (Cambridge,

Massachusetts, 1966) pp. 96-105.
3. Karl Deutsch, 'Social Mobilization and Political Development', The American
Political Science Review, LV, 3 (September 1961), p. 493, passim; Deutsch,
Nationalism, pp. 120-2, 125-6,137-42, 156-63.
4. Paul Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (London, 1974).
5. These objective characteristics refer to such things as language, culture, territory, diet,
dress, etc. rather than to any role in a societal division of labour. Brass, Language, p.
8.
6. Ibid., pp. 8, 22.
7. Ibid., pp. 23-43.
8. Ibid., pp. 28, 45-6.
9. Ibid., pp. 44-5.
10. S. K. Chatterji, Indo-Aryan and Hindi, 2nd edition (Calcutta, 1960), pp. 141-2.
11. The inclusion of languages under various rubrics, especially 'Hindi', has varied from
census to census, and hence no figure can be exact. In the 1971 Census, for example,
Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Chhattisgarhi, and Maithili (making up 6.1% of the total
population) which previous censuses lumped under Hindi, were listed separately.
Hindi, which was given 28.1% in this census, could thus be expanded up to 34.2%.
Language figures from the 1991 Census were not available at the time of writing,
but there is no reason to believe they would be significantly different in terms of
percentages.
12. These ten (and the majority language of each) are: Andhra Pradesh (Telugu), Assam
(Assamese), Gujarat (Gujarati), Karnataka (Kannada), Kerala (Malay-alam),
Maharashtra (Marathi), Orissa (Oriya), Punjab (Punjabi), Tamil Nadu (Tamil), and
West Bengal (Bengali).
13. The chief exception is Bengali, the major language of both West Bengal and the
independent nation of Bangladesh.
14. In 1989 Urdu became an additional official language in Uttar Pradesh. 1990
Britannica Book of the Year (Chicago, 1990), p. 449. Urdu has long been the official
language of Pakistan.
15. Report of the Linguistic Provinces Commission 1948 (New Delhi, 1948), p. 34.
16. Ibid., p. 29.
17. Syamcharan Ganguli, 'Hindi, Hindustani and the Behar Dialects', The Calcutta
Review, LXXV, 1882, p. 25.
18. Report of the Official Language Commission 1955 (New Delhi, 1957), pp. 105-31,
378-83.
19. B. R. Nayar, National Communication and Language Policy in India (New York,
1969), pp. 106-13.
20. Ibid., p. 126.
21. The region of northern India known as the North-Western Provinces and Oudh came
into existence over a period of more than 80 years through five major and several
minor territorial acquisitions. During the Governor-Generalship of Warren Hastings,
the ruler of Oudh, Asaf-ud-Daulah, was forced in 1775 to surrender areas under his
feudatory, the Raja of Banaras. The next two additions came in rapid succession: in
1801 Governor General Wellesley forced the ruler
 Introduction 21

of Oudh to cede nearly half the remainder of his kingdom, and in 1803 English victories
in the second Anglo-Maratha War brought large tracts from the Maratha prince Sindhia.
The fourth gain came at the end of the Nepal War in 1816 when the British obtained the
hill districts bordering on Nepal and Tibet.
Until 1834 all of this region came under the jurisdiction of the government of the
Presidency of Bengal. In that year a new Presidency of Agra came into existence on a
level with the three older Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. Two years later
the new Presidency was demoted to the North-Western Provinces under the rule of a
Lieutenant-Governor. The new province kept the same name and most of the same
territory for a little more than forty years. Upon its inauguration, the North-Western
Provinces (NWP) included the Delhi Territories (the city and district of Delhi, and
several districts of what was to become the Punjab), Ajmer (a princely state of
Rajputana), and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories (areas in the hilly plateau region of
central India). Fourteen years later Merwara (another princely state in Rajputana) was
added. In subsequent years each of these additions was incorporated into other
jurisdictions: after 1857 the Delhi Territories went to the new province of the Punjab, in
1861 the Saugor and Nerbudda territories became part of the Central Provinces, and by
1871 Ajmer and Merwara had come under the supervision of the Government of India.
1840 and 1853 saw other minor additions to the south-western portion of the North-
Western Provinces.
In 1856 came the fifth major territorial increase with the annexation of Oudh. The
North-Western Provinces continued to be administered by a Lieutenant-Governor, while
Oudh was governed by a Chief Commissioner. In 1877 the two provinces were
completely amalgamated with the new name of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh
and the separate offices of Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Commissioner combined into
one. In 1902 the province was renamed the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (or
simply the United Provinces) and kept this name until independence in 1947 when it
became Uttar Pradesh. C. Collin Davies, An Historical Atlas of the Indian Peninsula, 2nd
edition (Oxford, 1959), pp. 52-5,58-61,66-7,72-3; Douglas Dewar, A Handbook to the
English Pre-Mutiny Records in the Government Record Rooms of the United Provinces of
Agra and Oudh (n.p., [c. 1919]), p. 484; The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume XXTV,
New Edition (Oxford, 1908), pp. 158-9; R. C. Majumdar et al„ An Advanced History of
India, 2nd edition (London, 1963), pp. 694,705-6,720-1,722-3.
22. John J. Gumperz, 'Language Problems in the Rural Development of North India',
Journal of Asian Studies, XVI, 2 (February, 1957), pp. 252-4; John J. Gumperz,
'Dialect Differences and Social Stratification in a North Indian Village', American
Anthropologist, LX, 4 (August, 1958), pp. 668-82; Gerald Kelley, 'The Status of
Hindi as a Lingua Franca', in William Bright, editor, Sociolinguistics (The Hague,
1966), pp. 299-308.
23. Census of India, 1901, Volume XVI, Part I, pp. 179, 183. In calculating this
percentage, 'Urdu or Hindostani' was taken to equal Khari Boli, both 'Braj' and
'Kaunaujia' were taken to equal Braj Bhasha, and 'Bagheli' was included in Awadhi'.
See Sir George Abraham Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India (Calcutta, 1903-28),
Volume VI, p. 1 and Volume IX, p. 1.
22 One Language, Two Scripts

24. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, V, p. 46; VI, pp. 12, 19; IX, pp. 47-8, 74-5, 83;
Gumperz, 'Language Problems', p. 82; Gumperz, 'Some remarks on Regional and
Social Language Differences in India', in Introduction to the Civilization of India
(Chicago, 1957), p. 33; John J. Gumperz and C. M. Nairn, 'Formal and Informal
Standards in the Hindi Regional T anguage Area', in Charles A. Ferguson and John J.
Gumperz, editors, Linguistic Diversity in South Asia: Studies in Regional, Social and
Functional Variation, International journal of American Linguistics, XXVI, 3 (1960),
p. 95; Ashok R. Kelkar, Studies in Hindi-Urdu (Poona, 1968), chart facing p. 16.
25. See, for example, Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of
Hindt/Hindavi (Delhi, 1984), pp. 287-9.
26. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, IX, Part 1, p. 45.
27. Ibid.
28. See Karen B. Leonard, The Kayasths of Hyderabad City, Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, 1969.
29. Census of India, 1911, VolumeXV, Part I, pp. 255,273; William Crooke, Tribes and
Castes of the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh, Volume III (Calcutta, 1906), pp.
184, 213-16, 264-7, 274-7; Kelkar, Studies in Hindi-Urdu, p. 9; Percival Spear,
editor, The Oxford History of India, 3rd edition (Oxford, 1958), p. 195.
30. Jurgen Liitt, Hindu-Nationalismus in UttarPrades 1867-1900 (Stuttgart, 1970).
31. Kerrin Dittmer, Die Indischen Muslims und die Hindi- Urdu Kontroverse in den
United Provinces (Wiesbaden, 1972).
32. Jyotirindra Das Gupta, Language Conflict and National Development (Berkeley,
1970).
33. Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi (Delhi:
1984).
34. In this regard see the writings of the American anthropologist Edward T. Hall,
especially chapters 3 and 4 of his Beyond Culture (Garden City, 1977). Hall argues
that 'once learned, behavior patterns . . . habitual responses . . . [and] ways of
interacting gradually sink below the surface of the mind and, like the admiral of a
submerged submarine fleet, control from the depths' (p. 42).
35. See Francis Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims (Cambridge, 1974), p. 98.
36. During our period, 'Nagari' when used by Hindi supporters, often had the meaning of
both Hindi and the Nagari script used to write it. Hence the name of the Sabha
implies a concern with both language and script. Shri Ray Krishna Das, Interview,
April 6, 1972, Banaras.
37. Brass, Language, pp. 8-9.
 CHAPTER II

The Development of Differentiation

It is my opinion that Hindi and Urdu are two very different languages.
The Hindus of this country speak Hindi, while Muslims and those
Hindus who have studied Persian speak Urdu. Sanskrit words abound
in Hindi as Arabic and Persian words abound in Urdu. There is no
necessity to use Arabic and Persian words in speaking Hindi, nor do I
call that language Hindi which is filled with Persian and Arabic words. 1

Introduction
Long before the beginning of the Hindi movement in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, the ingredients existed for the differentiation of
Khari Boli into the two distinct entities of Urdu and Hindi: the Urdu
and Nagari scripts, and two differing sources for higher vocabulary, the
classical languages of Persian and Arabic, and Sanskrit. From one point
of view, the Hindi-Urdu controversy could be traced back to the
medieval Muslim invasions of India and the resulting Indo-Persian
linguistic synthesis which came to be known as Urdu. Another point of
view appears in a recent study by an Indian scholar, who argues that
the excessive Persianization of what he calls Hindi/Hindavi, formerly
the common literary language of Hindus and Muslims, in the
eighteenth century led to the dramatic linguistic and literary split
between Hindi and Urdu.2 From still another point of view one could
claim that the first important expression of differentiation between
Hindi and Urdu took place in Fort William College in the first years of
the nineteenth century. Here, with the encouragement of some of the
officials and instructors, two distinct prose styles, both based on Khari
Boli, began to develop though their identification with separate
religious traditions lay decades in the future. The rapid expansion of
publishing and journalism later in the century strengthened the existing
differentiation between Hindi and Urdu, and made impossible any
assimilation between the two.
Similar ingredients for differentiation existed within the Hindi
tradition long before the start of the Hindi movement. In the realm of
poetry, the regional standard Braj Bhasha overshadowed Khari Boli
until well into the twentieth century. Little poetry of any consequence
appeared in Khari Boli until the 1880s, nor did this tradition reach
respectability
24 One Language, Two Scripts

in full until the 1920s with the appearance of the Chayavad (romantic or
symbolist) movement. In the more practical realm of script, Nagari had
several cursive variants, the most important of which—the Kaithi
script—enjoyed considerable popularity in Bihar and the eastern UP,
and sometimes even received the patronage of local or even provincial
governments. Assimilation eventually outpaced differentiation in these
two realms, however, and neither Braj Bhasha nor Kaithi posed any
serious threat to Khari Boli Hindi in the Nagari script by the time of
independence.

The Early Literary History of Urdu and Hindi

Scholars have traced the literary heritage of Urdu to as early as the
fourteenth century, when a language known as Dakani flourished in the
Deccan.' Some of them assert that Dakani's grammatical basis stems
from several closely related dialects—including Khari Boli—of the
eastern Punjab and western UP.4 The earliest prose literature in this
medium consisted largely of the treatises and popular tracts of various
Sufi orders, written in many cases using a vocabulary largely free from
Persian and Arabic terms and drawing instead on Sanskrit and local
languages. Poetry in Dakani began to appear before the close of the
sixteenth century; one of the earliest poets was Muhammad Quli Qutb
Shah (ruled 1580-1611), renowned ruler of the Deccan Muslim
kingdom of Golconda. Dakani poetry borrowed Persian literary forms
and used Persian and Arabic vocabulary, but also freely employed
indigenous metres and vocabulary and included both Persian and Indian
literary themes.5
The Mughal campaigns of the seventeenth century not only put an
end to the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda which had patronized
Dakani, but also brought southwards the influence of the more Persian-
ized Urdu of north India. While the style of the north eventually
triumphed in the ensuing struggle, it was a poet of the south who
established Persianized Urdu as a suitable vehicle for poetry in Mughal
India. Wali (1667-1707) though born in the Deccan used a language
style much like the Urdu of Delhi, and his visit to that city around the
turn of the century marked the beginning of a poetic tradition in the
north where Urdu had hitherto been considered unfit for poetry. A line
of major Urdu poets arose in Delhi and continued well into the
nineteenth century, while somewhat later poets in the eastern UP city of
Lucknow began to rival their colleagues in Delhi. As Persianized Urdu
gained in popularity and prestige, an older Muslim tradition of writing
 The Development of Differentiation 25

poetry in Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, and other literary regional standards

gradually came to an end, while many north Indian Hindus began to
employ this new literary medium.6 Like Urdu poetry, Urdu prose
showed little development before the early eighteenth century. Persian
furnished the normal medium for prose, and heavily influenced early
Urdu prose.7
Some historians of Hindi literature claim an ancestry for prose in
Khari Boli Hindi stretching back to the sixteenth century, but they can
adduce only a handful of examples before 1800. 8 The tenuous nature of
their claims becomes apparent when one authority argues on the
strength of a single example that polished prose existed in Khari Boli
Hindi more than sixty years before the founding of Fort William
College, yet only a few pages later admits that 'in reality at that time [c.
1800] prose works existed in neither Urdu nor Hindi'.9 Poetry in Khari
Boli Hindi, as we have seen, did not appear until the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. Because of this lack of antiquity in Khari Boh
Hindi's literary tradition, Hindi supporters of the nineteenth, and Hindi
historians of the twentieth century usually include the older literary
traditions of Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, and other regional standards in
discussing 'Hindi' literature of the more distant past. When discussing
the literature of the more recent past and the present, however, they
largely ignore these other traditions in favour of Khari Boli. Thus the
myth of the antiquity of 'Hindi' literature masks the reality that Khari
Boli Hindi literature lagged far behind its rival Urdu. Part of the
process of the construction of myths through which elites attach value
to symbols of group identity, then, seems to involve ignoring
ambiguities or contradictions in these symbols.

The College of Fort William

On 10 July 1800, the Governor-General, Lord Wellesley, announced
the founding of the College of Fort William in Calcutta. He intended
that the new institution should improve both the education and the
discipline of the young servants of the East India Company in India.
The proposed curriculum included instruction not only in English,
classics, geography, mathematics, modern European languages, and the
natural sciences, but also in Hindu and Muslim law, Indian history, and
Indian languages. For classical languages the College offered Arabic,
Persian, and Sanksrit, and for vernacular languages Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, and Hindustani.10 Wellesley also
announced that after January 1801 no civil service appointments would
be given to
26 One Language, Two Scripts

anyone failing to pass the appropriate language examinations." Since

few if any textbooks existed in any of the Indian vernaculars, a major
portion of the efforts of the Indian and European language instructors
went into creating such materials.
In 1800, neither the Hindi nor Urdu forms of Khari Boli had prose
traditions of any importance.l:2 Through the efforts of European and
Indian scholars, teachers, and linguists at the College and at the nearby
and closely connected Serampore Mission, a new tradition of prose in
both forms came into being. While the majority of the Hindi and Urdu
works created at these institutions were language textbooks or
missionary tracts and translations, some achieved significant popularity
as works of literature. A new kind of literature blending Indian and
Western forms and content now existed to serve as a model for future
writers of Hindi and Urdu.
The most important European scholar in the development of Hindi
and Urdu prose was an energetic Scotsman, John B. Gilchrist. Arriving
in India in 1782, the 23-year-old Gilchrist soon embarked on the
creation of his English and Hindoostanee Dictionary published in two
parts in 1786 and 1790. Other works followed: A Grammar of the
Hindoostanee Language in 1796, an Appendix to the grammar and
dictionary in 1798, and The Oriental Linguist, an introductory treatise
on Hindustani, also in 1798. In 1799 Wellesley appointed him as a
teacher of Hindustani and Persian to the Company's junior civil
servants, and a year later as Professor of Hindustani in the College.
Gilchrist continued his connection with the college for more than three
years, eventually resigning in 1804. During his tenure he authored or
supervised the writing of a good many textbooks in several languages,
saw them through press, continued his teaching duties, and invented a
system of transliteration in Roman letters for Indian languages. For
many years after his resignation and return to Britain, he continued to
teach and to produce works on Hindustani.13
Gilchrist's writings suggest that the ingredients for the bifurcation of
Khari Boli into two forms existed at the very beginning of the rise of
the new prose tradition. Writing in 1798 about some of the difficulties
in the composition of his Hindustani dictionary, carried out with the aid
of Indian colleagues, he noted:
My learned associates, were some of them with their mind's eye
roaming for far-fetched expressions on the deserts of Arabia, others
were beating every bush and scampering over every mountain of
Persia, while the rest were groping in the dark intricate mines and
caverns of Sunskrit [sic] lexicography, totally overlooking in these
pedantic excursions the most
 The Development of Differentiation 27

essential reflections, that my operations were avowedly directed to, and

calculated for the open, accessible plains of Hindoostan.14 Gilchrist's words
clearly imply that Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian scholars felt obliged to stuff the
vernaculars with classical vocabulary. A quarter century later Captain Price,
one of Gilchrist's successors at the College, referred to the same phenomenon.
'The great difference between Hindee [Hindi] and Hindoostanee [Urdu],' he
wrote in 1824, 'consists in the words, those of the former being almost all
Sunskrit [sic] and those of the latter, for the greater part Persian and Arabic . . .
.'15
The College favoured Hindustani (Urdu) over any form of Hindi, presaging
the later attitudes of many British officials towards the two. The regulations
establishing the College made no mention of Hindi among the subjects to be
taught, although a Nagari writing master appeared on the rolls of the Hindustani
Department in 1801, the year in which instruction actually began. Later
appointments included 'Bhakha' (Hindi) pandits, and in 1807 a revision of the
regulations (confining the institution to instruction in Oriental languages and
literatures) added Hindi to Hindustani, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi.
Hindi was not seriously taught until 1815, however, and did not receive formal
recognition as an important vernacular until 1825, only a few years before the
College ceased to be a viable educational institution. Moreover, no separate
department of Hindi ever seems to have existed; both teaching and the writing
of textbooks in Hindi appear to have been subsumed under the Hindustani
department. The great majority of works produced by this department were in
Hindustani (some of which were printed in the Nagari script) while only a few
works appeared in Khari Boli Hindi and Braj Bhasha.16
Though most of the works in Hindi and Urdu by the European and Indian
scholars of the College had little popularity or influence, being chiefly intended
as textbooks and readers for language students, a few of them achieved a
considerable reputation. Prem Sugar (The Ocean of Love) of Lallu Lal, a
Bhakha pandit, first appeared in 1805 and went through at least fifteen editions
during the nineteenth century, including several in English and at least one in
the Gujarati script. This book consisted of a translation from Braj Bhasha verse
into Khari Boli Hindi prose, and told the story of the life of Krishna based on
the Sanskrit scripture, the Bhagavata Purana. Lallu Lal deliberately set out to
exclude words from languages associated with Muslims, so although a few
Persian and Turkish words crept in, the vocabulary overflowed with Sanskrit,
Braj, and Avadhi borrowings.17
Several Urdu works enjoyed a popularity even greater than that of
28 One Language, Two Scripts

Prem Sagar. Singhasun Butteesee, a collection of stories by Lallu Lal and

Kazim Ali Jawan went through at least eighteen editions by 1900, many of
them in the Nagari script, while Buetal Pucheesee by Lallu Lai and Mahar Ali
Khan, a similar collection, went through at least twenty-two editions, including
several translations into English.18 Bagh-o-Bahar, a collection of tales
translated from Persian by Mir Amman under Gilchrist's S. Supervision, proved
the most popular of all, reaching thirty editions by 1900, including translations
into English and French.1" The language of Singhasun and Buetal has been
described by one scholar as 'a strange mixture of Sanskrit, Perso-Arabic, Braj
Bhasha, Avadhi and Bihari words',20 a mixture which might well have
represented a linguistic compromise between the Hindu and Muslim joint
authors.

Early Nineteenth Century Prose Writers in Hindi and Urdu

Early nineteenth century prose literature in both forms of Khari Boli showed
considerable variation in vocabulary sources, as we have seen, and authors saw
no discrepancy in using the Nagari script for both Hindi and Urdu. Moreover, a
brief glimpse at the careers of the four most important writers in Khari Boli
Hindi during this period indicates that they had no objections to drawing from
both Hindi and Muslim cultural traditions. Two of these writers, Lallu Lal and
Sadal Mishra, served as pandits in the College of Fort William, while the other
two, Munshi Sadasukhlal and Insha Allah Khan, had more independent literary
careers.
Lallu Lal (c. 1763-c. 1824), a Gujarati Brahman from Agra, first joined the
staff of the College in 1801. During his tenure he authored at least twelve
works, among them prose writings in Braj Bhasha, Khari Boli Hindi, and
Hindustani. Sadal Mishra, a Bihari Brahman, worked at the College from 1803
to 1809. The works accredited to him include a translation of a Sanskrit text
into a Khari Boli Hindi flavoured with Braj Bhasha and the regional standards
of Bihar, and the Ramcharitra, a heavily Sanskritized Khari Boli version of the
story of the Hindu deity Rama. Mishra also authored a Hindi-Persian
vocabulary, and edited a version of the Ramcharitmanas, the most famous
work of the great sixteenth century Avadhi poet Tulsidas.21
Munshi Sadasukhlal {c. 1746-c 1824), a Kayasth from Delhi, spent several
years in the service of the East India Company at Chunar, a city of southeastern
UP. Though he authored many books, including a good deal of poetry in both
Persian and Urdu, the work which won him a place among Khari Boli Hindi
writers was a translation of portions of
 The Development of Differentiation 29

Sanskrit scripture, the Visnu Purana, in which he made extensive use of

words borrowed directly from Sanskrit.22 The last of the quartet, Insha
Allah Khan, son of a Muslim courtier at Murshidabad, 23 spent much of
his life at the court of the Muslim ruler of Oudh after a brief sojourn at
the Mughal court in Delhi. By the time of his death in 1818 he had won
some little reputation as an Urdu poet. In 1803 he wrote a work in
Khari Boli entitled Rani Ketki ki Kahani (The Story of Queen Ketki) in
which, though using the Urdu script, he made a deliberate and
successful attempt to exclude words of Arabic and Persian origin.
Despite his success in this, however, some Hindi scholars have refused
to accept his work as Hindi because of what they consider to be a
Persianized word order, and some historians of Urdu literature have
classified it as Urdu.24 This brief survey reveals an important
characteristic of the earliest Khari Boli prose in Hindi and Urdu: this
literature shows none of the later rigid divisions between Hindu and
Muslim, Nagari and Urdu scripts, or Sanskrit and Perso-Arabic
vocabularies. The three Hindu authors wrote in languages associated
with Muslims, while the Muslim author had the greatest success in
excluding Persian and Arabic words. Works in Hindustani (Urdu)
appeared in both the Urdu and Nagari scripts, and in several cases both
Hindi and Urdu texts included vocabulary from several languages.
While the three Hindus made extensive use of words borrowed directly
from Sanskrit in writings derived from Hindu scriptures—they could
hardly have borrowed suitable Arabic and Persian words for this
purpose—they did not feel obliged to reject the Muslim cultural
heritage in their other writings. The identification of Hindi with Hindu
and Urdu with Muslim lay in the future, though a new prose model of
highly Sanskritized Khari Boli excluding Persian and Arabic words
now existed. In terms of our theory, a potential symbol for
differentiation now existed for the transformation of an ethnic group
into a subjectively conscious community.

Later Writers in Hindi and Urdu Prose

During the next half century prose literature in the Urdu form of Khari
Boli began to flourish and by the mid-nineteenth century had a well-
established tradition. Unlike Khari Boli Hindi, Urdu had a well-
developed poetic tradition to serve as a model for style, although Urdu
authors faced a major problem in deciding the degree of Persianization
to be allowed.25 Literary prose in Khari Boli Hindi did not begin to
prosper until the third quarter of the century, although large numbers of
tracts, pamphlets, and translations of scripture by missionaries began
30 One Language, Two Scripts
to appear in the early
part of the century, followed later by large numbers of elementary
school texts. Often these publications used a style with few Arabic and
Persian words, and many Sanskrit ones.26 The second half of the
century saw a steady expansion in the production of works in both the
Hindi and Urdu forms of Khari Boli. The bulk of this production
appeared in prose, though a substantial fraction appeared in poetry.
By the end of the century two distinct prose styles had evolved in
both forms of Khari Boli, according to George Grierson, author of the
Linguistic Survey of India. Lucknow became the major centre for a
highly Persianized style of Urdu whose writers delighted in composing
sentences which, except for an auxiliary verb at the end, were
'throughout Persian in construction and vocabulary', while Banaras
became the hub for a highly Sanskritized style of Hindi whose writers
made heavy use of words borrowed directly from Sanskrit. 27 Between
these two extremes lay two more moderate styles, one associated with
Urdu authors in Delhi who used a far less Persianized language, and the
other with authors in Agra who avoided excessive Sanskritization and
freely admitted widely used foreign words into their writings.28
The categories posited by another contemporary observer, the Indian
scholar Ayodhya Prasad Khatri, tallied for the most part with those of
Grierson. Khatri, a resident of Muzaffarpur in western Bihar, proposed
five different styles of Khari Boli in his book Khari Boli ka Padya
(Khari Boli Poetry) published in 1887. These included: Maulvi's Hindi,
Pandit's Hindi, Munshi's Hindi, Pure Hindi, and Eurasian Hindi.
Maulvi's Hindi, full of long and difficult Arabic and Persian words, and
Pandit's Hindi, full of equally forbidding Sanskrit terms, corresponded
with the styles of Lucknow and Banaras. Pure Hindi, which used
neither foreign nor difficult Sanskrit words, and Munshi's Hindi (known
to Europeans as 'Hindustani') which lay between the extremes of
Lucknow and Banaras, roughly matched the Hindi of Agra and the
Urdu of Delhi. The remaining style, Eurasian Hindi, employed
formidable English expressions.29
Thus Khari Boli Hindi writers could choose their style from
somewhere along a spectrum ranging from a less Sanskritized Hindi
allowing the use of foreign words to a highly Sanskritized Hindi
eschewing them. Similarly Urdu writers could choose a style lying
somewhere between a moderately Persianized to an excessively
Persianized Urdu. At the two extremes, Hindi and Urdu approached
mutual unintelligibility, differentiated by script, vocabulary, and even
grammatical features, while in
 The Development of Differentiation 31

the middle ground they approached uniformity, differentiated mainly by script

(and sometimes not even by that). Moreover, the very choice of subject matter
influenced style, Hindu contexts (such as commentaries on scriptures)
encouraging Sanskrit vocabulary, and Islamic contexts Arabic and Persian
vocabulary."' Even the writings of a single author could display different styles.
During the latter decades of the century, however, as the process of multi-
symbol congruence began and intensified, Hindi writers clustered into two
groups rather than spreading over the entire spectrum, those who adopted a
more Sanskritized style and those who opted for a more Persianized one. The
issue continued to agitate the Hindi literary world into the next century. 31
Among the foremost in the ranks of Sanskritizers, though a resident of Agra,
stood Raja Lakshman Singh (1826-1896). A graduate of Agra College in
English and Hindi, and a Deputy Collector, he translated several Sanskrit works
as well as English legal texts into Hindi. While the nature of many of these
works made a Sanskritized vocabulary natural, Singh went further by
intentionally avoiding the use of Arabic and Persian words. The preface to his
Hindi version of the Sanskrit poet Kalidasa's Raghuvasa, published in 1878,
made his viewpoint clear: It is my opinion that Hindi and Urdu are two very
different languages. The Hindus of this country speak Hindi, while Muslims
and those Hindus who have studied Persian speak Urdu. Sanskrit words abound
in Hindi as Arabic and Persian words abound in Urdu. There is no necessity to
use Arabic and Persian words in speaking Hindi, nor do I call that language
Hindi which is filled with Persian and Arabic words." By this time the process
of identifying Hindi with Hindu and Urdu with Muslim had been underway for
more than a decade, and Singh's views underline the first half of this equation
unambiguously.
Raja Shiva Prasad (1823-1895), though a resident of Banaras, ranked among
the best-known advocates of a more Persianized style. A longtime government
servant who eventually became Inspector of schools in the NWP, he authored
about forty works, mainly school texts, using both Hindi and Urdu, and both the
Nagari and Urdu scripts. These works contained both Sanskritized Hindi and
moderately Persianized Hindi approaching Urdu. In 1845 he founded the first
Nagari-script newspaper of the NWP, the Benares Akhbar, whose style was
Urdu with a few Sanskrit words."
His views on the proper style of Khari Boli showed considerable
inconsistency, however, for he made strong statements on behalf of both Hindi
and Urdu at different times. On one occasion he wrote that Urdu was becoming
the mother tongue of the province, and that no one
32 One Language, Two Scripts

could justify forcibly introducing Sanskrit words entirely unfamiliar to

the people merely because he used the Devanagari script. 34 Yet a few
months later he denounced the influence of Persian and Urdu as
destructive to the Hindu nationality.35 Despite the apparent
contradictions in his opinions, Prasad vigorously supported the Nagari
script for both educational and administrative purposes throughout his
career. Perhaps the judgement of two of his successors in the Hindi
literary world sums up his position the most equitably: they regarded
him as one who worked hard for the Nagari script, but wrote Hindi
mainly in a style borrowing from Persian and Urdu. 36
Whatever the merits or demerits of Sanskritized or Persianized Hindi,
the reading public clearly preferred the latter, provided the authors used
familiar words. The most popular writer in either Hindi or Urdu before
World War I was Devki Nandan Khatri (1861-1913). Khatri, a resident
of Banaras, wrote in a simple style of Khari Boli using the Nagari script
that nevertheless made extensive use of common Persian and Arabic
words. His two best-known series of novels, Chandrakanta and
Chandrakanta Santati, published beginning in 1888, brought him both
fame and fortune.37 The income from these novels— highly romantic
fantasies in the dastatn38 tradition of Urdu literature, filled with kings
and princesses, magicians and spirits, jungles and palaces—enabled him
to found his own press within ten years, and continued to support his
family for many years after his death.39 In the Urdu literary world, a
similar style of Khari Boli proved most popular. Here writers of the
Delhi school such as Nazir Ahmad, Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, and
Abdul Halim Sharar, who avoided the excessively Persianized style of
the Lucknow school, gained the greatest acceptance.40
Bharatendu Harishchandra (1850-1885), almost universally
recognized by Indian and Western scholars as the first great writer of
Khari Boli Hindi, used both styles of Hindi, much like his
contemporary Raja Shiva Prasad. One Indian scholar divides his
writings into two categories: first, one which imitated ordinary
conversation and employed a few common Persian and Arabic words,
and second, one which dealt with more serious subjects and used many
Sanskrit words, occasionally to excess.41 Bharatendu championed the
cause of both Hindi and the Nagari script even more vigorously than
Prasad, and sometimes even ridiculed his older contemporary for using
unfamiliar and jaw-breaking Persian words in his school texts. In
addition, both the quality and quantity of his literary output far
exceeded that of Shiva Prasad. Besides writing numerous essays, plays,
a good deal of poetry, and translations
 The Development of Differentiation 33

from English, Sanskrit, and Bengali, Bharatendu also found time to

establish several Hindi periodicals, to befriend and patronize many
younger Hindi authors, and to be the centre of a circle of prominent
writers.42

The Language of Poetry: Braj Bhasha vs. Khari Boli

Although Bharatendu used Khari Boli almost exclusively for prose
(except for passages in local dialects or regional standards, especially
Bhojpuri, in some of his plays), he turned to Braj Bhasha for most of
his poetry.4' His poet companions also wrote almost exclusively in Braj
Bhasha. In doing so they continued a lengthy tradition: for more than
two centuries the great majority of 'Hindi' poets had composed their
verses in Braj Bhasha, and most of the rest in Avadhi. Only a handful
of Khari Boli Hindi poets had appeared before Bharatendu began his
career, and the earliest poem of any importance in this medium
appeared a year after his death when Shridhar Pathak (1859-1929)
translated Oliver Goldsmith's 'The Hermit'.44
Thus, Khari Boli Hindi had won acceptance as a vehicle of prose but
not as an instrument of poetry, the older and more prestigious form of
Hindi literature. Two years after Bharatendu's death in 1885, Ayodhya
Prasad Khatri, the first champion of Khari Boli Hindi poetry, fired the
opening salvo of a controversy that continued for several decades. In
his book Khari Boli ka Padya (Khari Boli Poetry), Khatri, a resident of
Bihar, pleaded for the use of Khari Boli for Hindi poetry. He also spent
a considerable sum to publish and distribute his work to a large number
of well-known Hindi supporters.45
His efforts met with little initial success, however, for his views must
have succeeded in antagonizing nearly everyone. He asked Urdu
writers to abandon their own script for Nagari, and Hindi poets to give
up Braj Bhasha for Khari Boli. He argued that Urdu was only one style
of Hindi, that Urdu poetry was Khari Boli poetry, and that Braj Bhasha
poetry was not Hindi poetry. To identify Urdu with Hindi would
certainly have offended both Hindi and Urdu supporters, while to
exclude Braj Bhasha from the realm of Hindi would certainly have
angered Hindi advocates. Both Hindi and Urdu partisans had made
great efforts to assert the separate identities of their respective forms of
Khari Boli, and Hindi lovers regarded Braj Bhasha as part of Hindi's
glorious literary past.46 Khatri's attempt to assimilate Urdu with Hindi
and to differentiate Braj Bhasha from Hindi was bound to fail.
Khatri did succeed, however, in starting a debate in the Hindi literary
34 One Language, Two Scripts

world. For several months in 1887 and 1888 a series of articles

attacking and defending Khari Boli as a medium of poetry appeared in
Hindustan, the NWP&O's only Hindi daily47 Shridhar Pathak, the
defender, had earned a reputation as a poet not only of Khari Boli but
also of Braj Bhasha. Radha Charan Goswami, the attacker, edited the
Hindi newspaper Bharatendu in Brindaban in western NWP&O.48
Their debate centred around four primary issues: the proper
relationship of the languages used for prose and poetry, the linguistic
identities of Braj Bhasha and Khari Boh, their technical capabilities,
and their poetical qualities. Goswami declared, not surprisingly, that
the language of poetry and prose could never be the same. Just as
Sanskrit playwrights had used Sanskrit for their poetic sections and the
less polished Prakrit for their prose, so Hindi writers should use Braj
Bhasha for poetry and Khari Boli for prose. Pathak, as had Khatri,
maintained that the language of prose and poetry should be the same,
namely, Khari Boli.
Goswami claimed that Khari Boli and Braj Bhasha could not be
considered separate languages since in his opinion only minor
grammatical differences divided the two. Furthermore, he feared that
accepting Khari Boli as a medium of Hindi poetry would mean creating
another vehicle for the spread of Urdu. Pathak, on the other hand,
alleged that the two rivals must be regarded as separate languages,
since major, not minor grammatical differences separated them. Unlike
Khatri, he neither equated Hindi and Urdu nor excluded Braj Bhasha
from the world of Hindi poetry.
Pathak took the offensive on the issue of technical capabilities
pointing out that Khari Boli was used and understood over a far wider
area than Braj Bhasha, and that the former had become the almost
exclusive medium for prose. In addition, Braj displayed a regrettable
lack of standardization; several different local forms often appeared for
the same word. Goswami confined himself to the simple assertion that
those who said Braj could be understood only in a limited area erred.
Goswami had the better of the argument on the issue of poetical
qualities. He observed with pride that Braj boasted a roster of poets
second to none, and had become a fit language for poetry through
centuries of polishing and refinement. Conversely, no poetry worth the
name had appeared in Khari Boli, nor did it allow the use of the best
Hindi metrical forms. Only those poets who could not write good Braj
Bhasha poetry, he added with a touch of malice, wanted to write in
Khari Boli. Pathak conceded that Khari Boli had very few poets, but
pleaded that the newer medium had just entered childhood and given
 The Development of Differentiation 35

time could acquire the same qualities of sweetness and melodiousness

which characterized Braj. In addition, Braj had reached its limits in
several ways and should now make room for the newcomer. Even if
one granted for the sake of argument that all Hindi poetry up till now
had been in Braj, this did not mean that Braj must continue to be the
only medium in the future. Pathak contended further that Khari Boli
poets could draw on a wide variety of metrical forms and observed that
the forms commonly used for Braj composed only part of the forms
which could be used for Hindi.
In time, Pathak's case eventually proved to be the stronger, but the
outcome remained in doubt for nearly three decades. By the turn of the
century Khari Boli poetry had become more respectable. Hindi poets
had begun to realize that Khari Boli presented them with a more
flexible medium than Braj to express their feelings about the new
political and social movements of their time. Braj literature had long
centred around the life and loves of Krishna, the most important avatar
of the great Hindu deity Vishnu. Khari Boli, lacking any tradition of
religious themes, could better fit the multitude of new secular themes,
especially nationalism, which demanded expression in the early
twentieth century.49 Moreover, Khari Boli had the immense advantage
of widespread use in prose, whether Hindi or Urdu. In this regard, we
must give considerable significance to the fact that no movement ever
developed to make Braj Bhasha the language of prose.
Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi (1864-1938) played the most prominent
role in the gradual acceptance and eventual supremacy of Khari Boli as
a medium of poetry. A Brahman from western NWP&O, Dwivedi
spent several years of his life in Bombay where he came under the
influence of Marathi poetry, which made extensive use of Sanskrit
metrical forms.50 Dwivedi advocated a Sanskritized style of Hindi,
strongly opposing Urdu and those who used Urdu words in Hindi, and
recommending Sanskrit words to replace Urdu words. Equally
important, he took to heart a dictum of Wordsworth's that the language
of poetry and prose should be one and the same, and worked tirelessly
to make Khari Boli Hindi that language. To Dwivedi it seemed that
separate languages for poetry and prose would only handicap the
spread of Hindi literature among the people. 51 His position as editor of
Saraswati, the most influential literary magazine in Hindi during the
first two decades of the twentieth century, gave Dwivedi's views
considerable importance. During his tenure of more than twenty years,
he influenced many younger poets and writers through his painstaking
revision of the works
36 One Language, Two Scripts

they submitted for publication. One of his proteges, Babu Maithili

Sharan Gupta (1886-1965), became a major Hindi poet."
The unremitting efforts of Dwivedi and his associates gradually
brought Khari Boli poetry from a defensive to an offensive position."
During the first meeting of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (Society for
Hindi Literature) in Banaras in 1910, the new organization called on
Shridhar Pathak and Radha Charan Goswami to renew their debate of
more than twenty years earlier.54 The disputation which followed made
clear that the issue had become not whether Hindi poets should use
Khari Boli, but rather how much they should continue to use Braj
Bhasha.
During the second meeting of the Sammelan a year later in
Allahabad, Pandit Badrinath Bhatta (later to become Professor of Hindi
in Lucknow University) declared that the day of Khari Boli's rival had
passed, though the Hindi language would not be the Hindi language
without Braj poetry. He went on to poke fun at Braj supporters for not
understanding the importance of a suitable national language."
Replying to those who extolled the superior poetic qualities of Braj, he
remarked caustically that in an age when India needed men, the
excessive sweetness and melodiousness of Braj had turned Indians into
eunuchs.56 During the fifth meeting of the Sammelan at Lucknow in
1914, Maithili Sharan Gupta spoke even harsher words: he called the
advocates of Braj Bhasha enemies of India's national language, Khari
Boli Hindi.57
By 1914, then, the Hindi literary world had accepted Khari Boli as
the most important, though not the only vehicle of Hindi poetry, and
opposition to the new medium had become muted.58 With the
beginning of the Chayavad (romantic) movement in Hindi literature, a
series of highly talented poets established Khari Boli as the medium for
Hindi poetry once and for all.59 Yet the Braj Bhasha tradition continued
to find support. The September 1913 issue of Saraswati, for example,
reported that the schools of the United Provinces60 still taught Hindi
poetry only in Braj Bhasha.61 Babu Jagannath Das 'Ratnakar', one of
the last prominent poets of Braj, kept on writing until well after 1920,
while other Braj poets persevered long after independence. 62
In sum we may ask what led to the eventual triumph of Khari Boli as
the medium of Hindi poetry? First, the newcomer had the tremendous
advantage of already being by far the most widespread prose medium
(in both Hindi and Urdu) of any of the regional standards 63 of Hindi. As
a result, many north Indian Hindu nationalists had already accepted
Khari Boli Hindi as the most appropriate candidate for a national
 The Development of Differentiation 37

language. Moreover, Khari Boli Hindi's lack of a poetic tradition of

religious literature or of erotic literature of dubious moral value made it
more capable of dealing with new secular themes. Finally, after
Dwivedi's successful Sanskritization of Khari Boli poetry, no one could
seriously oppose the new literary medium on the grounds that it
threatened to become Urdu.64 The linguistic symbol of Khari Boli
Hindi had been further manipulated and refined.

Patterns of Publishing: Languages

While the arguments on the proper style for Hindi and the proper
language for poetry ebbed and flowed, the river of Hindi publications
turned into a torrent, threatening to overwhelm the more modest stream
of Urdu. During the approximately sixty years from 1868 to 1925,
publications in languages representing the Hindu heritage (chiefly
Sanskrit, Hindi, Sanskrit-Hindi, and Hindi-Sanskrit) generally
increased, sometimes dramatically. During the same period,
publications in languages representing the Islamic heritage (mainly
Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and their combinations in dual-language works)
generally decreased, sometimes strikingly. (See Table 1.)
In theoretical terms, as social mobilization (see Chapter I)
increased— mirrored by the total number of publications—Islamic
heritage languages failed to assimilate Hindu heritage languages—
reflected by the decline in the one, and the increase in the other. The
rate of social mobilization outstripped that of assimilation, and Hindi
became increasingly dominant. The most important period in this
process came in the first ten or fifteen years of the twentieth century.
Prior to this the Islamic-heritage languages had nearly equalled or even
exceeded Hindu-heritage publications in numbers. After this they had
lost their former position for good. (See Table 1.)
The career of Prem Chand (1880-1936), one of the greatest novelists
and short-story writers in both Hindi and Urdu, illustrates this process.
A Kayasth educated in the Persian and Urdu literary tradition, Prem
Chand usually wrote his works in Urdu before rewriting them in Hindi.
While he continued this practice well into the 1920s, he gradually
turned more and more to Hindi for his livelihood, since this medium
assured him a wider and more appreciative audience and greater
remuneration.65
The best documentation for this massive change comes from a series
of quarterly reports of the books and periodicals published or printed in
the territories under their jurisdictions issued by various provincial
38 One Language, Two Scripts

TABLE 1 Trends in the Growth Rates of the Production of Books

and Periodicals in the United Provinces, 1868-1925 A. Islamic-Heritage"

Year Total Urdu Persian Arabic Urdu- Other

Arabic

1868 332,586 217,153 82,913 27,320 — 5,200

% Grand
Total 39.1 25.5 9.7 3.2 — 0.6
Base 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 — 1.00
1884 488,062 284,511 109,801 30,200 31,300 32,250
% Grand
Total 47.3 27.5 10.6 2.9 3.0 3.1
Base 1.47 1.31 1.32 1.11 1.00 6.20
1900 777,745 548,030 74,255 35,550 69,945 49,965
% Grand
Total 41.2 29.0 3.9 1.9 3.7 2.7
Base 2.34 2.52 0.90 1.30 2.24 9.61
1914 813,655 688,505 24,975 3,000 59,250 37,925
% Grand
Total 23.9 20.3 0.7 0.1 1.7 1.1
Base 2.45 3.17 0.30 0.11 1.89 7.29
1925 591,640 513,085 10,800 4,250 45,475 17,850
% Grand
Total 12.6 11.0 0.2 0.1 1.0 0.4
Base 1.78 2.36 0.13 0.16 1.45 3.43

Note " All figures have been compiled from the NWP&O Quarterly Pubs Rpt and the UP
Quarterly Pubs Rpt for the years indicated. All percentages have been calculated to the
nearest 0.1%; rounding off means that the total pe-centages for separate Islamic-heritage
languages will not always exactly equal that for Islamic-heritage languages as a whole.
The category 'Other' includes various two- or three-language combinations of Arabic,
Persian, and Urdu.

governments. This series, which began in 1868 in most provinces and

continued throughout the period of British rule in India, displayed
several imperfections, particularly during its earlier years. Carelessly
framed definitions brought about the inclusion of illegitimate materials
such as time-tables, class lists, and catalogues. On the other hand, the
 The Development of Differentiation 39

Table 1 (Continued) B.
Hindu-Heritageb

Year Total Hindi Sanskrit Hindi- Other GRAND

Sanskrit TOTAL
(A+B)

1868 412,882 392,316 10,866 9,700 105,836 851,304

% Grand
Total 48.5 46.1 1.3 1.1 12.4
Base 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

1884 432,282 392,882 20,000 19,400 112,580 1,032,924

% Grand
Total 41.9 38.0 1.9 1.9 10.9
Base 1.05 1.00 1.84 2.00 1.06 1.21

1900 890,992 758,992 68,750 63,250 218,168 1,886,905

% Grand
Total 47.2 40.2 3.6 3.4 11.6
Base 2.16 1.93 6.33 6.52 2.06 2.22

1914 2,131,086 1,868,926 71,350 190,810 454,147 3,398,888

% Grand
Total 62.7 55.0 2.1 5.6 13.4
Base 5.16 4.76 6.57 19.67 4.29 3.99

1925 3,585,507 3,078,241 148,900 358,366 501,891 4,678,858

% Grand
Total 76.6 65.8 3.2 7.7 10.7
Base 8.68 7.85 13.7 37.0 4.74 5.50

Note b All figures have been compiled from the NWP&O Quarterly Pubs Rpt and the
UP Quarterly Pubs Rpt for the years indicated. All percentages have been calculated to
the nearest 0.1%; rounding off means that the total percentages for separate Hindu-
heritage languages will not always exactly equal that for Hindu-heritage languages as
whole. The column labelled 'Hindi-Sanskrit' includes both Hindi-Sanskrit and Sanskrit-
Hindi works. The category 'Other' includes English as well as several languages such as
Nepali, Marathi, and Bengali, and several dual-language combinations such as Sanskrit-
Nepali and Sanskrit-Prakrit. The combination of English and other languages in 'Other'
due to limitations of space obscures two rather different patterns. The numbers and
percentages of English fluctuated unevenly, while those of the other languages grew
steadily and at a rate roughtly twice that of the grand total of all languages.
40 One Language, Two Scripts

difficulties of procuring copies of each work for the compiling officials

resulted in the exclusion of legitimate titles. Hence one must use these
reports with some caution, often resting content with what they reveal
of general trends. Nevertheless, they constitute by far the most
complete and detailed source for the publishing history of British India.
We will focus on what this source reveals about publishing in the
NWP&0,'since this province was the heart of the Hindi movement, the
centre of the Hindi-Urdu controversy, and the chief producer of Hindi
works. During the period 1868-1925, the production of books and
periodicals in the various languages of the province showed differing
patterns of growth or decline. As Table 1 shows, the total production
increased about 5.5 times (the most rapid increases occurring after
1900) which provides a rough measure of the performance of
individual languages or groups of languages.
The two major groups of languages, Hindu-heritage and Islamic-
heritage, fared rather differently. The former grew a little more slowly
than average until about 1900, and then expanded much more rapidly,
while the latter grew a little faster than average in the earlier period,
and then declined precipitously. By 1925, Hindu-heritage languages
had increased their share from one-half or less to slightly more than
three-quarters of the total. In the meantime Islamic-heritage languages
had decreased from nearly one-half at one point to about one-eighth.
The total of other languages, including English, maintained a roughly
constant proportion of production.
Throughout our period the two chief languages of publication, Hindi
and Urdu, together accounted for somewhere between 65 and 75 per
cent of the total, but their relationship changed dramatically. In 1900,
as in 1884, the number of Urdu works published equalled nearly three-
quarters of the number of Hindi works, and accounted for close to 30
per cent of the grand total. By 1925, however, the number of Urdu
publications had shrunk to one-sixth the number of Hindi, and made up
only 11 per cent of the grand total. Moreover, Urdu works had actually
declined in absolute numbers to a level below that of 1900. In striking
contrast, Hindi works quadrupled in number between 1900 and 1925,
and grew from 40 and 66 per cent of the grand total.
Relationships among Hindu-heritage languages themselves
underwent less striking changes. While Hindi works accounted for the
great majority throughout our period, their proportion declined
somewhat, mainly due to the rapidly increasing number of dual
language works in Sanskrit-Hindi or Hindi-Sanskrit. Since many of
both combinations
 The Development of Differentiation 41

dealt with religion, the evidence suggests numbers of writers

increasingly used the vernacular, Hindi, to popularize the Hindu
religious tradition in the classical language, Sanskrit. These dual-
language texts multiplied at a greater rate than any other language or
language combination. By 1925 they ranked third after Hindi and Urdu
in absolute numbers.
Relationships among Islamic-heritage languages showed more
remarkable changes. Until approximately the turn of the centurv,
Persian and Urdu between them accounted for the great majority of
works in this category. Thereafter the number of publications in Persian
fell precipitously until composing only a tiny fraction of Islamic
languages works in 1925. The number of Arabic publications shrank
almost as drastically. By 1925 the two classical languages combined
accounted for less than 0.5 per cent of total publications as opposed to
over 13 per cent in 1884. Dual language Arabic and Urdu works
showed more stability, maintaining a slightly varying proportion of
Islamic works for most of our period. Many of these, like their dual
language Sanskrit and Hindi counterparts, dealt with religious themes,
suggesting a similar though less marked increase in the use of the
vernacular to popularize works in the classical language.
Another trend of considerable importance deserves mention:
throughout our period educational works—grammars, language
primers, etc.— made up a significant proportion of publishing totals,
especially of those works published in large numbers. Thus in 1868,
nine works appeared in 10,000 or more copies (for a total of 221,000)
in Oudh and the NWP; all but 30,000 of these appeared in Hindi or
Nagari, and the majority of them fell into the category of educational
works printed by the government. The greatest number printed for any
single work, 100,000, was for a Hindi primer teaching the Nagari
alphapet. In 1914, thirty-four works appeared in 10,000 or more copies
(for a total of 465,000) in the UP; all but 40,000 of these appeared in
Hindi (295,000) or Urdu (130,000), and the majority of them (385,000)
came under the category of educational works. The production of
school texts became a lucrative business: a significant proportion of the
income of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha in its earlier years, for example,
was earned through the creation of such texts. These facts show the
importance of publishing, especialy school texts, in the social
mobilization of potential supporters' of Hindi.**
Patterns of Publishing: Geographical
Publishing in the United Provinces (NWP&O) displayed a high degree
of concentration. (See Table 2.) Throughout our period, six cities—
42 One Language, Two Scripts

Banaras, Allahabad, Lucknow, Aligarh, Agra and Kanpur—accounted

for about 80 per cent of the total production. Three of these cities in the
eastern portion of the province—Banaras, Allahabad, and Lucknow—
usually accounted for-over 60 per cent of all publications. One of these
—Banaras—showed much higher growth than any of the others,
accounting for a third of all works published in the province in 1925.
Statistics for the chief languages of publication in these cities show
some significant trends. (See Table 2.) Certain cities dominated the
production of works in various languages much of the time. Lucknow
usually outranked any other city in the publication of Islamic-heritage
language works, whether Arabic, Persian or Urdu. Banaras soon
became the leader in Sanskrit, and eventually surpassed Allahabad in
Hindi and in dual-language Hindi-Sanskrit or Sanskrit-Hindi works. In
all six cities, the proportion of Urdu works declined very substantially
between 1868 and 1925, though at different rates, and in four of them
the
absolute numbers declined as well. Only in Lucknow did Urdu hold its
own, and even there Hindi had taken a slight edge by 1925. In contrast,
the proportion of Hindi works increased in five of the six cities, and in
all of them the absolute numbers increased also, sometimes by
enormous amounts.
During the same period significant changes also occurred in the
regional distribution of Hindi and Urdu works. (See Table 3.) In the
eastern NWP67 Hindi works held a commanding lead from the
beginning, while the proportion of Urdu works gradually declined. In
Oudh Urdu maintained a marked advantage, and even by 1925 lagged
only slightly behind Hindi. The greatest change took place in the
western NWP* where up to 1900, as in Oudh, Urdu usually held the
lead over Hindi. Between 1900 and 1914 the balance shifted decisively
in favour of Hindi, and by 1925 Hindi works outnumbered Urdu by
more than six to one. In terms of absolute numbers, only Oudh showed
a continuing increase in Urdu publications between 1868 and 1925; in
both the eastern and western portions of the NWP the numbers shrank
to less than half their 1900 levels. In short, these statistics suggest a
picture of an increasing tide of Hindi works from the east pushing a
diminishing flow of Urdu works back into the west with Oudh slowly
but inexorably being submerged.
Some incomplete statistics forr journalism (see Table 4) give us a
similar picture, but with a few important differences. During the period
1869 to 1900 (no figures were available for 1914 and 1925) the
numbers
for newspaper circulation in the province showed the dominance of
 The Development of Differentiation 43

TABLE 2
Trends in the Growth Rate of Publications in Various Languages in Selected Cities
of the United Provinces between 1868 and 1925

Year Hindi Sanskrit H-S/S-H Urdu Persian Arabic Total

Banaras 1,000 20,800 — — 42,275
1868 9,400 1,000
(22.0) (2.3) (2.3) (48.7) [5.0]
1884 121,053 15,350 1,500 15,250 — — 174,778
(69.3) (8.8) (0.9) (8.7) [16.9]
1900 67,300 28,200 2,750 4,000 — — 159,050
(42.3) (17.7) (1.7) (2.5) [8.4]
1914 74,240 30,550 56,010 47,550 — — 654,402
(72.5) (4.7) (8.6) (7.3) [19.3]
1925 1,154,500 102,900 104,116 6,000 — — 1,569,026
(73.6) (6.6) (6.6) (0.4) [33.5]
Allahabad 2,000 55,613 — —
1868 233,085 100 (2.1) (16.6) 20,100 334,45
(69.7) (0.0) 6,000 — 8
1884 58,490 4,000 (1.0) (20.8) 95,950 [39.3]
(60.7) (4.2) 26,500 2,300 —
1900 386,350 3,500 (4.4) (15.7) (0.4) 96,44
(63.4) (0.6) 69,600 60,500 500 0
1914 306,050 7,000 (9.1) (10.1) (0.1) [9.3] 1,800
(50.9) (1.2) 7,200 37,400 2,200 609,548 (0.3)
1925 484,910 — (63.5) (2.0) (4.9) (0.3) [32.3] 500
Lucknow 14,450 69,200 50,124 601,460 (0.1)
1868 54,650 — (3.1) (34.7) (25.2) [17.7] 1,000
(27.4) 1884 22,700 122,515 24,301 763,630 (0.1)
120,000 — (3.6) (34.9) (6.9) [16.3]
(34.2) 1900 23,500 176,150 41,000 15,450 199,224
111,125 17,050 (3.8) (37.7) (8.8 (7.8)
(23.8) (3.7) 232,125 10,875 [23.4
1914 171,025 4,000 (37.3) (1.8) ]
(27.5) (0.6) 267,965 4,600 17,100 351,266
1925 273,240 2,000 (43.4) (0.7) (4.9)
(44.2) (0.3) [34.0
]
22,850 467,300
(4.9) [24.8]
1,500 , 622,825
(0.2) [18.3]
1,500 617,730
(0.2) [13.2]
contd.
44 One Language, Two Scripts

Table 2 (Continued)
Year Hindi Sanskrit H-S/S-H Urdu Persian Arabic Total
r
Aligarh
1868 — 1,000 — — 1,000
(100.0) [0.1]
1884 500 — — 991 — — 1,491
(33.5) (66.5) — — [0.1]
1900 8,500 (30.6) — - 18,750 — — 27,750.
(67.6) [1.5]
1914 292,266 2,000 5,100 168,560 — — 500,826
(58.4) (0.4) (1.0) (33.7) [14.2]
1925 272,450 — 21,050 31,475 2,000 500 347,575
(78.4) (6.1) (9.1) (0.6) (0.1) [7.4]
Agra 74,350 5,500 8,700 18,975 3,400 133,934
1868
(55.5) (4.1) (6.5) (14.2) (2.5) [15.7]
1884 12,350 — 4,300 11,720 5,200 — 48,915
(25.2) (8.8) (24.0) (10.6) [4.7]
1900 33,850 — 1,000 44,310 4,300 250 102,210
(33.1) (1.0) (43.4) (4.2) (0.2) [5.4]
1914 43,500 — 4,500 22,000 — — 83,000
(52.4) (5.4) (26.5) [2.4]
1925 219,140 200 23,500 15,600 — — 328,401
(66.7) (0.1) (7.2) (4.8) [7.0]
Kanpur
1868 5,000 — — 24,950 16,750 6,100 56,050
(8.9) (44.5) (29.9) (10.9) [6.6]
1884 — — — 47,450 68,900 9,700 163,900
(29.0) (42.0) (5.9) [15.9]
1900 54,025 2,000 9,200 99,885 24,305 10,450 235,300
(23.0) (0.8) (3.9) (42.5) (10.3) (4.4) [12.5]
1914 226,085 2,000 17,500 44,965 7,100 — 314,300
(71.9) (0.6) (5.6) (14.3) (2.3) [9.2]
1925 227,950 1,000 5,500 5,000 — — 240,950
(94.6) (0.4) (2.3) (2.1) [5.2]

Note: All figures have been compiled from the Quarterly Publications Reports. Numbers
in parentheses = percentages of total publications of the city; numbers in brackets. =
percentages of total publications in the province for the year. The totals of the separate
languages do not equal 'Total' since several languages or language combinations—e.g.,
English, Urdu-Persian, etc.—have been omitted. H-S = Hindi-Sanskrit and S-H =
Sanskrit-Hindi.
 The Development of Differentiation 45

TABLE 3
Proportions of Hindi and Urdu Publications
in Three Regions of the United Provinces
between 1868 and 1925

Year Eastern NWP Western NWP Oudh

Urdu Hindi Urdu Hindi Urdu Hindi
1868 76,413 242,485 71,535 94,875 69,205 54,956
(20.2) (64.2) (26.1) (34.6) (34.7) (27.5)
377,433 274,334 199,537
1884 36,775 179,543 122,321 92,439 125,415 120,900
(13.4) (65.6) (30.3) (22.9) (35.3) (34.1)
273,643 404,215 355,066
1900 102,650 459,752 262,405 186,615 182,975 112,625
(13.1) (58.8) (41.9) (29.8) (38.2) (23.5)
782,170 626,110 478,625
1914 113,550 813,790 331,905 883,611 243,050 171,525
(7.3) (62.5) (22.7) (60.5) (38.2) (26.9)
1,301,162 1,460,976 636,750
1925 75,400 1,727,910 (3.0) 168,370 1,058,991 269,315 291,340
(69.0) 2,504,156 (11.0) (69.1) (42.0) (45.4)
1,533,422 641,280
Note: All figures have been compiled from the Quarterly Publications Reports. The
figures in parentheses represent the percentages of the total publications in all languages
for the region concerned. All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1 per cent.
Thus in 1900, for example, 13.1 per cent or 102,650 of the publications in all languages in
the eastern NWP were in Urdu. The single figure immediately below the two percentages
for each region represents the total publications for that region. The sum of the three
regional totals will be found to tally exactly with the corresponding Grand Total for the
entire province in Table 1.

Hindi in the eastern NWP, the equal ascendancy of Urdu in the western
NWP, and the complete hegemony of Urdu in Oudh. Overall Urdu
maintained a commanding lead throughout this period, but Hindi had
begun to gain ground rapidly by the turn of the century. Imperfect and
46 One Language, Two Scripts

TABLE 4
Newspaper Circulation in Various Vernaculars
in the United Provinces
from 1869 to 1900

Region and 1869 1884 1900

Language
EASTERN NWP
Hindi 229(10.7) 4,420(45.3) 16,250(72.5)
Urdu 356(16.6) 2,688(27.6) 5,680(24.9)
Hindi-Urdu 1,250(58.2) 2,640(27.1) —
Other 314(14.6) — 600 (2.6)
Total 2,149 9,748 22,800
WESTERN NWP
Hindi 1,164(10.8) 1,092 (4.7) 9,164(21.1)
Urdu 8,958(83.4) 21,781(93.0) 33,651(77.4)
Hindi-Urdu 615 (5.7) — 450 (1.0)
Other — 540 (2.3) 200 (0.5)
Total 10,737 23,413 43,465
OUDH
Urdu — 26,765 27,780
TOTAL 12,886 59,926 94,045
Hindi 1,393(10.8) 5,512 (9.2) 25,684(27.3)
Urdu 9,314(72.3) 51,234(85.5) 67,111(71.4)
Note: All figures-were compiled from the monthly or quarterly reports of circulation in
Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers for March 1869, April 1884, and January
1900 respectively. Figures in parentheses represent percentages of regional or overall
totals.

partial as the data are, they still clearly display the gradual rise of a
subordinate Hindi vis-a-vis Urdu, a rise which paralleled that in
publishing, though lagging several decades behind.
One other interesting piece of evidence, though not directly related to
publishing, gives us an idea of the relative strength of Hindi and Urdu
among literate citizens of the NWP&O in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. (See Table 5.) For a few years in the mid- 1870s,
the annual provincial post office reports included statistics on the
number of Hindi, Urdu, and English letters sent through imperial and
district post offices for selected periods. The proportions of letters in the
three
 The Development of Differentiation 47

TABLE 5 Numbers of Non-official Letters in

Hindi, Urdu, and English Received in District and Imperial Post Offices
in the NWP&O in the Second Week of December 1875

Number Percentage
Hindi 82,206 (33.2%)
Urdu 99,905 (40.3%)
English 65,719 (26.5%)

Total 247,830 (100.0%)

Source. NWT Gen Dept Progs, August 1876, pp. 27-35.

languages show little variation from one report to the next, so one period will
do as well as another. The picture that emerges shows a slightly dominant
Urdu, Hindi a close second, and English a more distant third. To look at the
matter another way, the number of Hindi letters sent equalled more than 80 per
cent of the number of Urdu letters sent. Given the roughly equal number of
literate Hindus and Muslims in the population and assuming an equal
propensity to communicate through letters, we can surmise that while a
significant fraction of educated Hindus used Urdu to correspond, a much larger
proportion of them used Hindi.

Conclusion
Throughout the nineteenth century the twin processes of assimilation and
differentiation manifested through the development of various media in Hindi
and Urdu. Assimilation outstripped differentiation within the Hindi tradition.
Nagari became the dominant script (see Chapter III) and Khari Boli the
dominant regional standard in prose and poetry. Differentiation outpaced
assimilation, however, between Hindi and Urdu. Neither side accepted the
script of the other, nor was any assimilation possible here. And neither side
accepted the classical language sources for vocabulary of the other though here
assimilation was possible.
Since the underlying population of Hindus far exceeded that of Muslims, as
mobilization proceeded apace during the course of the century, increasing
numbers of Hindus turned toward Hindi for cultural, political, and economic
reasons. In Brass's terms, an increasingly self-conscious community, the
second level in the transition between an
48 One Language, Two Scripts

ethnic group and a nationality, began to emerge. The reflection of this

process in the various media meant that Hindi publications and
newspaper circulation steadily increased and eventually ousted Urdu
from its former influential if-not dominant position. To put the matter
another way, the number of Hindus in the equation Urdu = Muslim +
Hindu began to shrink while the number of Hindus in the equation
Hindi = Hindu began to expand. In different media this process
proceeded at different paces: the publishing industry showed the most
rapid advance of Hindi; the postal services, the very incomplete
evidence suggests, witnessed slower progress; the world of journalism
exhibited the slowest change of all.
The process of multi-symbol congruence by which Hindi and Hindu
became more closely identified took place at different speeds not only
in different media, but also in different geographical areas. In the
publishing industry, for example, Hindi enjoyed an early superiority in
the eastern NWP, but did not reach the same position in the western
NWP until the 1910s, and barely pulled abreast of Urdu in Oudh by the
mid-1920s. A similar, though more slowly developing pattern,
characterized the growth of newspaper circulation. As we shall see in
the next chapter, the same picture of a more Hindi east, a more Urdu
west, and a chiefly Urdu Oudh typified the development of education.
Finally, another aspect of the process of multi-symbol congruence
deserves attention, namely, the existence of a number of potential
symbols within the Hindi tradition. At least three contentious issues
showed that unanimity did not prevail among Hindi supporters: the
Kaithi script, better established than the Nagari in much of the
NWP&O and in Bihar, posed a major challenge (see Chapter III); the
Braj Bhasha poetic tradition presented an even greater challenge as we
have seen; and the matter of the proper language style for Khari Boli
Hindi stimulated a great deal of controversy. In short, part of the
process of multi-symbol congruence involves the selection of sub-
symbols for the master symbols. Which Hindi? Khari Boli for the
present and future, but also Braj Bhasha and Avadhi for the past.
Which script? The Nagari, though less well-established, and not the
Kaithi. Which style? A more Sanskrit-ized style for some, a less
Sanskritized style for others. The master symbol 'Hindi' evolved from a
complex and often opposing set of sub-symbols.
 The Development of Differentiation 49
NOTES

1. Ramchandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas [The History of Hindi Literature] (Kasi,
1968), p. 419, quoting Raja Lakshman Singh from the introduction to his prose
translation of a Sanskrit work, Raghuvasa. Translation mine.
2. Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi (Delhi,
1984).
3. Some students of Hindi literature claim Dakani as part of the Hindi literary heritage.
See Chapter 4, 'The Language called Dakar"', in Rai, A House Divided, for a thorough
discussion of scholarly opinions on this language.
4. Muhammad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 45-51; S. K.
Chatterji, Indo-Aryan and Hindi, 2nd edition (Calcutta, 1960), pp. 205-7. See also
Rai, A House Divided, Chapter 4.
5. Chatterji, Indo-Aryan, pp. 205-7; Rai, A House Divided, Chapter 4, passim; Sadiq, A
History, pp. 45-51.
6. Chatterji. Indo-Aryan, pp. 207-8, 210-11; S. N. Faridi, S. N. Faridi Presents Hindu
History of Urdu Literature (Agra, 1966), passim; S. S. Narula, Scientific History of
the Hindi Language (Delhi, 1955), p. 81; Rai, A House Divided, Chapters 5 and 6;
Sadiq, A History, pp. 53-65, 64-144 passim.
7. Rai, A House Divided, Chapters 5 and 6; Ram Babu Saksena, A History of Urdu
Literature (Allahabad, 1940), pp. 5-6, 240-1.
8. R. A. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey of Hindi Literature (Delhi, 1966), p. 136; Shukla,
Hindi Sahitya, pp. 387-98.
9. Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 390, 393. Translation mine.
10. David Kopf, British Orientalism and Bengal Renaissance: the Dynamics of Indian
Modernization, 1773-1835 (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 47-8.
11. T. W. Clark, 'The Languages of Calcutta, 1760-1840', London University, School of
Oriental and African Studies, Bulletin, XVIII (1956), pp. 459-60; Atique M. Siddiqi,
Origins of Modern Hindustani Literature: Source Material: Gilchrist Letters
(Aligarh, 1963), pp. 34-5.
12. Sayyid 'Abdul' I-Latif, The Influence of English Literature on Urdu Literature
(London, 1924), p. 27; Krishna Kripalanai, Modern Indian Literature: A Panoramic
Glimpse (Bombay, 1968), p. 36.
13. Siddiqi, Origins, pp. 19-31, 34-42, 155; Priyaranjan Sen, 'Hindi in the College of
Fort William', Calcutta Review, LLX (April-June 1936) 142-3; Gilchrist, The Hindee
Roman Ortheopicgraphical Ultimatum (London, 1820), p. 52.
14. Siddiqi, Origins, pp. 63-4, quoting Gilchrist, Appendix (Calcutta, 1798), n.p.
15. Shardadevi Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose Literature in the Early
Nineteenth Century (1800-1856 A.D.) (Allahabad, 1969), p. 51, quoting a letter of
Price from Bengal Public Consultations, Fort William, 11 October 1824.
16. Sisir Kumar Das, Sahibs and Munshis: An Account of the College of Fort William
(Calcutta, 1978), pp. 46-56; Kopf, British Orientalism, pp. 165-6, 217-19; Siddiqi,
Origins, pp. 103, 105,159-60; Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi, pp. 36-7, 41-
2, 52 n. 61.
17. Sir George Abraham Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India (Calcutta, 1903-28),
50 One Language, Two Scripts

IX, Part 1, pp. 35-6; Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi, 64-8; Shulda, Hindi Sahitya,
398-400.
18. In the case of these two works I have kept the contemporary spelling.
19. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, Part 1, pp. 30-1, 35-6.
20. Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi, p. 59. The term 'Bihari' includes three
different regional standards of Hindi spoken in Bihar, namely, Bhojpuri (also spoken
in Uttar Pradesh), Magahi or Magadhi, and Maithili. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, V,
Part 2, p. 4.
21. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, p. 316; Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, Part 1, p. 39;
Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, p. 397; Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi, pp. 72-4.
22. Shukla, HindiSahitya, pp. 394-5.
23. Murshidabad was the capital of the Muslim governors of Bengal until the advent of
British rule.
24. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, Part 1, p. 39; Sadiq, A History, pp. 125-30; Shukla,
Hindi Sahitya, p. 397.
25. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, Part 1. p. 46.
26. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, 136-7; Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi, pp. 84-
121, 127-39, 149-62. While a few newspapers in the Nagari script began to appear
by the 1820s, their language was Urdu as often as not. (Vedalankar, The
Development of Hindi, pp. 166-87). In general, Urdu journalism developed sooner
and maintained a substantial lead over Hindi journalism well into the twentieth
century.
27. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, p. 48.
28. Ibid.
29. Shitikanth Mishra, Khariboli ka Andolan [The Khari Boli Movement] (Kasi, 1956),
pp. 159-74.
30. R. S. McGregor, Hindi Literature of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
(Wiesbaden, 1974), pp. 71, 73.
31. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, pp. 175-7.
32. Shukla, HindiSahitya, p. 419, quoting Singh. My translation.
33. Narula, Scientific History, p. 82, n. 3; The Pioneer (Allahabad), 21 May 1870, p. 4;
Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, p. 409.
34. NWP Educ Rpt, 1867-68, p. 32.
35. Shiva Prasad, Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper Provinces of India
(Banaras, 1868), pp. 5-6.
36. Shyam Sundar Das, Meri Atmakahani [The Story of My Life] (Prayag, 1957) p. 22;
Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 416-18.
37. So popular were Khatri's works that versions of his novels appeared in Urdu also.
See NWP&O Quarterly Pubs Rpt for the period 1900-1920 passim.
38. See the Glossary for the meaning of this term.
39. Shri Durga Prasad Khatri (son of Devki Nandan Khatri), Interview, Banaras, 29
October 1971; UP Admin Rpt, 1914-15, p. 72. See also T. W. Clark, editor, The
Novel in India: Its Birth and Development (Berkeley, 1970), especially the chapters
on the Hindi novel by R. S. McGregor and on the Urdu novel by R. Russell.
40. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, IX, pp. 48, 138; Sadiq, A History, pp. 316-44.
 The Development of Differentiation 51

41. Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 441-3.

42. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, pp. 162-3; Jurgen Lutt, Hindu-Nationalismus in
UttarPrades 1867-1900 (Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 65-98; Shukla, HindiSahitya, pp. 438-
43.
43. The few exceptions, written in Khari Boli, included works celebrating a visit of the
Prince of Wales to India, the victory of British Indian troops in Egypt, and the lyrics
of some popular songs. Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 564-6.
44. Ibid, pp. 564-6; Up Educ Progs, May 1903, p. 33.
45. Mishra, Khariboli ka Andolan, pp. 158, 179.
46. Ibid, pp. 158, 166, 174-5, 179.
47. The description of the controversy which follows has been drawn mainly from
Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, pp. 175-83.
48. Ibid; Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 436, 559.
49. For numerous examples of nationalistic themes expressed in Khari Boli Hindi
poetry, see Dharam Paul Sarin, Influence of Political Movements on Hindi Literature
(1906-1947) (Chandigarh, 1967).
50. Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, p. 211; Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, p. 583.
51. Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, p. 211; Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, p. 384.
52. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, pp. 150, 166, 179-80, 185; Shukla, HindiSahitya, p. 585.
53. An important part of their efforts consisted in the moral condemnation of a large
body of highly erotic poetry written chiefly in Braj, and focusing on the voluptuous
charms of the female sex. For example, in 1901 Dwivedi authored an article in
Saraswati in which he pleaded for an immediate stop to the composition of such
works and the proscription of those already existing. See Rakesh Gupta, 'The
Nayaka-Nayika-Bheda Sahitya of Hindi', Hindi Review (Varanasi), II, 3 (April
1957), pp. 102-9.
54. Pratham Hindi-Sahitya-Sammelan, Kasi, Karyavivaran—Diisara Bhag [The First
Hindi-Sahitya-Sammelan, Kashi, Report—Second Part] (Prayag, 1910), pp. 27-33,
57-9; Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, pp. 224-5.
55. Dvitiya Hindi-Sahitya-Sammelan, Prayag, Karyavivaran—Diisara Bhag [The
Second Hindi-Sahitya-Sammelan, Prayag, Report—Second Part], 2nd edition
(Allahabad, [1925]), pp. 228, 233.
56. Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, p. 225.
57. Ibid, pp. 228-9.
58. Ibid, pp. 233-6.
59. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, pp. 181-204.
60. The North-western Provinces and Oudh became the United Provinces of Agra and
Oudh in 1902.
61. UPSVN 1913, p. 1254.
62. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey, p. 185; Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, p. 235; Narula,
Scientific History, pp. 97-8.
63. See the section of Chapter I entitled 'Linguistic and Social Background' for
descriptions of the regional standards.
64. Mishra, Khari Boli ka Andolan, p. 323. See also Christopher R. King 'Forging a New
Linguistic Identity. The Hindi Movement in Banaras, 1868-1914', in
52 One Language, Two Scripts

Sandria B. Freitag, editor, Culture and Power in Banaras: Community Performance, and
Environment, 1800-1980 (Berkeley, 1989), especially pp. 190-2.
65. Govind Narain, Munshi Prem Chand (Boston, 1978), chapters 2 and 3, passim. See
also Amrit Rai, Premcand: Kalam kd Sipahi [Soldier of the Pen], (Allahabad, 1962),
and Madan Gopal, 'What Price Premchand?' The Statesman Weekly, (7 July 1984), p.
12.
66. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sahha, pp. 207, 210, 273-82, 452-4.
67. Eastern NWP here means all those districts east of a north-south line drawn through
the eastern boundary of Kanpur district.
68. Western NWP here means all those districts west of a north-south line drawn
through the eastern boundary of Kanpur district.
 CHAPTER III

Government Language Policy

It is highly important that justice should be administered in a language familiar

to the judge, but it is of no less importance that it should be administered in a
language familiar ... to the people at large; and it is easier for the judge to
acquire the language of the people than for the people to acquire the language
of the judge.1

Introduction
The linguistic history of North India showed a remarkable continuity in the
area of administration for several centuries before British rule. Muslim rule
brought Persian as the official language and the chief vehicle of culture in
Muslim courts. During the eighteenth century the prestige of Persian continued
unabated despite the rapid decline of the Mughal Empire. As the British East
India Company rose to power, Persian remained the official language of
administration well into the nineteenth century.
British dominion, however, eventually brought about significant linguistic
changes. In the 1830s English took the place of Persian on the higher levels of
administration, and Indian vernaculars on the lower. In much of north India,
Hindustani (i.e., Urdu) in the Persian script2 became the official vernacular,
while Hindi and the Nagari script failed to reach a similar status, except for a
few isolated instances, until late in the century. In the 1870s and 1880s Hindi,
in turn, began to replace Urdu in the Central Provinces and Bihar, and by 1900
in the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh. In the Punjab, however, which came
under British control in the late 1840s, Urdu dominated the vernacular level of
administration throughout the century and well into the next.
In the gradual process of linguistic change, a complex set of relationships
developed among the language attitudes of the British and the Indians, British
language policy, Indian reactions to that policy, Indian initiatives towards that
policy, and British reactions to Indian reactions and initiatives. This chapter
emphasizes the British contribution, while Chapter V emphasizes the Indian
role. Although both were parts of a single process, convenience dictates their
partial separation for analytical purposes.
54 One Language, Two Scripts

The British contribution displayed several noteworthy features.

British attitudes towards Indian languages did not form a monolithic
whole, but rather, often showed ignorance, inconsistencies, and
contradictions. Different officials often bad widely differing views. All
this was reflected in inconsistent and even contradictory policies.
Moreover, the enforcement of these policies fluctuated, depending on
the zeal of the enforcing officer and the strength of Indian resistance or
support. In the various memoranda, circulars, despatches, letters, and
reports dealing with language policy, one finds many of the same
arguments and counterarguments turning up again and again. In short,
British language policy during our period resembled a choked and
tangled maze with a bewildering variety of paths, that must be
approached with care.
Yet the very inconsistencies and contradictions of British language
policy not only reflected a complex and confusing situation, but also
served to accelerate important changes. This policy intensified the
underlying differentiation between the two great religious groups of
north India, Hindus and Muslims, by supporting an educational system 3
that encouraged two different styles of the same linguistic continuum,
Hindi-Urdu.4 Moreover, this policy fostered a Hindi-speaking elite by
providing Hindi speakers with employment in the educational system,
and simultaneously favoured an Urdu-speaking elite by retaining Urdu
as the only official vernacular for many years. British officials
attempted to shape the objective characteristic5 of language, though
with little success, by experimenting with scripts and regulating styles.
Like a well-meaning but confused midwife, British language policy
assisted in the birth of a community from an ethnic group 6 as the Hindi
movement developed.
The Replacement of Persian
The liberal sentiments expressed by the Court of Directors of the East
India Company in the opening quotation furnished one motive for
considering the replacement of Persian. The concern of the Directors to
effect economies in the administration of justice supplied another. 7 In
the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras, English and Indian
vernaculars had replaced Persian by 1832.8 In the Presidency of Bengal
a lengthy inquiry resulted in Act XXIX of 1837, which gave the
Governor-General the power to dispense with any regulation of the
Bengal Code requiring the use of Persian for judicial or revenue
proceedings, and to prescribe any other language and script as a
replacement.9
The officials involved in this inquiry expressed a wide range of
 Government Language Policy 55

opinions favouring or opposing various languages and scripts. These

included: Persian and the Persian script, a modified form of which
served as the script for Hindustani; Hindustani, i.e., Urdu; Hindi and
the Nagari script; English and the Roman script; and Bengali and the
Bengali script. Their arguments, several of which appeared over and
over again in the course of future controversies, fell into two broad
categories: technical and administrative, and social and linguistic.10
Under the first category, the issues of standardization and efficiency
drew special attention. The Sadar Court" of Bengal, for example,
pointed out that a multiplicity of dialects rendered Bengali unfit to be a
court language; the Court would require as many readers as dialects.
Moreover, to record judicial proceedings in Bengali or Hindi would
take at least a third more time than in Persian, the Court asserted,
presumably because of their supposedly more slowly written scripts. 12
The Sadar Court of the North-Western Provinces echoed this
reasoning: Hindustani in the Nagari script had a great variety of
dialects, differing from district to district and sometimes even within a
single district, and hence was unsuitable for a court language."
Moreover, the Nagari script was also disqualified as a court script
because of slowness in writing and extreme difficulty in reading. 14
Another critic called Nagari 'crabbed and impracticable', and even a
proponent had to admit that the script showed variations in the form of
some letters and that different forms were used in different provinces. 15
The Kaithi script received an even harsher appraisal from the same
critic, who noted that people wrote this cursive form of the Nagari so
irregularly that 'you shall rarely find two hands agree'.16
None of the officials involved in the inquiry, not even those who
advocated the introduction of other languages, disparaged Persian as
unstandardized or inefficient. Had technical advantages and
administrative convenience been the primary consideration, Persian
might well have remained the official language for an indefinite period.
Indeed some officials urged the retention of the status quo for social
and linguistic reasons. They contended that most respectable Muslims
understood Persian as did many among the higher classes of Hindus.
Moreover, many people depended on their proficiency in this language
to earn their living, and to change the official language would throw
them into poverty. In addition, Persian had spread more widely over
Bengal Presidency than any other language. Should the government
introduce English as a substitute, these officials continued, to find
enough persons to conduct judicial business would prove impossible.
56 One Language, Two Scripts

Finally, while having no more claim to be indigenous than English,

Persian had mingled with the languages of India and become prevalent
through centuries of use, something English could not hope to achieve
for a very long time.17
The few officials who argued for English assumed that the full
benefits of British rule could not be enjoyed by the general public until
it had become sufficiently acquainted with English. One of them
proposed a measure which, applied to various languages and scripts,
proved to be a basic instrument of British language policy: let
knowledge of English be made an essential condition of public service
after a suitable lapse of time, and all those classes who looked to
government or law for their livelihood would begin the study of
English.18 Another otficial favoured the introduction of the Roman
script for the vernaculars: this would not only help to naturalize English
but would also aid Europeans to read Indian languages more easily. 19
Those officials who favoured the introduction of the vernaculars
placed the greatest emphasis on social and linguistic reasons.20 Many of
them, including Sir Charles Metcalfe, Lieutenant-Governor of the
NWP, believed that the language of the people should be the language
of the courts. Though their opinions varied as to which vernacular and
which script should be used in different areas of north India, all agreed
that the convenience of the people outweighed the convenience of their
rulers.21 One of the clearest statements of the utilitarian principle
guiding those who endorsed the vernaculars came, ironically, from an
advocate of Persian, Judge Morris of the Patna City Court. Should
Persian be done away with, he wrote, the choice would lie between
Urdu in the Persian script or Hindi in the Nagari or Kaithi script. In that
case, the government should adopt Hindi 'upon the principle of
studying the convenience of the larger body of the people'.22
Let us pause at this point to examine the validity of some of these
arguments and to reflect on their implications. The claim that the
Nagari script could be written only slowly persisted for many decades,
and provoked leaders of the Hindi movement to frequent assertions and
occasional demonstrations to the contrary. Yet administrative
experience had shown (in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories and in
the hill districts of the NWP)23 that Nagari could function adequately as
an official script, whatever its precise speed of writing. Those who
criticized the vernaculars for their variety of dialects, while correct, had
overlooked the obvious truth that one of the most powerful incentives
toward standardization would be the status of official language. Those
who
 Government Language Policy 57

argued that the replacement of Persian would throw numbers of Indian

officials out of work correctly perceived the relationship between
jealously protected language skills and government service. Yet once
again, experience had shown (in the Saugor and Nerbudda
Territories)24 that where the government took a firm stand on language
requirements, those classes with a vested interest in government service
would eventually comply.
Another feature of the inquiry deserves special consideration,
namely, the obvious assumption by many officials that language and
script had no necessary connection. Thus some officials proposed that
Hindustani (i.e., Urdu) in the Persian script become the official
vernacular, while others supported Hindustani in the Nagari script.
From a technical linguistic viewpoint they were largely correct: one can
write Urdu in the Nagari or Roman scripts, and Hindi in the Persian or
Roman with the addition of a few diacriticals or other special symbols.
But as the controversy between Hindi and Urdu developed, Hindi and
Urdu partisans increasingly identified language and script. For
example, the word 'Nagari' came to refer not only to the script but also
to the Hindi language.25 Furthermore, the inescapable existence of two
radically different scripts for the Hindi-Urdu continuum did much to
render intractable the language problems of north India, while the
identification of language and script further exacerbated them. Here
was at least one 'objective characteristic' which could not be altered to
suit the convenience of those who might wish to assimilate Hindi into
Urdu, or Urdu into Hindi.
In the 1830s, however, these difficulties lay some decades ahead,
and the replacement of Persian proceeded apace. In January of 1838,
the Deputy-Governor of Bengal, having received all the powers given
to the Governor-General by Act XXIX of 1837, ordered the substitution
of the vernacular language for Persian in all those districts included in
his jurisdiction, i.e., Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The change was to take
place gradually over the calendar year 1838. 26 In the North-Western
Provinces the process had started even earlier. In November 1835 the
Board had given permission to the Officiating Commissioner of the
Saugor and Nerbudda Territories,27 F. J. Shore, to introduce Hindustani
(i.e., Urdu) in place of Persian28 and in Kumaun (hill districts 'of the
NWP) officials were already conducting most of their business using
Hindustani in the Nagari script by 1835.29 In July 1836 the Sadar
(Chief) Board of Revenue issued a circular ordering the substitution of
the 'Hindoostany language' (Urdu) in the Persian script for Persian as
the medium of official transactions in the Revenue Department. 30
58 One Language, Two Scripts

Indian Reactions to the Replacement of Persian

Early in 1839 nearly five hundred residents of Dacca district in eastern
Bengal petitioned the government in favour of Persian and against
Bengali. The petitioners (of whom nearly two hundred were Hindus
and most of the rest Muslims) used arguments practically identical to
those of the British officials who had supported Persian in the recent
inquiry: the Bengali script varied from place to place, one line of
Persian could do the work of ten lines of Bengali, the awkward written
style of Bengali read more slowly than that of Persian, people from one
district could not understand the dialect of those from another, no
previous government had ever kept records in Bengali, Persian had
spread over a wide area and did not vary from place to place, people of
all classes could understand Persian when read to them, and both
Hindus and Muslims wanted to keep Persian.31
The Sadar Court of Bengal responded quickly to the petition,
softening the rigour of the earlier orders replacing Persian by issuing a
resolution allowing parties in all civil and criminal courts to present
their petitions and pleadings in any language they wished in districts
where either Urdu or Bengali was the current language. Any document
not in Persian, Urdu, or Bengali, however, had to be accompanied by a
translation in one of these three languages.32 The resolution changed
the effect of the earlier orders from the replacement of Persian by the
vernaculars to the addition of the vernaculars to Persian.
In the same resolution and in circular orders a few months later, the
Court required the authorities of districts in which Urdu was current to
begin the introduction of the Nagari script. This soon brought strenuous
protests from some residents of Bihar (mainly Muslims) in the form of
two petitions. The first appealed to the government to continue as the
protector of Islam and patron of Persian by maintaining the Persian
script in Bihar. The second, representing mainly landholders and
lawyers, went so far as to insinuate that the government meant to attack
the Muslim faith by abolishing Persian and its script.33 They sounded a
note that was to be repeated innumerable times in the years ahead,
namely, the identification of language and script with religion, part of
the process of multi-symbol congruence.34
In other portions of the petitions, the Biharis reiterated several of the
arguments used earlier by the Dacca petitioners: one line of Persian
script could do the work of ten lines of Nagari; the Nagari script varied
from place to place; the disconnectedness of Hindi letters, unlike
Persian, gave the reader difficulty in joining them together and led to
 Government Language Policy 59

confusion and waste of time. More important, they noted that both
Hindus and Muslims opposed the change and went on to add that the
generality of Hindus, especially landholders and those concerned with
the courts, understood Persian and Arabic expressions connected with
their business far better than any Sanskrit phrases. 35 Opponents of
Hindi and the Nagari script were to repeat this theme of Hindu and
Muslim participation in a joint culture over and over again. In other
words, they advocated those tendencies towards assimilation which had
led to the formation of an Urdu-speaking elite36 including both
religious groups, and resisted those tendencies towards differentiation
which threatened to lead to the creation of an opposing language elite
excluding one religious group.
These petitions stimulated the Government of India to review the
question with the Government of Bengal. As a result, the Sadar Court
of Bengal issued a fresh circular late in 1839 which directed the
officials earlier charged to introduce the Nagari script to do so most
carefully and gradually. Further pressure from the Government of India
brought yet another circular early in 1840 which discouraged the
introduction of the Nagari script by any judicial officer without the
special sanction of the government. Correspondence between the
Government of India and the Government of the North-Western
Provinces on the matter, which revealed that a large majority of the
judges in the latter jurisdiction preferred Urdu in the Persian script,
further strengthened the government's gradually stiffening opposition
to the Nagari script.37
Thus the vocal opposition of both Hindus and Muslims with vested
interests in the continued use of the Persian script, and the marked
preference of most British officials for this script (though not the
Persian language), combined to bring about the rapid disappearance of
the Nagari script as a potential competitor. In the first half of the
nineteenth century no organized Hindi-speaking elite existed to assert
the worth of the Hindi language and the Nagari script as symbols of a
Hindu community. Moreover, the Nagari script faced a rival in one of
its own progeny, the Kaithi script.38 Finally, one can cogently argue
that Hindi, in the sense of modern Khari Boli Hindi,39 had not yet come
into existence. To differentiate Hindi from Urdu (and by implication
Hindu from Muslim) meant among other things the deliberate creation
of a new language style, 'shuddh [pure] Hindi', or what one might call
the 'Sanskritization' of Urdu. In other words, we can interpret the rise of
modern Khari Boli Hindi as the creation of an objective
characteristic.40
60 One Language, Two Scripts

The Nagari Script in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories

In one area of north India an energetic British official, F. J. Shore,
Officiating Commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda (Sagar and
Narmada) Territories, succeeded in establishing Nagari as the official
vernacular script for several years. Shore's success suggests that the
government could easily have made Nagari the official script all over
north India. His ultimate failure implies that only a highly-organized
popular movement could overcome the combined influences of British
preference for Urdu and the Persian script and Indian opposition to
Hindi and the Nagari script. A brief glance at the history of Shore's
experiment vividly illustrates some of the obstacles to the adoption of a
new official script and some of the social and political implications of
such a change.
As we have seen, in November 1835 Shore received permission from
the Sadar Board of Revenue of the North-Western Provinces to
introduce Hindustani (i.e., Urdu) in place of Persian as the official
language. Although the Board's letter did not specify the script, Shore
took the initiative. In a letter written a month previously to judicial and
revenue officials, he had argued convincingly for the introduction of
Hindustani and the Nagari script in place of Persian. Soon after
receiving the Board's permission, he instructed his district officers to
gradually introduce Hindustani. While the Persian script was to be kept
for the meantime, Shore ordered that all court officials must learn to
read and write the Nagari script. Once the officials had thus qualified
themselves, the people should be encouraged to submit their petitions
in the new script.41
Shore had several reasons for his new policy. In his letter he noted
that prior to British rule the people of the area had conducted all their
business in Hindustani and Marathi using the Nagari and Marathi
scripts.42 British rule had introduced the Persian language and script,
and filled the higher administrative posts 'with a set of harpies from the
[North-Western] Provinces', to the near total exclusion of the local
inhabitants. Still, even at present, he remarked, the people frequently
used the Nagari script for-papers and petitions to government courts
and offices. To introduce Nagari would require no additional staff, for
the present court officials only need be told to learn Nagari or make
way for others who would. The current situation left much to be
desired, Shore added, since a messenger sent into a district with an
order to arrest certain people, to search their homes, or the like could
do almost anything he wanted, for neither he nor anyone else for miles
around
 Government Language Policy 61

could read a single word of his order. To clinch his argument, Shore pointed
out that in Kumaun most official business was conducted in Hindustani and the
Nagari script without any difficulty.43
In August 1836 Shore summed up the success of his efforts in a letter to the
Sadar Board of Revenue. Nearly half the business of the Territories was now
conducted in the Nagari script, and not a single court official had lost his
position as a result. The new state of affairs delighted the public, Shore
observed, which could now write its own petitions and understand papers
received from the offices. The new prospects for government employment had
wonderfully increased the desire for education; even the court menials had
begun to learn to read. Had the Persian script been adopted—which people
found much more difficult to learn and also disliked as foreign—these happy
results would not have followed. Shore countered the common criticism of the
Nagari script as inefficient by asserting that adequate practice would soon
enable writers of the new official script to equal the speed of Persian or English
writers. As for the objection that the Nagari script lacked standards for the form
of letters and for spelling, Shore reported that he had drawn up and circulated a
standard alphabet in consultation with knowledgeable persons, and that he was
in the process of preparing a dictionary which he would publish at his own
expense if necessary.44
Shore conceded that he had not brought about these changes without
opposition, not only from the court officials but also from one or two of his
own officers. He and his officers had to pay constant attention to prevent the
court officials from using 'the Persian idiom'.45 Naturally enough, these
officials disliked and to a man opposed the new system because their monopoly
of knowledge of the Persian script had been destroyed, and they had been
forced to learn a new script. Their belief that he would eventually be succeeded
by an officer who would bring back the old system strengthened their
resistance, Shore noted, and described some of their dilatory tactics:
I may state that for a considerable time after the permission had been given to
present petitions in Nagree [Nagari], they were nevertheless all written in the
Persian Character. Being surprised at this I one day questioned some
respectable looking people whether they could write, and on receiving a reply
that they could write Nagree very well, why they did not write their own
petitions instead of paying a Petition Writer; on which I discovered that the
Amlah [court officials] & Petition Writers who were connected with the former
had given out that although the Language might be Oordoo [Urdu] the
character must be Persian, in order to preserve their monopoly.46
62 One Language, Two Scripts

The majority of those holding government offices, Shore added, were

Hindus, mostly Kayasths, who could not possibly have any 'hereditary
respect of feeling' for Persian. If the government were to intimate that
after a certain period of time, all of the official business of Bengal
Presidency (excepting Bengal proper and Orissa) and the North-
Western Provinces would be carried on in the Nagari script, such
people would soon learn the new road to employment. 47
Four aspects of Shore's remarks deserve particular attention. First,
the merely permissive use of a new script did not suffice to guarantee
the replacement of the previous script; the government needed to order
the exclusive use of the newcomer. Second, a close relationship existed
between education, widely regarded by Indians as a stepping-stone to
government employment, and the official language and script. Changes
in government language policy were likely to be followed by changes
in patterns of language study.48 Third, many Hindus had strong
economic if not cultural reasons for the maintenance of an important
part of the Muslim heritage. As the Hindi movement gained momentum
later in the century, and the use of Hindi and the Nagari script became
increasingly identified with being Hindu, these Hindu members of the
Urdu-speaking elite would find themselves in a more and more
ambivalent position. On the one hand, Hindi and Nagari threatened the
linguistic basis of their livelihood, exposing them to the competition of
other Hindus not versed in Islamic languages. On the other hand,
insofar as their membership in the Hindu community depended on
recognizing the worth of Hindi and Nagari, they had to give at least lip
service to this part of their Hindu heritage. Finally, the use of Urdu in
the Persian script, while certainly not identical to the use of Persian in
the Persian script, meant a high degree of continuity in practice. As one
contemporary observer remarked, since retaining Urdu would
necessitate retaining the Persian idiom for technical modes of
expression and phraseology, the only noticeable changes would be
different grammatical inflections and Urdu instead of Persian verbs.49
The Sadar Board of Revenue, responding to Shore's report, noted
that he had full authorization to use the Nagari script and that the Board
had never considered any other script for the Saugor and Nerbudda
Territories.50 The prospects for the continued use of the Nagari script
seemed bright. Yet less than a decade later, the Government of India,
responding to Indian and British officials in the Territories who had
been recruited from the NWP, ordered a complete reversal of language
policy. These officials, who had opposed the abolition of Persian,
 Government Language Policy 63

persuaded the supreme government to order that office papers and

records be kept in Persian or Urdu, though Hindi and the Nagari script
should be used for papers issued to people in the outlying districts.
Eventually the latter part of this order fell into disuse, and when the
Central Provinces were created from the Territories in 1861,
government courts and offices in all districts used Persian and Urdu."
The court officials who opposed Shore had won in the end.

The Persianization of Urdu

About the same time the Sadar Board sanctioned the use of the Nagari
script in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, the same body warned
against the excessive Persianization of Hindustani (i.e., Urdu). In the
same circular of July 1836 which ordered the replacement of Persian
by Hindustani, the Board explained that officers should avoid 'the mere
substitution of Hindee verbs and affixes, while the words and idiom
remain exclusively Persian'.52 Governments continued to inveigh
against, and observers continued to complain of the evils of excessive
Persianization for the rest of the century. In June 1876, for example,
the Government of the NWP ordered district and divisional officials to
end the 'highly improper' state of affairs in which most offices
conducted public business in a language so full of Persian and Arabic
words that those most concerned could not understand the proceedings.
Although this highly Persianized style stemmed from long tradition so
that to effect any change required constant attention, continued the
circular, the importance of the subject demanded special attention. As
far as possible, the official style should approach the Urdu of ordinary
conversation, though not at the expense of those legal and technical
terms presently in use.53
These pious injunctions accomplished little, however, for in 1882
Bharatendu Harishchandra of Banaras, testifying before the Hunter
Commission,54 furnished several examples of the pedantry of court
officials, who used long-winded Persian phrases for ordinary
vernacular terms.55 In 1897, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, a lawyer
at the High Court of Allahabad, noted that the unnecessary use of
Persian and Arabic words and phrases rendered official records in the
vernacular only partially intelligible.56 One critic with a fine sense of
irony remarked that the Urdu translations of the government orders
attempting to remedy the situation often displayed the very faults they
decried!57
The evidence has indicated that both the highly Persianized language
of the courts and offices and the resistance to any change came from
64 One Language, Two Scripts

court officials, mainly Muslims and Kayasths, whose education and

training gave them a near-monopoly of government service. Their
attitudes may well have engendered or reinforced similar attitudes in
their British superiors. In 1875 S. C. Bayly, the Commissioner of Patna
Division, noted that the opposition of these officials to making Hindi
the official vernacular of Bihar carried over to their British superiors,
who unconsciously imbibed the prejudices of their subordinates. 58 Two
decades earlier the Sadar Board of Revenue of the NWP had
commented on an interesting difference between the style of Urdu used
in the ordinary dealings of the Revenue Department and that used in the
business of the civil courts. The former, employed by officers whose
duties brought them into frequent contact with landholders and their
tenants, consisted of simple and idiomatic Urdu, free from the extremes
of Persianization or Sanskritization. The latter, utilized by officers
whose functions brought them into daily contact with court officials,
consisted of Urdu unintelligible to those not thoroughly acquainted
with Persian. This suggests that the language attitudes and capabilities
of the Indians with whom British officials regularly dealt shaped and
reinforced their own language attitudes.59
The pro-Persian attitudes of many British officials and the personal
economic interests of Indian officials combined to ensure continuity in
the nature of the official vernacular, and to make a mockery of the chief
reasons for replacing Persian with the vernaculars in the first place.
Wherever Urdu replaced Persian, little change took place in the
character of the court language. Bayly noted that Urdu law papers
showed hardly any difference from those written four decades earlier in
Persian. He did not object to the use of the technical terms of law or
civil business, but rather to the unintelligible jargon used in the body of
court documents whose writers used the longest Arabic words known
to them.60 In sum, just as Persian dominated the beginnings of Urdu
literature, so it overshadowed the introduction of Urdu as the official
vernacular. Persian and Urdu, powerful symbols of the former cultural,
political, and economic supremacy of Muslims, continued to flourish
under British rule. The perception of Urdu- and Persian-educated
Muslims and Hindus as unfairly advantaged in the competition for
government service helped to stimulate the development of group
consciousness among Hindi-educated Hindus.
 Government Language Policy 65

The Kaithi Script

In a Hindi drama written near the end of the nineteenth century, the
Nagari script, personified as Queen Devanagari, pleads her case against
Begam Urdu, the daughter of Persian, who has usurped the Queen's
rightful place.61 The author might well have added another character
named Princess Kaithi, for this cursive variant of the Nagari script
attempted to oust her own mother on several occasions. Government
policy towards Kaithi62 showed considerable inconsistency: officials in
the NWP generally, though not always, opposed, those in Oudh, with
one notable exception, opposed, while those in Bihar commonly
favoured this script. Indian advocates of Hindi seldom mentioned
Nagari's daughter, and then only in disparaging terms. In the long run
the Kaithi script lost out to the Nagari, but the outcome long remained
in doubt. The pool of symbols from which the Hindi-speaking elite was
to draw included some that proved unacceptable.
The opposition of the Government of the NWP to Kaithi can be
traced back as far as 1847, when Nagari, not Kaithi, became the official
script in the village schools of Agra district.63 In 1852 the Sadar Board
of Revenue directed that Nagari be used for all annual village papers
written in Hindi.64 Education reports from the 1870s and 1880s indicate
that the government would not appoint patwaris (village record
keepers) who knew only Kaithi.65 The same reports show that
government schools, with very occasional exceptions, did not teach any
of the various cursive forms of Nagari.66 When the Lieutenant-
Governor, Sir Antony MacDonnell, issued a resolution concerning the
official provincial script in 1900, he ignored the advice of his Board of
Revenue to consider the inclusion of the widely-used Kaithi, and
referred only to the Nagari.67
In Oudh, government policy exhibited more inconsistency. 68 In 1871
the Director of Public Instruction for Oudh, Colin Browning, officially
prohibited the study of Kaithi in village schools until the second class,
in town schools until the third, and in district schools until the sixth.
Parents who wished their children to study Kaithi before Nagari would
have to pay a fee. Browning did not wish to ban the teaching of Kaithi,
but rather to ensure that pupils would leave school knowing something
more than the Kaithi script and the multiplication table. 69
A few years later, however, Kaithi found a vigorous proponent in
Browning's successor, J. C. Nesfield. In 1875 Nesfield reported that he
was about to change the curriculum of the government schools of Oudh
to include Kaithi writing and Kaithi arithmetic along with Nagari in the
lowest classes.70 In the same year, he set about the creation of an
66 One Language, Two Scripts

improved Kaithi script. He had samples of Kaithi writing collected

from every tahsil (revenue subdivision of a district) in Oudh, and
ordered an Indian education official to devise a new script. A year later
the Chief Commissioner of Oudh directed that the new script be taught
in vernacular schools to anyone who preferred it to the Persian script.
By 1881 textbooks (transliterations of various business, manuals) in the
improved Kaithi script had appeared in primary and middle vernacular
schools, and had begun to be used for the instruction and examination
of pat-wans. Candidates for the village teachership examination had to
qualify in three different scripts: the Persian, the Nagari, and the
Kaithi.71
Nesfield explained the reasons for his policy in some detail. In Oudh,
he declared, no one used the Nagari script for either public or private
business. Even Brahmans did not use Nagari for business matters, but
only for copying out Sanskrit manuscripts. Though government schools
in Oudh taught Nagari, in Nesfield's opinion, they were wasting their
time, for the students abandoned the script as soon as they left school.
The government might as usefully introduce Chinese! Should the
government desire a second script for court documents in Oudh, Kaithi
rather than Nagari deserved the honour. 72 Nesfield's eager partisanship
for Kaithi, reminds us of Shore's enthusiasm for Nagari. Like Shore's
experiment too, Nesfield's attempt came to nothing, for after 1888 the
education reports of Oudh contain no mention of the teaching of
Kaithi.
Although the reports give no reasons for this change, we can easily
guess the underlying attitudes of the British officials responsible from
previous criticisms of Kaithi. In the NWP the Inspector of the Third
Circle of the Department of Public Instruction, Ralph Griffith, wrote in
1858 that the replacement of the 'illegible' Kaithi and other cursive
forms of Nagari had proven most beneficial to education. As long as
government had allowed village papers to be written in Kaithi, village
schoolmasters had continued to teach the script, thus excluding the
Hindi school books of the Department printed in the Nagari script.73 In
1862 T. B. Cann, another Inspector, reported that the government's
village schools owed much of their success to the regulation that village
accounts and all papers submitted to district officers had to use the
Urdu or the Nagari scripts, and not the undecipherable Kaithi.74 In
Oudh, a Senior Inspector of Schools in Oudh, A. Thomson, referred to
Kaithi in 1870 as 'a barbarous system of writing'. 75 Browning had
asserted that the Kaithi script would never lead students to higher
learning.76
 Government Language Policy 67

The attitudes of Indian supporters of the Nagari script, though

seldom expressed, paralleled those of British officials. In 1883 the
editor of the Hindi Pradip of Allahabad noted that the provincial
government was considering the question of substituting the Nagari
script for the Persian. Unfortunately, several officers had recommended
the use of Kaithi on the grounds of greater ease in writing and more
widespread use than the Nagari. The editor asserted the opposite,
claiming that only patwaris used Kaithi while other classes of people
used Nagari.77 In the same year the Hindi Brahman of Kanpur observed
that the local government had queried district officers as to whether
court documents should be written in Hindi as well as in Urdu, and if
so, in the Nagari or Kaithi script, and disparaged Kaithi as being no
better than the Persian script.78 In 1900 the Hindi Bharat Jivan of
Banaras criticized as ambiguous the miidiya script (another cursive
variant of Nagari) used by Hindu trading classes. 79 These classes could
never hope to better their condition until they adopted and received
their education through the Nagari script. In 1902 the annual report of
the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of Nagari), the
foremost Hindi organization of the day, declared that no letters were
more excellent than the Nagari, and that the Sabha could not display
any enthusiasm for or lend any support to the promotion of Kaithi. 80
Religious and social considerations may well have influenced the
attitudes of the Sabha and other Indian promoters of Nagari: while
Kaithi and other cursive scripts had strong associations with business
and trading classes, Nagari had strong links with Brahmans and the
sacred Sanskrit literature of Hinduism. Moreover, one piece of
evidence suggests that Kaithi had some sort of association with
Hindustani (Urdu). Nesfield wrote in 1876 that 'no such association
[like that of Nagari] exists between Kaithi and Sanskrit. On the
contrary, there is a counter association already established between the
Kaithi character and the Hindustani vocabulary. . . .'81 Thus, Kaithi may
not have been shuddh [pure] enough for shuddh [here, highly
Sanskritized] Hindi in the eyes of Nagari's partisans.
In Bihar, unlike the NWP&O, official policy by 1880 had begun to
promote both the Nagari and Kaithi scripts. In that year the Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal, Sir Ashley Eden, ordered the exclusive use of
Nagari or Kaithi in much of Bihar.82 The government intended the
Nagari and Kaithi scripts to take the place of the Persian script in
printed and hand-written documents respectively.83 Soon measures
were taken to create a font of Kaithi type, however, borrowing the
68 One Language, Two Scripts

improved script created in Oudh by the efforts of Nesfield. By 1881

this new version of Kaithi had been prescribed for general use in the
primary vernacular schools of Bihar, and had begun to appear in
printed textbooks.84
The government of Bengal justified the new policy by contending
that Kaithi was the 'popular character' of Bihar, and evidenced the
flourishing condition of the indigenous schools which taught this
script.85 Kaithi continued to flourish in Bihar for at least three more
decades. In 1912, for example, the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Arrah
(in western Bihar) sent a memorial to the Government of Bihar asking
that textbooks for lower primary classes be printed in the Nagari
script.86 In 1913 the Hindi Abhyudaya of Allahabad urged the
government to make Nagari the court script of Bihar in place of
Kaithi.87 To Hindi supporters, the Kaithi script did not possess the
proper qualities to join the 'pool of symbols' suitable to differentiate
Hindi from Urdu.
The Bihar government's policy towards Kaithi met with severe
criticism from a distinguished Bengali educator, Dr Rajendralal Mitra,
Fellow of Calcutta University, President of the Central Textbook
Committee, Director of the Government Wards' Institution, and holder
of other distinctions. Speaking before the Hunter Commission in
1882,88 Mitra referred to the new script as the 'absurd and ludicrous
consummation' of the government's promises to give the people of
Bihar their own languages and scripts for their legal business.
Previously, he stated, textbooks for Bihar schools, printed in the Nagari
script and the Hindi language, had come from Banaras. This procedure
had involved no special expense for the preparation of textbooks.
Moreover, for each book that Bihar could produce, the North-Western
Provinces could produce a hundred. Most important, the Banaras texts
helped to keep the people of Bihar 'linguistically united with those with
whom they were one in race, religion and close relationship', while the
government's policy would eventually deprive them 'of the literature
bequeathed them by their ancestors and of the literature which their
kinsmen in the North-West will continue to rear up'.89
The fate of Kaithi illustrates a number of important particulars about
British language attitudes and policies, and the corresponding Indian
attitudes and reactions. Local officials had a surprising degree of
freedom to experiment, while provincial governments saw little need to
coordinate their policies. A few years or a few miles could separate
radically opposed measures. One official might labour to bring about
what his successors would undo. Though the benefit of the masses was
 Government Language Policy 69

the supposed touchstone of British efforts, officials found no difficulty

in ignoring rather than taking advantage of the widespread popularity
of Kaithi. Indian attitudes corresponded to those of the authorities who
denigrated this variant of Nagari. To the Hindi-speaking elite, Kaithi
could not possibly have matched the social, religious, and literary
associations so richly exhibited by Nagari, and moreover had suspect
connections with Hindustani vocabulary. Despite its derivation from
Nagari, Kaithi merited no more consideration than the Persian script. In
the process of multi-symbol congruence, some symbols are rejected,
not only because of their associations with the opposing group, but also
because of their inadequacy to embody the master symbol of the elite.
Both Kaithi and Braj Bhasha,90 for different reasons, proved
unacceptable to the Hindi-speaking elite.

The Nagari Script in the Central Provinces

In August 1871 a public meeting took place in Jabalpur in the Central
Provinces,91 under the auspices of the Hitkarini Sabha (Society for the
Promotion of the General Welfare), to discuss the question of the
proper court language for the province. Ten prominent citizens, nine
Hindus and one Muslim, addressed the meeting; eight of them
(including the Muslim) advocated Hindi, the other two Urdu. Those
who spoke for Hindi depicted a language easy to learn and necessary
for the temporal and spiritual improvement of the masses, and
portrayed Urdu as foreign, difficult to learn, and a barrier to
government employment. Those who spoke for Urdu described a
language euphonious and beautiful, and spurned Hindi as a rude dialect
which made people dull and stupid. Those attending the meeting voted
in favour of Hindi and agreed to send a memorial to the Chief
Commissioner of the Central Provinces asking for Hindi to be made
the language of the law courts.92
The memorialists, who directed their remarks at a provincial
conference of civil officials to be held the following month, echoed the
words of Shore more than three decades earlier when they argued that
good government necessarily required courts of law to carry on their
proceedings in the language read and understood by the people. The
general public, not knowing Urdu, was at the mercy of court officials.
Despite the inducement of government employment offered by the
study of the official language, the number of those studying Urdu had
declined during the last several years, while the number of those
studying Hindi had increased.93
If the government abolished Urdu, the memorialists continued,
70 One Language, Two Scripts

education officials could concentrate their efforts on encouraging

Hindi, thereby giving a great impetus to popular education. Claims of
the connection between language policy and education appeared at
frequent intervals as the Hindi movement developed. While such a
connection certainly existed,94 those who argued thus frequently served
their own interests. The memorial bore nearly fifty signatures, many of
them Bengali. English and Bengali had ousted Persian in the courts,
schools, newspapers and literature of Bengal by 1840. 95 Hence
educated Bengalis, who made up a significant percentage of the
expanding bureaucracy of British rule outside Bengal, naturally found
Hindi and the Nagari script far more compatible than Persianized
Urdu.96
In September 1871 the conference of civil officials duly met in Nag-
pur and discussed, among other matters, the question of the official
language of the province. Most of the officers agreed on the desirability
of a change, and the Acting Chief Commissioner of the Central
Provinces, Colonel R. H. Keatinge, laid the matter before the
Government of India in a minute which included a copy of the
Hitkarini Sabha's memorial. Keatinge traced—inaccurately—the
history of language policy in the province, declaring that the Persian
language and script had enjoyed official status in the Saugor and
Nerbudda Territories before 1835, when Shore had ordered the gradual
abolition of Persian and the substitution of Hindi in the Nagari script. 97
He went on to describe the eventual triumph of Urdu, attributing the
tendency to excessive Persianization to the great importance which
'Native bureaucrats' gave to maintaining the Persian script. These
bureaucrats no doubt had some 'genuine feeling' for the script, but they
also keenly appreciated the enormous advantage they held in being the
'sole interpreters between the governing class and the people'.98
Between 1861 and 1871, however, Marathi had become the official
court lan-uage of four districts in the south, Oriya of one district in the
extreme east, and Telugu of another district in the extreme south. Hindi
had received the same status in four districts, one in the extreme west
and three in the east. In the remaining nine districts, the Divisions of
Jabal-pur and Nerbudda, Urdu had maintained official status. 99
Keatinge argued convincingly for a change from Urdu to Hindi, or at
least from the Persian script to the Nagari in these nine districts. He
marshalled statistics to defend his case which showed that the vast
majority of patwaris and landholders in the area concerned knew only
Hindi. In addition, nearly 85 per cent of the schools teaching Hindi or
Urdu taught Hindi exclusively, while fewer than 8 per cent taught only
 Government Language Policy 71

Urdu.100 The Government of India accepted his arguments and in 1872

authorized 'the Hindi character' (the Nagari script) for processes, notifications,
proclamations, and other types of official documents. In addition, 'Hindi' was to
take the place of Urdu in police offices.101
One would think that these orders secured the place of Nagari. The
Government of India, however, had not authorized the exclusive use of Nagari,
but only the permissive use. Hence a decade later we find Ambica Charan
Banerji, head clerk of the Deputy Commissioner's office in Jabalpur, testifying
before the Hunter Commission that Hindi had not yet become the language of
the courts in the nine districts in question. Though he and other members of the
Hitkarini Sabha had submitted a memorial on the matter, the government had
only partially carried out the change of court language. 102 Banerji did not
mention the fact that the local government had put out a fresh circular in 1881.
This directed that petitions might be presented in the Nagari script and the
Hindi language in all those districts in which Urdu now had the status of court
language. Furthermore, courts must give all copies of decrees, orders,
judgements and proceedings in Hindi unless the applicant asked for them in
Urdu. Finally, no one should receive any judicial appointment thereafter unless
he could read and write Nagari fluently.103
These last orders seemed to move the government well towards the
exclusive use of Hindi and Nagari on the policy spectrum. Yet four years later
a resident of Hoshangabad (in the Nerbudda Division of the Central Provinces)
complained in the Hindi Bharat Jivan (Banaras) that although Hindi had
become the court language of his district, most of the old Urdu-knowing court
officials could not write it properly.104 Other evidence indicates that though the
Nagari script did finally become established in the courts of the Central
Provinces, Hindi did not. In 1900, C. J. Lyall, then the Secretary of the Judicial
and Public Department of the India Office, and author of a work on Hindustani
(i.e., Urdu) grammar, observed that though the courts in the Central Provinces
had used the Nagari script for years, the language was 'not a whit less
Persianized than it is in the NWP & Oudh, where the Persian character is in
use'.105 A change of script did not necessarily bring a change of language, not
only because of the vested interests of court officials, but also due to the force
of linguistic continuity and the lack of generally accepted Hindi legal and
technical terms.
72 One Language, Two Scripts

The Nagari and Kaithi Scripts in Bihar

The replacement of the Persian script by Nagari and Kaithi in Bihar 106
paralleled that in the Central Provinces in several respects. Both processes
began in the 1870s and resulted in significant changes by the early 1880s. In
both cases, no substantial change took place until the government ordered the
exclusive rather than the permissive use of new scripts. In both cases, Indian
petitioners, notably Bengalis, played important roles. Lastly, the language
attitudes of the British officials concerned largely determined the key features
of the policies they advocated. Those who saw Urdu and Hindi as distinct
languages (e.g., Keatinge) tended to favour a change of language as well as a
change of script, while those who saw them as one language (e.g., some Bihar
officials) tended to support a change of script only.107
Sir George Campbell, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, began a vigorous
attack on Urdu late in 1871. While on a tour of Bihar, he had found to his
astonishment that 'the bastard, hybrid language of which the old Persian writers
were too fond' (i.e., Urdu) still held sway not only in the courts and offices but
also in the schools despite earlier efforts to root it out. Impressed by the claims
of some education officers that the large majority of Hindus did not accept
Urdu, he ordered Urdu 'absolutely abolished' in all schools. He followed this
with a decree in 1873 making the use of 'the Hindi character' obligatory for
certain purposes, and allowing district officers to use their discretion in
introducing Hindi into court proceedings as much as possible.108 Campbell's
orders included both the Nagari and Kaithi scripts as well as the Hindi
language, suggesting that he not only recognized the popularity of the latter
script but also regarded Hindi as a separate language.109
Though further orders on behalf of the new language and scripts materialized
in 1874 and 1875, apparently little change resulted, for in the latter year
residents of Patna and Bhagalpur (both in northern Bihar) addressed a petition
to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Richard Temple. They asked that the various
orders directing the introduction of the Nagari script and Hindi into courts and
offices actually be carried out. They also added some new twists to the time-
worn arguments for and against Hindi and Nagari. Although antagonists
castigated Hindi as a rude language with neither literature nor grammar, in
reality Hindi was a branch of Sanskrit, recognized by the principal English and
German scholars as the best language in the world and the source of all other
languages. One could learn Nagari in only three or four months,
 Government Language Policy 73

while the Persian script required one or two years, and also could far more
easily be altered for nefarious purposes.110
Temple assured the petitioners that the government intended to carry out the
orders already in existence. These orders enjoined that all processes,
notifications, and proclamations should be made in Hindi; that official records
should be kept in Hindi; that petitions should be received in either Hindi or
Hindustani; and that police officers and court officials should have a
knowledge of 'the Hindi character'.111 He could not agree to their request that
Hindi become the exclusive court language, however, since his predecessor had
opposed such a change. Moreover, the Lieutenant-Governor had no desire to
pass any orders which would appear to indicate that Hindi and Urdu were two
distinct languages. He recognized the tendency of some Hindi writers to reject
all words not Sanskrit in origin and of some Urdu writers to confine themselves
to words of Persian origin, but wished to combine these two separate and
discordant elements into one full and harmonious language. To this end, he
proposed to require candidates for employment in all but the lowest
government offices to know both the Nagari and Persian scripts equally well.112
Many British officials shared Temple's views on the nature of Urdu and
Hindi. Thus in the same year, the Government of India expressed support for
any measures to reduce the antagonism between Urdu and Hindi, and
opposition to any instruction in 'an artificial, Sanskritized language' under the
name of Hindi in government or government-aided schools.113 J. C. Nesfield,
reporting on education in Oudh in 1876, contended that the province had two
different scripts, Persian and Nagari, but only one language, Hindustani (i.e.,
Urdu). He deplored the tendency of Hindi schoolbooks to use 'obsolete' words
of Sanskrit origin, and called Hindi 'a language which no one speaks, and
which no one, unless he has been specially educated, can interpret'.114 Temple's
successor, Sir Ashley Eden, believed that Hindi and Urdu were 'identical
languages' and hence his 1880 resolution (see above) had directed a change of
script only, and not a change of language.115 These and many other officials
regarded Hindi (i.e., Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi) as a manufactured
language with no real basis in popular usage.
The Patna and Bhagalpur petitioners used the same highly Sanskritized
Hindi to which these officials objected. A. W. Croft, Inspector of Schools in
Bihar, found their zeal for Sanskrit words as ludicrous as the ardour of a
hypothetical writer of pure English who would replace the 'impenetrability of
matter' with the 'unthroughforcesomeness [sic] of
74 One Language, Two Scripts

stuff.116 Education officials in Oudh, to whom the Government of India

had referred the issue for comment, had little doubt that the petition
reflected the desire of Bengalis to enhance their prospects for
government employment outside their native province. Since Bengalis
had better opportunities for learning English than their fellow
countrymen in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh or the Punjab,
these officials maintained, a good knowledge of the vernacular in
addition would increase their opportunities for the public service in
these provinces. Because the Persian script and Arabic vocabulary of
Urdu presented difficulties, Bengalis naturally inclined to the more
familiar script and Sanskrit vocabulary of Hindi believing they could
learn this more easily. Their motives, claimed the officials, had nothing
to do with the superiority of one language over the other or the welfare
of the people. On the contrary, as long as the English schools and
colleges of Bengal continued to turn out about 2,000 men each year
who could not find government service in overcrowded Bengal, the
question of the substitution of Hindi for Urdu as the court language of
the Upper Provinces (Bihar, the NWP&O, and the Punjab) would
continue to be raised.117
Eden's resolution of 1880, ordering the exclusive use of Nagari or
Kaithi in much of Bihar, elicited several responses, most of which
supported the measure.118 The most significant opposition came from
the National Muhammadan Association of Calcutta in 1882, more than
a year after the Lieutenant-Governor's decision had come into effect. In
a memorial addressed to the Governor-General Lord Ripon,
complaining about the general condition of Muslims in India, the
Association referred to the recent change in Bihar. The introduction of
the new scripts, insisted the memorialists, echoing the petitioners of
Dacca nearly fifty years earlier,119 had proved unpopular with all the
educated classes of Bihar, Hindus and Muslims alike. Moreover, the
majority of Hindus in Bihar were 'in their manners, their customs, and
their modes of amusement, Muhammadans' who took pride in speaking
'pure Urdu'.'20 This language, the Association declared, had been the
language of the province for several centuries which everybody spoke
in one form or another. The antagonists of Hindi consistently reiterated
the plea that Muslims and Hindus shared a joint culture of which
Islamic languages were an important part. Urdu supporters stressed
assimilation, represented by the equation Urdu = Hindu + Muslim;
Hindi partisans emphasized differentiation, embodied by the equations
Urdu = Muslim and Hindi = Hindu.
Several months later, A. P. MacDonnell, the Officiating Secretary to
 Government Language Policy 75

the Government of Bengal, and later to preside over the official

recognition of the Nagari script as the Lieutenant-Governor of the
NWP&O, rebutted the arguments of the Association. Writing to the
Government of India, MacDonnell noted that the latest administrative
report of the Commissioner of the Patna Division of Bihar gave
sufficient answer to the objections of the memorialists. According to
the Commissioner, the change had gone smoothly and had considerably
benefited the public. A new class of court officials and legal
practitioners acquainted with Hindi was springing up, and the
government had considered the claims of the existing incumbents.
Subordinate officials and law agents knew some Hindi; all of them
could speak and most of them could write it. The Lieutenant-Governor,
remarked MacDonnell, considered the Association's protests a matter of
'fictitious sentiment' since Muslims in Calcutta, unaffected by the
change, were making far more strenuous objections than the
supposedly suffering Muslims in Bihar.121
MacDonnell's letter showed a confusion of thought that characterized
much of British language policy in north India in the nineteenth century
and beyond. Eden's resolution of 1880 had specifically referred to script
only, yet the letter referred to language. This tendency to confuse
language and script, or to identify them, not only muddled the thinking
of Indian partisans but also darkened the counsels of British
administrators.122 British language policy suffered from another notable
weakness, evident in the failure to eliminate excessively Persianized
Urdu and in the slow progress of the Nagari script in the Central
Provinces, namely, the lack of systematic and vigorous enforcement.
Even in Bihar, despite the apparent firmness of the 1880 resolution, in
1893 we find the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal yet again directing the
use of Hindi and Nagari and forbidding the use of the Persian script in
the courts.123 More than two decades of efforts had not succeeded in
completely banishing the Persian script.

An Analysis of Language Policy

In 1874 F. S. Growse, a British civil servant and language scholar,
wrote a perceptive analysis of the language biases of his countrymen in
Ihdia. British officials, he noted, had become so used to communicating
with their subordinates in Urdu, that most of them regarded Urdu as the
vernacular of the country. This familiarity with the speech of the
Muslim minority rather than that of the Hindu majority, meant that
Arabic and Persian received a great deal of attention while Sanskrit
76 One Language, Two Scripts

received little. While the former two classical languages were

considered 'proper to the country' the latter was viewed as 'utterly
dead'.124 Several years later while giving evidence before the Hunter
Commission, Growse adduced another reason for the prejudice of
Englishmen for Urdu and against Hindi. Many district officers,
unacquainted with Hindi literature, though having a fair knowledge of
Urdu literature, on encountering Hindi schoolbooks and their highly
pedantic style, naturally concluded that such a language must be 'a
grotesque unreality'. Unfortunately, many of the authors were pandits
who considered long words preferable to short, and the display of their
own erudition more important than the edification of their readers.125
Growse's observations go far to explain the strong distaste for Sans-
kritized Hindi of many British officials in north India, and underline
the importance of historical continuity. Had the British found Sanskrit,
not Persian, the language of administration of their predecessors, their
language policies would very probably have favoured Sanskritized
vernaculars and the Nagari or related scripts. Another major factor in
the relative permanence of the Persian tradition in language policy
arose from the unique blend of elements represented by Urdu. In other
parts of India Persianized vernaculars written in the Persian script did
not become major literary or administrative languages. 126 Even in
Bengal, where Persian had become the language of state by the
sixteenth century, only a few examples of Bengali written in the
Persian script have come to light; Bengali Muslims generally used the
Bengali script to write Bengali.127 Had Persianized Khari Boli in the
Persian script (i.e., Urdu) not existed, then British officials would
almost certainly have replaced Persian in the North-Western Provinces,
Oudh, Bihar, the Central Provinces and elsewhere in north India with
some form of Hindi in the Nagari script, just as they replaced Persian
with Bengali and the Bengali script in Bengal.
The convenient existence of Urdu, ideally suited for continuing the
hegemony of Persian in north India, goes far to explain British
language policy. We need to add another equally necessary factor,
however, for a fuller explanation: the presence of Muslims as a large or
politically important element of society. Wherever we find these two
factors conjoined, British policy generally favoured Urdu; wherever we
find one or the other missing, policy favoured other languages. From
this admittedly oversimplified perspective north India forms a spectrum
of the increasing importance of Urdu from east to west. In Bengal,
neither Urdu nor an analogous form of Persianized Bengali existed,
though
 Government Language Policy 77

Muslims made up a large percentage of the population. As a result, the

government never seriously considered using Urdu as the official
vernacular. In Bihar and the Central Provinces, while Urdu existed, the
Muslim element of the population lacked size or importance. Here the
Nagari script took root before the end of the century, though not
without difficulty.
In the North-Western Provinces and especially in Oudh, where Urdu
thrived and Muslims had political importance far out of proportion to
their numbers, British policy inclined strongly towards Urdu, though
without actively suppressing Hindi and Nagari. Here conditions were
ripe for a long and protracted struggle as the Urdu-speaking elite faced
an increasing challenge from Hindi and Nagari partisans intent on
differentiating themselves. By the end of the century Nagari had won
an inconclusive and largely symbolic victory. In the Punjab, where
Urdu flourished and Muslims formed the largest and most politically
powerful part of the population, British policy unequivocally supported
Urdu. Here Urdu remained the official vernacular right up to
independence, while Hindi and Nagari remained in a very subordinate
position. So complete was the dominance of Urdu, that Hindi was not
even a medium of instruction in primary schools for boys. 128 The
existence of other contenders, Punjabi, and for Sikhs the Gurmukhi
script, further complicated the language situation in the Punjab.
British language policy often clearly reflected the wish of the
government not to antagonize Muslims where they were politically
powerful through any change of language or script which could be
interpreted as an attack on their faith or their livelihood. For example,
in 1875 an Oudh official warned the government that to support Hindi
against Urdu would be 'very hazardous' and that 'political danger' could
be expected from the disaffection of Muslims thereby ousted from the
public service.129 In 1898 Sir Antony Macdonnell, Lieutenant-Governor
of the NWP&O, cautioned a delegation in support of the Nagari script
not to expect rapid change. He knew from personal experience, he told
them, the difficulties which had attended the introduction of Kaithi in
Bihar, where Muslims exercised far less influence and composed a far
smaller proportion of those in government service than in their own
province. Therefore the delegation could well imagine the greater
difficulties of effecting a similar change in the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh.130
The inconsistencies and contradictions of British language policy
mirrored inconsistent and contradictory language situations in different
78 One Language, Two Scripts

provinces of north India, the lack of linguistic sophistication of many

officials, and the basic fact of differentiation outstripping assimilation
as the pace of social mobilization increased during the nineteenth
century. We have seen these two processes reflected in the
development of vernacular literature and publication in the preceding
chapter, and in the next we will survey them in the areas of education
and government employment. British language policy both resulted
from and contributed to the larger political processes which eventually
led to the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, an outcome
almost exactly paralleled by the linguistic partition of the Hindi-Urdu
continuum into highly Sanskritized Hindi and highly Persianized Urdu.
Each of the three major protagonists in the language controversy—
Muslims, Hindus and British—had differing attitudes towards the twin
processes of assimilation and differentiation. Educated Muslims, for
the most part supporters of Urdu, rejected the Hindu linguistic heritage
and emphasized the joint Hindu-Muslim origins of Urdu. In an 1873
issue of the Aligarh Institute Gazette, for example, a Muslim
commenting on the recent government language decisions in Bihar
insisted that Muslims had a 'natural antipathy' to studying Hindi which
they considered 'quite alien' to them.131
Those educated Hindus who were partisans of Hindi turned their
backs on languages and scripts associated with Islam, and promoted
Hindi in the Nagari script. In 1882 The Calcutta Review carried an
article by Babu Syamacharan Ganguli who asked Muslims to accept
the fact that Urdu 'is Hindi in its basis, just as they themselves are
largely Hindu by face'.132 He urged Muslims to merge into the Hindu
mainstream of Indian culture, for the Hindus would never consider the
reverse. Contrary to Ganguli's dictum, however, many educated
Hindus, however, did consider the reverse, and willingly included at
least part of Muslim culture as a legitimate current in the mainstream of
Indian culture.
Muslims and some Hindus, then, each offered assimilation to the
other, as it were, but at the same time maintained or increased their
own differentiation. Other Hindus found no contradictions in
assimilation to a blend of Muslim and Hindu traditions. The third party,
the British, showed the most ambivalence, sometimes championing one
of the competing linguistic traditions, sometimes the other, and
sometimes trying to tread a narrow path between them. The third of
these alternatives emerged most frequently when the forces of Hindi
and Urdu were relatively equal, as in the North-Western Provinces and
 Government Language Policy 79

Oudh. A. W. Croft, an Inspector of Schools in Bihar, eloquently summed up

this approach when he wrote in 1875:
To call Hindi and Urdu two languages, is to perpetuate a vicious error,
originally due to the antagonism of Pandits and Maulavis. They have the
same accidence and syntax, and the same stock of words for most simple
objects and conceptions; they only diverge when it is necessary to express
the language of compliment, of science, or of complex ideas in general.
This is not to have two languages, but to have a language capable of being
enriched from two different sources; and I conceive that it is the object of
Government to destroy or to diminish this antagonism.133
Such an object was doomed to failure, however, for no government
could counteract the powerful social forces reflected in the growing
differentiation between Hindi and Urdu. Hindus willing to include
both traditions found themselves in an increasingly difficult position as
the forces of Hindi became more powerful. Muslims found themselves
falling behind as larger and larger numbers of a socially mobilizing
population assimilated to the equation of Hindi = Hindu equation
rather than that of Urdu = Muslim + Hindu. Differentiation into two
separate linguistic and religious traditions outpaced assimilation into
one joint Hindu-Muslim Hindi-Urdu tradition.

NOTES

1. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W.

P. and Oudh (Allahabad, 1897), p. 497, quoting Printed Parliamentary
Papers relating to the Affairs of India: General, Appendix I: Public (1832).
2. More precisely, Hindustani (Urdu) in a modified version of the Persian
script replaced Persian; this modified version contained several letters to
represent sounds indigenous to Indian languages but not occurring in
Persian, especially the retroflex consoants.
3. Chapter IV describes this educational system in considerable detail.
4. See the Glossary for the meaning of this term.
5. See Chapter I as well as the Glossary for an explanation of this term.
6. See Chapter I and the Glossary for the meaning of these two terms.
7. J. K. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian as Court Language in British
India', Bombay University Journal, XVI (September 1947), p. 131; Ramesh
Chandra Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System in India under the
East India Company 1833-1858 (Lucknow, 1971), p. 108.
8. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 107-8.
9. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', p. 136; Srivastava, Development of
the Judicial System, pp. 120-3.
10. For a more extensive review of contemporary British opinions on language,
see
80 One Language, Two Scripts

Christopher R. King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of the
Nagari Script and Language) of Benares 1893-1914: A Study in the Social and Political
History of the Hindi Language, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974, pp.
57-62.
11. This court, in both Calcutta and the N.W.P., was the chief court of appeal from the
district courts until 1862 when it was amalgamated with a parallel court to form a
High Court. Col. Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of
Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological,
Historical, Geographical and Discursive, New Edition (London, 1903, reissued
1968), p. 862.
12. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 115-17; Dayal Dass, 'Language
Controversy a Century Ago', Indian Historical Records Commission. Proceedings
Volume XXXII, Part II (February 1956), p. 103.
13. The Board may have been referring to the several regional standards or even to local
dialects; see the section of Chapter I entitled 'Linguistic and Social Background'.
14. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', p. 132; Srivastava, Development of the
Judicial System, p. 118, quoting Letter No. 696 of July 29,1836 from the N.W.P.
Sadar Court to the Government of N.W.P., Government of India Proceedings, Home
Department, Judicial Branch Consultations No. 74 of 10 October 1836.
15. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 135-6, quoting a letter from Morris of 9
January 1837 enclosed in a letter of 4 March 1837 from the Registrar of the Court,
Sudder Dewanny Adawlut, Fort William, Bengal to the Secretary to the Government
of Bengal in the Judicial Department, Judicial Consultations (Civil), 21 March,
1837, No. 26; Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in
N.-W.P. and Oudh (Allahabad, 1897), Appendix, p. 15, quoting F. J. Shore, Notes on
Indian Affairs, Volume I (London, 1837), p. 36.
16. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 135-6.
17. Dass, 'Language Controversy', p. 103; Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', p. 132;
Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, p. 115-17, 118.
18. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 113-14, quoting Letter No. 9 of
13 January 1836 to Registrar, Sadar Nizamat Adalat, Allahabad, Government of
India Proceedings, Home Department, Judicial Branch Consultations No. 85 of 10
October 1836.
19. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, p. 111.
20. Nearly half of the 125 officials consulted during the inquiry favoured the
replacement of Persian by a vernacular, nearly half preferred the status quo, and the
small remainder opted for English. As indicated above, both English and the
vernaculars eventually replaced Persian, but at different levels. Dass, 'Language
Controversy', p. 105; Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 108-9.
21. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 132-3, 135-6; Malaviya, Court Character,
Appendix, p. 15; NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings Sudder Board of Revenue
Department, 19 July to 2 August 1836, Range 221, 77, No. 52; Srivastava,
Development of the Judicial System, pp. 118-19, quoting Minute of 14 July 1836,
Government of India Proceedings, Home Department, Judicial Branch Consultations,
No. 74 of 10 October 1836.
 Government Language Policy 81

22. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 135-6.

23. See the section of this chapter entitled 'The Nagari Script in the Saugor and Nerbudda
Territories'.
24. Ibid.
25. Shri Ray Krishna Das, Interview, Banaras, 6 April 1972.
26. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 136-7.
27. These territories, acquired by the British early in the nineteenth century, lay in the
hilly plateau region of central India. They came first under the control of the
Presidency of Bengal, then under the North-Western Provinces on the formation of
this province in 1836, then from 1843 were separately administered until 1853, when
they were reattached to the North-Western Provinces until 1861, when they became
part of the newly-formed Central Provinces. C. Collin Davies, An Historical Atlas of
the Indian Peninsula, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1959), pp. 52-5, 58-61, 66-7, 72-3;
Douglas Dewar, A Handbook to the English Pre-Mutiny Records in the Government
Record Rooms of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (N.P., [c. 1919]), p. 484;
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume XXIV, New Edition (Oxford, 1908), pp.
158-9; R. C. Majumdar et al. An Advanced History of India, 2nd edition (London,
1963), pp. 694, 705-6, 720-1.
28. Letter of 21 November 1835 from Shore to the Three Principal and Three
Junior Assistants, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder Board of
Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No. 1678.
29. Letter of 29 October 1835 from Shore to Secretary to the Government Judicial and
Revenue Departments, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder
Board of Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No.
1603.
30. NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder Board of Revenue
Department, 19 July to 2 August 1836, Range 221, 77, No. 52.
31. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 137-8.
32. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 139-40.
33. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, p. 125, quoting Government of India
Proceedings, Home Department, Judicial Branch Consultations, No. 12 of 28 June
1841; p. 199, quoting from the translation of the petition in Government of India
Proceedings, Home Department, Judicial Branch Consultations, No. 7 of 28 June
1841.
34. See the section of Chapter I entitled 'Theoretical Background' and also the Glossary
for the meaning of this term.
35. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 199-201.
36. See Francis Robinson, Separatism Among Indian Muslims (Cambridge, 1974) for an
extended discussion of the Urdu-speaking elite.
37. Srivastava, Development of the Judicial System, pp. 126-7.
38. See Glossary.
39. See Glossary.
40. See Chapter I and the Glossary for an explanation of the term 'objective
characteristic'. See also the section of Chapter IV entitled 'The Language of School
Textbooks', for a discussion of 'Sanskritization'.
82 One Language, Two Scripts

41. Letter of 29 October 1835 from Shore to Secretary to the Government, Judicial and
Revenue Departments, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder
Board of Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No.
1603; Letter of 21 November 1835 from Shore to the Three Principal and Three
Junior Assistants, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder Board of
Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No. 1678.
42. At present both Hindi and Marathi use practically identical versions of the Nagari
script. The Marathi version includes one or two letters and diacritical marks not in
the Hindi version or used in a different way. Shore may have been referring to some
cursive variety of the Nagari script used for Marathi at the time.
43. Letter of 29 October 1835 from Shore to Secretary to the Government, Judicial and
Revenue Departments, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder
Board of Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No.
1603. The use of Nagari in Kumaun continued: see Nandalal Chatterji, 'The
Government's Attitude to Hindi-Urdu Hindusthani in the Post-Mutiny Period',
Journal of the Uttar Pradesh Historical Society, New Series, III (1955), p. 26, and
NWP Educ Rpt, 1873-74, Orders of Government, p. 15.
44. Letter from Shore to Sadar Board of Revenue, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's
Proceedings in the Sudder Board of Revenue Department, 2 to 16 September 1836,
Range 221, Volume 79, No. 84.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. See Chapter IV for an extensive discussion of this matter.
49. Majumdar, 'The Abolition of Persian', pp. 135-6, quoting a letter from Morris of 9
January 1837 enclosed in a letter of 4 March 1837 from the Registrar of the Court,
Sudder Dewanny Adawlut, Fort William, Bengal to the Secretary to the Government
of Bengal in the Judicial Department, Judicial Consultations (Civil), 21 March
1837, No. 26.
50. Letter from Sudder Board of Revenue, NWP, to Shore, 9 September 1836, NWP
Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder Board of Revenue Department, 2
to 16 September 1836, Range 221, Volume 79, No. 58.
51. Report on the Administration of the Central Provinces for the Year 1871-72, pp. xvi-
xvii; CP Home Proceedings, March 1872, No. 39, p. 50.
52. Circular from the Sudder Board of Revenue to Division Commissioners of the N.-W.
Provinces, 29 July 1836, NWP Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder
Board of Revenue Department, 19 July to 2 August 1836, Range 221, Volume 77,
No. 52.
53. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', pp. 15, 21. See Malaviya, Court Character,
p. 8, Appendix, pp. 50-51, quoting portions of the Sadar Dewani Adalat's Circular
Order No. 33, 19 April 1839 and of the Sadar Board of Revenue's Circular Order
No. III, 28 August 1840; Appendix, p. 52, quoting letter from the Secretary to the
Government of the NWP to the Registrar, Sadar Dewani and Nizamat Adalat, NWP,
5 January 1854; Appendix, pp. 52-3,
 Government Language Policy 83

quoting letter from the Secretary to the Sudder Board of Revenue, NWP, to the Secretary
to the Government, NWP, 10 January 1854.
54. See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Hindi-Nagari Campaign of 1882' for more
details on the Hunter Commission.
55. Educ Comm Rpl NWP&O, pp. 201-2.
56. Malaviya, Court Character, p. 8.
57. Malaviya, Court Character, p. 10, quoting the Pioneer (Allahabad) of 10 January
1873.
58. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', p. 20.
59. Malaviya, Court Character, Appendix, pp. 52-3, quoting letter from the Secretary to
the Sudder Board of Revenue, NWP, to the Secretary to the Government, NWP, 10
January 1854.
60. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', pp. 15, 21.
61. Pandit Gauri Datta, Nagari aur Urdu ka Swang arthat Nagari aur Urdu ka ek Natak
[A Mime of Nagari and Urdu namely A Play of Nagari and Urdu] (Meerut, n.d.), p.
1. See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Hindi-Nagari Movement in Vernacular
Literature' for an extensive discussion of this play. See also a complete translation of
and a thorough discussion of this play in Christopher R King, 'Images of Virtue and
Vice: The Hindi-Urdu Controversy in Two Nineteenth-century Hindi Plays', in
Kenneth W. Johnes, editor, Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in
South Asian Languages, (Albany, 1992).
62. The Kaithi script had several cousins, including Mahajani, Muria, and Sarafi. They
shared several characteristics: business castes used them; their letters, simplified for
rapid writing, derived from Nagari; and their illegibility had achieved notoriety.
63. NWP Educ Rpl, 1847-48, Extract of Orders of Government, footnote on pp. xcv-
xcvi.
64. NWP Educ Rpt, 1856-57/1857-58, pp. 32-3. The government's policy towards
scripts, not surprisingly, influenced both educational and administrative practices at
the village level. Practices in Bihar differed considerably from those in the NWP&O,
partly because of differing systems of the settlement of land revenue as the following
extract from the Education Commission: Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee
(Calcutta, 1884, pp. 46-7) makes clear:
'The discovery of large numbers of village pathsalas [schools] in Behar gave
prominence to one important fact. It was found that the character (Kaithi) which the
indigenous pathsalas taught their pupils to read and write, and which had not been
recognised in the pathsalas previously brought under Government supervision, was the
only one which could be employed with any hope of success, if the system of instruction
was to be kept on the really broad and popular basis on which it rested. The Persian
character was much affected by the higher classes of Muhammadans and learned Hindus;
but the Kaithi character was known and used in every village in Behar by Hindus and
Muhammadans alike. . . .
'It was known, of course, from the commencement of education operations in Behar,
that Kaithi was the popular character. But it was also known that Kaithi was the popular
character not of Behar only, but likewise of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces.
Now, in devising their system of popular Elementary
84 One Language, Two Scripts

schools, the authorities of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh had entirely discarded
the Kaithi and adopted the Devanagri. It was therefore concluded that the same ought to
be done in Behar. What was not generally known was this, that it was the complete
expulsion of Kaithi from the village records (Patwari papers) of the North-Western
Provinces that had led to the weakening of the Indigenous schools of those parts, and the
easy substitution to some extent of the Hulkabundi [Government] schools in their place.
In Behar, where the settlement of the land revenue was permanent, and the Government
had no concern with the Patwari papers, no force like that which had acted in the North-
Western Provinces was employed to thrust the popular character out of use. The
Indigenous pathsalas of Behar had thus been able to hold their own. It was considered a
great boon, therefore, when the Government of Bengal, after ruling in April 1880 that the
character thenceforward to be used in the Courts should be Nagri or Kaithi and not
Persian, sanctioned and carried out measures for casting a fount of Kaithi type. Thus has
originated an impetus to Vernacular education in Behar, which may be expected to yield
results little short of those which followed in Bengal on the abolition of Persian and the
introduction of Bengali in 1839.'
65. One explanation for the separate policies of the governments of the North-Western
Provinces and of Oudh towards the Kaithi script lay in their different approaches
towards the appointment of patwaris. In the NWP the government appointed these
village officials, and never selected those who knew only Kaithi. In Oudh, on the
other hand, local landholders, with no aversion to Kaithi, appointed them. Similar
conditions obtained in Bihar, where the permanent settlement of the land revenue
meant the government had no concern with patwari papers; there too patwaris
continued to use the Kaithi script. Educ Comm Rpt Bengal, pp. 46-7; Oudh Educ
Rpt, 1873-74, p. 150; NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1880-81, pp. 77-8.
66. I could find only one mention of a government school teaching any such script in
any of the annual education reports for the NWP&O throughout the entire period of
their publication (1843-44 to 1946-47): a municipal school in Pilibhit (western
NWP&O) was reported to have a Mahajani department. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1879-
80, p. 19.
67. NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, pp. 93-4, 102. See D. T. Roberts, Report
on the Revision of Records of Part of Ballia District. 1882-1885 A.D. (Allahabad,
1886) for a lengthy discussion of the value of the Kaithi script by one member of the
Board of Revenue.
68. See Note 64.
69. Oudh Educ Rpt, 1871-72, Appendix E, p. i.
70. Ibid., 1874-75, Appendix I, p. xiii.
71. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1879-80; p. 57; Ibid., 1881-82, p. 75. No mention of the
teaching of Kaithi in Oudh appeared in any of the annual education reports of the
NWP&O after the 1887-88 report. See also Note 64.
72. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', p. 25.
73. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1856-57/1857-58, pp. 32-3. See also Note 64 in this chapter.
 Government Language Policy 85

74. NWP Educ Rpt, 1861-62, pp. 21-2.

75. Oudh EducRpt, 1869-70, p. 21.
76. Ibid., 1871-72, Appendix E, p. i.
77. NWP&O SVN, 1883, p. 663.
78. Ibid., 1883, p. 887.
79. Ibid., 1900, p. 283. The name of the script given in this source is 'Muria'
which I have taken to be 'mudiya'. The latter word means 'shaven-headed'
as does the word 'munda', which also means a script which leaves out the
special diacriticals used to indicate consonant-vowel combinations in the
Nagari script.
80. NPS 9th Ann Rpt, pp. 14-15.
81. Nesfield added:'... and this is an additional argument for having Kaithi
taught in our schools.' Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', p. 30,
quoting letter from the Director of Public Instruction Oudh to the Junior
Secretary of the Chief Commissioner Oudh, 26 March 1876.
82. The Calcutta Gazette, 16 June 1880, p. 503.
83. George A. Grierson, A Handbook of the Kayathi Character (Calcutta,
1881), p. 1.
84. Appendix to The Calcutta Gazette, 9 January 1884, pp. 38-9; Bengal
Quarterly Pubs Rpt, 1882; Educ Comm Rpt Bengal, pp. 117, 334; NWP&O
Educ Rpt, 1880-81, p. 75.
85. Educ Comm Rpt Bengal, pp. 46-7. Also see the section of Chapter V
entitled 'Indigenous Schools in the North-Western Provinces'.
86. UP SVN, 1912, p. 1072.
87. Ibid., 1913, p. 715.
88. See Chapter V for a discussion of the role of the Hunter Commission in the
Hindi-Nagari campaign.
89. Educ Comm Rpt Bengal, p. 334. At the time of his testimony before the
Commission, Dr Mitra had been a member of the Calcutta Schoolbook
Society for 27 years, the Director of the Government Wards' Institution for
25, a Fellow of Calcutta University for 25, as well as being the President of
the Central Textbook Committee, and Joint Secretary and Treasurer to the
Industrial Art School. Educ Comm Rpt Bengal, p. 329.
90. See the section of Chapter II entitled 'The Language of Poetry: Braj Bhasha
vs. Khari Boli'. See also Christopher R. King, 'Forging a New Linguistic
Identity: The Hindi Movement in Banaras 1868-1914', in Sandria B.
Freitag, editor, Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance,
and Environment, 1800-1980 (Berkeley, 1989), especially pp. 189-93.
91. The Central Provinces, which came into existence in 1861 and
incorporated the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, lay in the hilly plateau
region of central India to the south of the NWP&O. This area is now
divided largely between the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
See also Note 27.
92. R. M. Sinha, 'An Old Document Dealing with Hindi-Urdu Controversy',
Proceedings of the Indian Historical Records Commission, XXXIV, Part II
(1958), pp. 91-3.
93. CP Home Progs, March 1872, No. 37, p. 47.
94. See Chapter IV, especially the section entitled 'The Relationship of
Education and Employment',
86 One Language, Two Scripts

95. T. W. Clark, "The Languages of Calcutta, 1760-1840', London University, School

of Oriental and African Studies, Bulletin, XVIII (1956), pp. 473-4.
96. The Bengali and Nagari scripts have both descended from a common ancestor. The
shapes of the letters and their order of occurrence in the two alphabets, while not
identical, show strong resemblances. Equally important, both languages have
borrowed heavily from Sanskrit. Also see the section entitled 'The Language of
School Textbooks' in Chapter IV.
97. Keatinge did not make it clear that Hindustani and Marathi in the Nagari and
Marathi scripts respectively had been the languages and scripts used in the Saugor
and Nerbudda Territories before British rule. He also erroneously described Shore's
language policy as a change from Persian to Hindi, rather than Hindustani, in the
Nagari script. See the section entitled 'The Nagari Script in the Saugor and
Nerbudda Territories' in this chapter.
98. CPAdmin Rpt, 1871-72, xvi-xvii; CPHome Progs, March 1872, No. 39, p. 50.
99. CP Home Progs, March 1872, No. 39, pp. 50-1.
100. Ibid., March 1872, No. 39, pp. 50-2.
101. CP Admin Rpt, 1871-72, p. xviii. The use of 'the Hindi character' in the one case,
and 'Hindi' in the other suggests a confusion between language and script which
sometimes plagued British policy at even the highest levels. See the section of
Chapter V entitled 'The 1900 Decision; The Machinery of Deliberation', for a
particularly glaring example of this on the part of the Government of India.
102. Educ Comm Rpt CP, pp. 173-4.
103. Ibid., p. 10.
104. NWP&O SVN, 1885, p. 489.
105. Handwritten comments of C. J. Lyall on a Minute Paper, subject Home Department
Judicial Proceedings for June 1900, Judicial and Public Papers, 555 (21-71); C. J.
Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language (Edinburgh, 1880).
106. Bihar became a separate province in 1912; prior to that it was a sub-province of
Bengal.
107. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', passim.
108. Bengal Gen Progs Misc, March 1881, p. 7; Rafiq A. Zakaria, 'Foreword', in N. S.
Gorekar, Glimpses of Urdu Literature (Bombay, 1961), p. xix.
109. NWP SVN, 1873, p. 581; Zakaria, 'Foreword', p. xix.
110. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', pp. 19-20.
111. Ibid., p. 14.
112. Ibid., pp. 13-14.
113. Ibid., p. 13.
114. Oudh Educ Rpt, 1875-76, pp. 4-5.
115. The Calcutta Gazette, 16 June 1880, p, 503.
116. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', p. 16.
117. Ibid., pp. 21-2, 31-2.
118. Bengal Gen Progs Misc, March 1881, p. 8; Zakaria, 'Foreword', p. xxii.
119. See the section of this chapter entitled 'Indian Reactions to the Replacement of
Persian'.
120. 'Correspondence on the Subject of the Education of the Muhammadan
 Government Language Policy 87

Community in British India and Their Employment in the Public Service Generally',
SRGI, Home Department, No. CCV, Home Department Serial No. 2 (Calcutta, 1886), pp.
243-4.
121. Ibid., p. 278.
122. See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The 1900 Decision: The Machinery of
Deliberation', for an extended discussion of the confused thinking surrounding the
NWP&O resolution of 1900 officially recognizing the Nagari script.
123. Bharat Jivan (Banaras), 10 April 1893, pp. 3-4.
124. F. S. Growse, 'The Etymology of Local Names in Northern India, as Exemplified in
the District of Mathura', Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, XLIII, Part I
(1874), pp. 320,326; EducComm Rpt NWP&O, p. 436. One can judge from the
Sanskrit publishing statistics in Table 1 just how inaccurate this perception proved
to be.
125. Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O, p. 437.
126. The princely state of Hyderabad in south India, a stronghold of Urdu, might seem
to be an exception. The Urdu of Hyderabad, however, did not derive from the local
vernaculars, though its earlier Dakani form borrowed heavily from their
vocabulary, but rather from the same Khari Boli base as Urdu in north India. In
other words, the grammatical basis of Hyderabad Urdu was imported from north
India.
127. S. K. Chatterji, Indo-Aryan and Hindi, 2nd edition (Calcutta, I960), p. 325; T. W.
Clark, 'The Languages of Calcutta', p. 454.
128. Paul Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (Cambridge, 1974), pp.
287-8; Raghunandan Shastri, Panjab me Hindi ki Pragati, passim.
129. Nandalal Chatterji, 'A Forgotten Official Enquiry on the Hindi-Urdu Controversy',
Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings, XXX (1954), p. 31.
130. Kasi-Nagaripracarini Sabha ka Arddhsatabdi-ltihas [The Fiftieth Anniversary
History of the Kashi Society for the Promotion of Nagari] (Kasi, [1943]), pp. 127-
9.
131. NWP SVN, 1873, pp. 580-1.
132. Syamacharan Ganguli, 'Hindi, Hindustani, and the Behar Dialects', The Calcutta
Review, LXXV (1882), p. 36. Between 1880 and 1883 Ganguli and George A.
Grierson, a Bengal civil servant later to become renowned as the author of the huge
Linguistic Survey of India, carried on a heated debate on the issue of the proper
official language of Bihar in the pages of the Review. Grierson maintained that the
three major regional dialects of Bihar—Maithili, Magadhi and Bhojpuri—should
be the official languages of Bihar. Ganguli objected on the basis that such a policy
would prevent the natural spread of 'Hindustani', which took the form of Urdu
among Muslims and Hindi among Hindus, as the lingua franca of India. Were the
same principles to be applied in Europe, he concluded Italy would have two
cultivated languages, Spain several, and Provencal would be revived in France.
Ganguli, 'Hindi', pp. 29-33.
133. Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude', p. 14, quoting A. W. Croft, 'Hindi as the
Court Language of Behar', 16 June 1875. Chatterji gives no further information on
the source of the document.
 CHAPTER IV

Language, Education and Employment

The question whether Urdu or Hindi has the better claim to be called the
mother tongue of these Provinces . . . is not of much practical importance, as
the duty of Government is simply to provide instruction in either language, or
in both, where it is wanted . . .1

Introduction
In nineteenth century north India government policies regarding language,
education, and employment for the educated had close relationships. The chief
value of schooling for most Indians lay in the supposed power of education to
open the portals of government service or the legal profession. The educated
composed only a tiny fraction of the population, and those educated in English
made up only a small fraction of those schooled in the vernaculars. Among
educated Indians certain religious and caste groups predominated, and most of
these had strong ties with one or another language and script.
Therefore, government language policies giving certain languages and
scripts official status had great influence on the aspirations of the educated,
particularly those literate in the vernaculars. At the same time, government
education policies which encouraged the development of more than one
vernacular at the primary and secondary levels helped to create opposing
classes with vested interests in the language and script of their choice.
Government officials as well as Indians in general regarded the vernaculars as
inferior to English as well as to the classical languages from which they
derived their scripts and much of their vocabulary. As a result, the vernaculars
did not become mediums of instruction in higher education until the 1920s in
most institutions.
In much of north India, government policies towards the languages of
education and the languages of administration displayed a fair degree of
congruence by the 1870s and 1880s. In Bengal, at one end of the spectrum
posited in the last chapter, Bengali and the Bengali script dominated the
vernacular education system and held the status of official vernacular in the
administrative system. In the Punjab, at the other end, Urdu had the same
status. In both the Central Provinces and Bihar, Hindi in the Nagari or Kaithi
script had achieved a commanding
 Language, Education and Employment 89

position in both education and officialdom. Only in the North-Western

Provinces and Oudh did the situation show a more ambivalent pattern
throughout our period. Here, on the one hand British educational
policies generated significant numbers of Indians educated in either
Hindi or Urdu, while on the other hand administrative policies favoured
Urdu in the Urdu (Persian) script2 as the official vernacular. These
conflicting policies provided one important reason for the greater
intensity of the Hindi-Nagari movement in the NWP&O than anywhere
else in north India. This chapter and the next, therefore, will focus
chiefly on trends and events in this province, with occasional
references to other areas.
A detailed study of the geographical and social patterns of language
study in both indigenous and government schools reveals some
significant facts about the social origins of the Hindi movement. The
membership of the most important voluntary association devoted to the
advancement of Hindi and Nagari in the nineteenth century NWP&O,
the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of Nagari) of
Banaras, showed almost identical geographical and social origins (see
Chapter V). Similarly, the geographical patterns of vernacular
publishing surveyed earlier parallel those of the schools and of the
Sabha (see Chapter II). Simply put, in the western NWP and in Oudh,
areas more deeply influenced by Muslim rule, Urdu held the dominant
position, while in the eastern NWP, an area profoundly affected by the
great traditional centres of Hinduism, Allahabad and Banaras, Hindi
had greater strength.
Not surprisingly, the heart of the Hindi-Nagari movement lay in the
east. Here developed the premier Hindi organizations of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries respectively—the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of
Banaras, founded in 1893, and the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (Society
for Hindi Literature), founded in 1910. This part of the province
experienced the greatest disparity between the rates of social
mobilization and assimilation, and consequently the largest
differentiation between Hindus and Muslims. Here the equations of
Hindi = Hindu and Urdu = Muslim received the greatest emphasis, and
here Hindus made the greatest efforts on behalf of the Hindi language
and the Nagari script.
Attitudes Towards the Vernaculars
The Hindi-Nagari movement did not become important in the NWP&O
until the 1860s; the 1840s and 1850s saw no significant agitation even
in the eastern heartland. While prose models of highly Sanskritized
Khari Boli Hindi existed (see Chapter II), the British educational
system in the
90 One Language, Two Scripts

province, which had barely begun on the primary and secondary levels by 1850,
had not yet widely disseminated this style of Khari Boli through government-
patronized schoolbooks. No class of educated Hindi speakers, committed to a
style of the Khari Boli continuum which differentiated them from Urdu
speakers, had yet arisen. To find statements by Hindus educated in the Sanskrit
tradition denying the existence of this new style of Khari Boli, then, should
come as no surprise.
In 1847, Dr J. R. Ballantyne, Principal of the English department of Benares
College,3 decided to improve the style of what he termed 'Hindi' written by
students of the Sanskrit College (which formed the older part of the institution).
His efforts, stimulated by repeated complaints in the College records, took
several forms. He ordered exercises to be written in Hindi by some of his
students, then proposed that they should meet with the Hindi pandit for an hour
a week, and finally losing his patience with the apathy and resistance he
encountered, directed them to write an essay on the following question: 'Why
do you despise the culture of the language which you speak every day of your
lives, of the only language which your mothers and sisters understand?'4 His
students, taken by surprise, responded with an address, asking him why he
assumed they had such contempt for their vernacular. A dialogue ensued which
made clear that the young men had neither a clear conception of what
Ballantyne meant by Hindi nor any sense of loyalty to it.
As the reply of their spokesman showed, the students had no awareness of
Hindi in the sense of a standardized literary dialect:
We do not clearly understand what you Europeans mean by the term
Hindi, for there are hundreds of dialects, all in our opinion equally
entitled to the name, and there is here no standard as there is in Sanskrit. 5
Nor did they have a keen sense of the origins of the various words they
used in their speech:
If the purity of Hindi is to consist in its exclusion of Mussulman [Muslim]
words, we shall require to study Persian and Arabic in order to ascertain which
of the words we are in the habit of issuing every day, is Arabic or Persian, and
which is Hindi.6 Finally, they had no sense of attachment to Ballantyne's 'Hindi'
or in other words, they accepted the equation Urdu = Hindu + Muslim: . . . what
you call the Hindi will eventually merge in some future modification of the
Oordoo [Urdu], nor do we see any great cause of regret in this prospect. 7 These
attitudes have particular significance when we realize that less
 Language, Education and Employment 91

than five decades later, Hindu students at the same college founded the
Nagari Pracharini Sabha to promote Hindi and the Nagari script. Thus
at the midpoint of the century, no Hindi movement existed in the very
city which later became its most important centre. In terms of our
theoretical framework, Hindi speakers at this time constituted an ethnic
group whose members gave little or no subjective importance to their
objective distinctness. By the time of the founding of the Sabha,
however, Hindi's peakers had begun to show some of the characteristics
of a community—awareness of a common identity, and attempts to
define boundaries.8
Dr Ballantyne's reaction to the views of his students demonstrated his
ardent support of Hindi. He urged them to take up the task of forming
the 'national language' and to create a standard literature using a
uniform system of grammar and spelling. If the pandits of Banaras
valued the reputation of their city, he added, they should exert
themselves to make its dialect the standard for all India by writing
books 'which should attract the attention and form the taste of all their
fellow countrymen'.9 He made a beginning himself, arranging for the
translation of several works from Sanskrit into Hindi, but received little
encouragement. In response to a request for aid, the Government of the
NWP&O remarked that if Hindi meant a language which admitted only
Sanskrit words, then its improvement would always deserve much less
attention than that of Urdu.10 Ballantyne's almost prophetic vision
prevailed in the end, however, for Banaras eventually became the
leading centre of Hindi publication, and in 1900 the provincial
government began to aid the literary efforts of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha with an annual grant.11
Although Urdu's position as court language meant greater status than
Hindi, neither vernacular compared favourably with the classical
languages of Arabic, Persian or Sanskrit in the eyes of many Indians.
Ballantyne noted in 1849 that his students grudged the time spent in
learning Urdu because they could expect praise at home for learning
classical languages or English, but not for Urdu. 12 In 1864 an
educational official of the NWP cited the testimony of Syed Ahmed
Khan, an eminent scholar and administrator, that many of his fellow
Muslim scholars strongly disliked reading Urdu, while three years later
an Indian educational official also from the NWP wrote that his
educated countrymen did not like having Urdu taught to their sons. 13
Shiva Prasad, a Joint Inspector of the Department of Public Instruction
of the NWP, summed up a view of the vernaculars that persists even
today in India.14
92 One Language, Two Scripts

Sanskrit and Arabic, he argued, had the same relationship to Hindi and
Urdu that Greek and Latin had to English. When students learned
Sanskrit and Arabic, their knowledge of the vernaculars became more
'sound and polished'.15
British government officials shared this low opinion of the
vernaculars as mediums for higher education or literature. In 1867, for
example, the British Indian Association of the North-Western
Provinces16 petitioned the Viceroy, pleading for the use of 'the
Vernacular' (meaning Urdu) in higher education. The Association
asked for the creation of either a Vernacular Department for the
University of Calcutta or of an independent Vernacular University for
the NWP.17 The petitioners clearly indicated that they did not desire a
return to the 'effete arts and sciences' of Oriental languages, but rather
sought modern content through a vernacular medium. 18 The
Government of India replied that while some progress had been made
in enriching the vernaculars, chiefly through translations of European
works, they still lacked sufficient materials to be suitable for higher
education. Hence, for some time to come Indians could acquire a
liberal education in European science and literature only through
English. Despite this attitude, however, the Government of India did
aid the enrichment of the vernaculars making yearly grants to the
provincial governments for the encouragement of appropriate
literature; the purchase of vernacular works by the provincial education
departments served the same end."
In the Punjab the vernaculars fared somewhat better in higher
education, due largely to the determined efforts of Lieutenant-
Governor (1865-1870) Donald McLeod.20 He patronized the Anjuman-
i-Panjab, an organization founded in 1865 to revive Oriental learning
and to spread useful knowledge to all classes of Indians through the
vernaculars. The founder of the Anjuman, Dr G. W. Leitner, hired by
McLeod to be the Principal of Lahore Government College, soon
announced the chief goal of the organization—the foundation of an
Oriental university.21 The Anjuman, supported by McLeod, proposed a
curriculum which emphasized the classical languages of Arabic,
Persian and Sanskrit, assumed instruction in the medium of the
vernacular languages of the Punjab (Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi), and
called for English language training only as a final addition. In 1870
Punjab University College came into being; its most important
division, the Oriental College, embodied the aims of the Anjuman. The
vernacular languages had become mediums of higher education in the
Punjab.22
Within two decades, however, the temporary surge of 'Orientalism'
 Language, Education and Employment 93

in the Punjab had come to an end. Despite the elevation of Punjab University
College, an affiliate of the University of Calcutta, to Punjab University, an
independent degree-granting institution, in 1882, the vernacular languages lost
out to English even in the Oriental College. Both British and Indian attitudes
played a role in this advancement of English. British educational officials had
long opposed the use of vernaculars in higher education, and when Sir Charles
Aitchison2' became Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in 1881, they acquired a
powerful new ally. Aitchison emphasized the importance of primary education
and did not consider the vernaculars fit mediums for higher education. Many
English-educated Indians in the Punjab also opposed a vernacular-medium
Oriental university which they believed would handicap them in the
competition for the most prestigious (and English-requiring) government
positions. In 1880 a student revolt took place at Punjab University College,
centred around the same issue, and the vernacular press became a forum for the
question of the proper nature of the provincial university. By the end of the
decade, the vernaculars had lost their place, even in the Oriental College. An
ironic twist was the public declaration in 1888 by Dr M. Aurel Stein, Leitner's
successor as Registrar of Punjab University, that the study of India's sacred
texts could best be accomplished through the medium of English!24
In the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, the founding of the University of
Allahabad in 1887, the only university in the province until the creation of
Banaras Hindu University in 1916, brought no change in the position of the
vernaculars. University officials, both British and Indian, did not consider Urdu
and Hindi worthy enough to merit inclusion in regular degree courses as
subjects in their own right until 1923,25 and never contemplated their use as
mediums of instruction. A critic of this policy pointed out that even the
University of Calcutta allowed candidates to choose Hindi as a second
language in the Entrance Examination.26
Only two institutions of higher learning in the province used either of the
vernaculars as a medium of instruction or subject of study before the twentieth
century. The Oriental Department of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College
of Aligarh, founded in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, used Urdu as the
medium of instruction. (The enrolment of this division equalled only a small
fraction of that in the English Department).27 Central Hindu College, founded
in Banaras in 1898, included Hindi (along with Sanskrit and English) in the
curriculum,28 The vernaculars did poorly in higher education not only because
of British
94 One Language, Two Scripts

opposition, but also because of widespread sentiment among educated Indians

that, as Shiva Prasad declared, 'English being the language of our rulers, and
having all its advantages attached to it, is... the means of all improvement and
elevation'.29 Clearly, those who wished to attach value to the symbols of either
Hindi or Urdu had to contend with attitudes that denigrated the vernaculars,
attitudes that persist even today.

Indigenous Schools in the North-Western Provinces

The vernaculars fared better in the indigenous schools of the province. In the
mid-nineteenth century, when British educational efforts had barely begun,
those who learned Arabic, Persian, Hindi or Sanskrit, and a variety of other
subjects, studied for the most part in these institutions. One of the earliest
pictures of their nature comes from a mid-1840s district by district survey of
the provincial government carried out with an eye to establishing a large-scale
primary education system. Although suffering from a number of faults,30 the
survey nonetheless showed a consistent picture of the linguistic and social
elements of indigenous schools.
One of the most thoroughly researched districts, Agra, in the western NWP,
presented features of considerable significance for understanding the origins of
the Hindi movement and the opposing forces. The author of the report for this
district, C. C. Fink, like his colleagues in other districts, divided indigenous
schools into four categories: Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and Hindi. Hindi schools
(128) outnumbered all the rest put together. Persian schools (85) came next,
while Sanskrit (6) and Arabic (1) ran a distant third and fourth.31 Each category
of schools displayed distinct social configurations; both teachers and pupils
came from certain definite religious or caste groups. Each category also
exhibited striking differences in the aspirations of its students, and in their rural
or urban origins.
The Hindi schools usually depended on whole communities or large sections
of communities for their support, and their teachers received less remuneration
than their counterparts in Persian schools. Those Hindi teachers who were
Brahmans usually added to their income by also acting as priests. Fink believed
that the lower income of teachers in Hindi schools made them more open to
accepting the guidance and assistance of the government, noting that
proportionately many more of these schools than Persian schools used
government-supplied texts. While nearly a quarter (30) of the Hindi schools
included Sanskrit32 as
 Language, Education and Employment 95

part of their curriculum, the great majority taught simple arithmetic, the
keeping of agricultural or commercial accounts, and the reading and
writing of the Devanagari script along with its cursive variants Kaithi
and Mahajani. Only a small minority of the Hindi schools (18) were
located in Agra city, and only a few of the 130 teachers (14 Kayasths
and 1 Rajputs) were not Brahmans. (See Table 6). Brahmans (510),
Baniyas (538), and Rajputs (151) composed the bulk of the 1406
students, while Kayasths (59), Muslims (20), and other Hindus of
various castes (128) made up the rest. (See Table 7). Most of the
students in these schools aspired only to humble occupations such as
being a shopkeeper or a patwari (keeper of village land records). In
sum, in Hindi schools mostly Brahman teachers taught arithmetic and
writing chiefly to Brahmans, Baniyas, and Rajputs who lived in
villages and hoped for modest local positions. 33
The Persian schools described in the report usually depended on
individual heads of families for support, and their teachers generally
received more compensation than their Hindi counterparts. The
curriculum of these schools laid special emphasis on various forms of
correspondence, which Fink considered a reflection of the days of
Muslim rule when the courts used Persian for their business, and the
higher classes of society used the same language for their private
correspondence. The deficiencies of the teachers led them to translate
the daily lessons to their pupils verbatim without any regard for the
idiom of Urdu, observed Fink, which accounted for 'the barbarous
application of Persian idiom to the Urdu language' found in court
papers.34 The study of Persian, continued his report, derived its
importance to the clientele of these schools from the use of Urdu as the
court language, since people wrongly believed that no one could learn
Urdu without knowing Persian.35
The majority of the Persian schools (53) were located in Agra city,
and the great majority of their teachers were Muslims (75) while the
rest were Kayasths (10). Of the 740 students, a little more than half
were Muslims (393), a little over a quarter Kayasths (195), while the
remainder consisted of Brahmans (46), Baniyas (39), Rajputs (37), and
other Hindus (30). Students in Persian schools usually looked to
government service to earn their living and took longer to complete
their studies than students in Hindi schools. In short, in Persian schools
mainly Muslim teachers taught Persian chiefly to Muslims and
Kayasths who usually lived in cities and contemplated government
service careers.36
96 One Language, Two Scripts

TABLE 6 Teachers in Persian and Hindi Schools of Agra

District c. 1845

Persian Schools Hindi Schools Total

Muslims 75 (100%) — 75 (100%

[88%] [35%]
Kayasths 10(41.5%) 14(58.5%) 24 (100%
[12%] [11%] [11%]
Brahmans — 115 (100%) 115 (100%
[88.5%] [53.5%]
Baniyas — — —
Rajputs — 1 (100%) 1 (100%
Others — [1%] [0.5 %]
Total 85(40%) 130(60%) 215(100%)
[100%] [100.5%] [100%]

Note: All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.5%. All figures have been
compiled from the NWP&O Education Report 1844—45, Appendix I.

TABLE 7 Students in Persian and Hindi Schools of Agra

District c. 1845

Persian Schools Hindi Schools Total

Muslims 393 (95%) 20(5%) 413 (100%)
[53%] [1.5%] [19%]
Kayasths . 195(77%) 59(23%) 254 (100%)
[26.5%] [4%] [12%]
Brahmans 46 (8.5%) 510 (91.5%) 556(100%)
[6%] [36.5 %] [26%]
Baniyas 39 (7%) 538 (93 %) 577 (100%)
[5.5%] [38.5%] [27%]
Rajputs 37 (19.5%) 151 (80.5%) 188 (100%)
[5%] [11%] [9%]
Others 30(19%) 128 (81 %) 158 (100%)
[4%] [9%] [7.5 %]
Total 740 (34.5%) 1406(65.5%) 2146 (100%)
[100%] [100.5%] [100.5%]

Note: All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.5%. All figures have been
compiled from the NWP&O Education Report 1844-45, Appendix I.
 Language, Education and Employment 97

If one compares the statistics for Hindi and Persian schools (see
Tables 6 and 7) several interesting patterns emerge. No Muslim
teachers taught in Hindi schools and only a tiny fraction of all Muslim
students (5 per cent) studied in Hindi schools. No non-Kayasth Hindus
taught in Persian schools, and only a small portion of non-Kayasth
Hindu students (10 per cent) studied in Persian schools. Although the
proportion of Kayasth teachers in Hindi schools (59 per cent) vis-a-vis
Persian schools (41 per cent) almost exactly equalled the ratio of Hindi
(60 per cent) to Persian (40 per cent) schools, the large majority of
Kayasth students (77 per cent) studied in Persian schools.
In district after district the pattern repeated itself: Muslims and
Kayasths dominated the Persian schools, while non-Kayasth Hindus,
especially Brahmans, Baniyas and Rajputs dominated the Hindi
schools. The social composition of the indigenous schools clearly
showed that the equation Urdu (or Persian) = Hindu + Muslim held
good, but only for certain Hindus, while the equation Hindi = Hindu +
Muslim had less validity, true for many Hindus but only for a
insignificant minority of Muslims. This general picture remained valid
for the rest of the century among educated Hindus and Muslims in the
North-Western Provinces and Oudh.37
Sanskrit and Arabic schools reflected the same features which
appeared in their more popular counterparts and in the province as a
whole the former outnumbered the latter. Fink reported six purely
Sanskrit schools in Agra district, three in the city and three in villages.
All of the teachers were Brahmans, of whom only one was paid. The
others supported themselves by copying almanacs, reciting scriptures,
and performing other priestly duties. Of the 71 students who attended
these schools, all but 2 were Brahmans who intended to become village
priests. Sanskrit schools in other districts showed similar
characteristics: teachers and students were almost always Brahmans. 38
Though Fink wrote nothing about the solitary Arabic school in his
district, the comments of investigators in other districts clearly
indicated that teachers and students in Arabic schools were almost
always Muslims.39

Government Schools in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh

In the NWP the creation of the government educational system began
at the top. First came Benares Sanskrit College in 1772, followed by
Agra College in 1823, Bareilly College in 1837, and Roorkee College
in 1847.40 Delhi College, founded in 1792, remained part of the system
of higher education in the province until 1857, and several private
colleges
98 One Language, Two Scripts

had come into existence before 1857 as well.41 Government-initiated

primary and secondary education did not begin until the 1840s under
the vigorous leadership of Lieutenant-Governor James Thomason who
envisioned creating a system based on the already existing indigenous
schools.42 By 1860 a network of halkabandi schools (village institutions
supported by an educational cess on the land revenue) and tahsili
schools (similar institutions located at the headquarters of tahsils,
revenue divisions) had spread across every district of the NWP and tens
of thousands of students were attending classes.43 In Oudh, which first
came under direct British rule in 1856, the rebellion of 1857 and its
aftermath prevented settled administration until 1859, and the
government educational system did not develop until 1863, when a
system including 10 zila (district) schools, 34 tahsili schools, and
Canning College in Lucknow was sanctioned. Within five years, more
than 30,000 students were studying in schools managed or inspected by
the government.44
In the North-Western Provinces as well as Oudh, the curriculum in
primary and secondary schools included from the beginning either or
both of Hindi and Urdu, along with other languages such as Arabic,
Persian, and Sanskrit. Government education statistics from the 1860s
reveal several significant aspects of the varying popularity of these
languages in different regions of the province and the social origins of
those who studied them. In the NWP (see Table 8) the majority of
students studied Hindu-heritage languages, a large minority Islamic-
heritage languages,45 and a very small minority English. In Oudh the
proportions differed: the majority of students studied Islamic-heritage
languages, a large minority Hindu-heritage languages, and a small
minority English. The greater popularity of Islamic-heritage languages
in Oudh—especially Persian—undoubtedly stemmed from the recendy-
ended period of Muslim rule. The prestige of Persian remained high to
the 1890s. In 1881 the Educational Department had to admit this
language into the curriculum of middle class schools to avoid a
disastrous drop in attendance, and in 1887 an official reported that 'the
irrepressible mania for the study of Persian' had only recently begun to
abate.46
Other educational statistics from the NWP showed a definite
correlation between urban residence and the study of Islamic-heritage
languages on the one hand, and rural residence and the study of Hindu-
heritage languages on the other. (See Table 9.) In halkabandi schools,
usually located in villages, the overwhelming majority of students took
 Language, Education and Employment 99

TABLE 8
Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Regions of
the NWP in Schools of All Levels in 1860
Region English Islamic- Hindu- Other Total
Heritage Heritage
West
NWP 997 32,043 26,417 — 59,457
[1.7%] [53.9%] [44.4%] [100.0%]
Central
NWP 1,395 9,544 39,052 — 49,991
[2.8%] [19.1%] [78.1%] [100.0%]
East
NWP 1,279 10,887 28,700 34 40,900
[3.1%] [26.6%] [70.2%] [0.1%] [100.0%]
Other 379 5,222 7,665 496 13,762
[2.8%] [37.9%] [55.7%] [3.6%] [100.0%]
TOTAL 4,050 57,696 101,834 530 164,110
[2.5 %] [35.2%] [62.1%] 10.} %] [100.1%]
Note: All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1 %. West NWP =
the 1st Educational Circle, i.e., the districts of Aligarh, Bijnor, Budaun,
Bulandshahr, Dehra Dun, Meerut, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur,
Shajahanpur, Bareilly, Kumaun and Garhwal. Central NWP = the 2nd
Educational Circle, i.e., the districts of Agra, Etah, Etawah, Farrukabad,
Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Kanpur, Mainpuri and Mathura. East NWP = the 3rd
Educational Circle, i.e., the districts of Allahabad, Azamgarh, Banda, Banaras,
Fatehpur, Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur and Mirzapur. Other = the 4th
Educational Circle, i.e., various districts in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories
and in Ajmer-Merwara, all later detached from the NWP. Other for languages
includes Bengali, Marathi and Latin. All figures have been compiled from the
NWP Education Report 1859-60, Appendix A, 2-62. Islamic-heritage languages
include Arabic, Persian and Urdu, and Koran schools. Hindu-heritage languages
include Hindi, Sanskrit and Hindi taught in Kaithi and other cursive forms of
the Nagari. The figures in this table include both schools directly managed by
the government and those only inspected by the government.

Hindi or Sanskrit. In tahsili schools, usually located in small towns, students of

Hindu-heritage [Link] a smaller majority while those studying
Islamic-heritage languages became a larger minority. In the four government
colleges, all located in medium-srzed or large cities, almost half the pupils
studied English, a language of little importance in the lower-level institutions. A
large minority studied Islamic-heritage languages, and a small minority Hindu-
heritage languages.47
100 One Language, Two Scripts

TABLE 9
Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Levels of Schools
in the North-Western Provinces in 1860

Level of English Islamic- Hindu- Total

School Heritage Heritage
Halkabandi 4 9,296 56,791 66,091
[0.1%] [14.1%] [85.9%] [100.1%]
Tahsili 53 6,167 11,074 17,294
[0.3%] [35.7%] [64.0%] [100.0%]
Colleges 1,011 702 334 2,047
[49.4 %] [34.3%] [16.3%] [100.0%]
TOTAL 1,068 16,165 68,199 85,432
[1.3%] [18.9%] [79.8%] [100.0%]

Note: All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1 %. Note that unlike the
preceding table, this table includes only institutions under the direct management of the
government. The four government colleges were located at Agra, Banaras, Bareilly and
Roorkee. All figures were compiled from the NWP Education Report, 1859-60, Appendix
A, 2-62.

Writing in 1874, Sir John Strachey, the Lieutenant-Governor of the

NWP, testified to this state of affairs when he remarked that the higher
one went in the educational system, the greater the number of boys
learning English and Urdu, and the smaller the number learning English
and Hindi. From this he inferred that the lower classes, especially in the
villages, spoke mostly Hindi while Urdu held sway in the towns, and
had 'greater vogue' among the more cultivated classes. 48 Although
Strachey oversimplified matters, since the rural masses usually spoke
one of the regional standards of Hindi and not Sanskritized Khari Boli
Hindi (see Chapter I), he accurately recognized the superiority of Urdu
over Hindi in the educational system.
Parallel educational statistics from Oudh also showed the same
correlation between the level of education and the study of different
languages. (See Table 10.) Progression up the educational ladder from
lower to middle to higher class schools and to Canning College, as in
the NWP, meant not only residing in an increasingly urbanized
environment, but also taking a greater proportion of English and
Islamic-heritage languages. In short, in both provinces the study of
Hindu-heritage languages diminished as years of schooling increased.
In other words, these statistics suggest that in the third quarter of the
nineteenth century, assimilation into Islamic-heritage languages had
kept pace with social mobilization.
 Language, Education and Employment 101

TABLE 10
Numbers of Students in Language Classes in Different Levels of Schools
in the Province of Oudh in 1869

Level of English Islamic- Hindu- Total

School Heritage Heritage

Lower Class — 10,639 9,434 20.073

[53.0%] [47.0%] [100.0%]
Middle Class 2,093 6,642 3,001 17,736
[17.8%] [56.6%] [25.6%] [100.0%]
Higher Class 1,011 702 334 2,047
[26.3%] [51.8%] [21.9%] [100.0%]
Canning College 492 393 116 1,201
[41.0%] [49.4%] [9.7%], [100.1%]

TOTAL 1,068 16,165 68,199 85,432

[8.6%] [54.0%] [37.4%] [100.0%]

Note All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1 %. Note that like the
preceding table, this table includes only institutions under the direct management of the
government, except for Canning College, which was a private institution aided bv
government. The figures for Canning College include both Canning College and the
private school of higher class of the same name which formed an integral part of the
college. All figures were compiled from the Oudh Educ Rpt 1868-9, Appendix A. This
report was the first one available in the India Office Library and Records; earlier reports
could not be found.

Perhaps the most important fact emerging from these educational

statistics is the uneven regional distribution of language study patterns.
In both Oudh (Table 10) and the western NWP (Table 8) a majority of
students took Islamic-heritage languages and a large minority Hindu-
heritage languages. In both these areas Muslim influence had been
deeper, and in Oudh British rule had begun later than anywhere else in
the two provinces. In the central and eastern parts of the NWP, on the
other hand, very large majorities studied Hindu-heritage languages and
modest minorities Islamic-heritage languages. In the easternmost part
of the NWP—Banaras and several districts to the north—British rule
had commenced a quarter-century earlier (1775) than elsewhere.
Moreover, Banaras had long been one of the major centres of
Hinduism. These historical and religious considerations go far to
explain the patterns of language study above, and the parallel patterns
of vernacular publishing (see Chapter II). In view of all this, the
concentration of the
102 One Language, Two Scripts

Hindi movement in the eastern part of the province with first Banaras
and later Allahabad as the two major centres seems almost inevitable.

The Language of School Textbooks

When Fink wrote his report on indigenous schools in 1845, he included
an analysis of the relationship of Urdu and Hindi which echoed the
observations of Gilchrist half a century earlier (see Chapter I) and
foreshadowed a difficulty which plagued education officials for
decades to come. Fink argued that:
. . . the Urdu and Hindee are distinct languages, because although they
agree in grammatical construction, they differ in almost every other
respect; the Urdu deriving all its vocables, figures of speech, and rules
of versification, and some of its rules of syntax, from the Persian, and
the Hindee its, from the Sanscrit.49 He predicted that either the two
would blend into one, or that one of them would fall into disuse—better
Urdu than Hindi, since fewer people used the former. With
commendable concern but with considerable naivety, he recommended
that the government should attempt to destroy the distinction between
Hindi and Urdu and strive to create a 'universal language' spoken and
understood equally well by the ignorant and the learned. Such a
language, he opined, would facilitate the transmission of education
from the higher to the lower classes. The sooner this occurred the
better, since at present the government had to provide two books on
every subject for the people, one in Hindi and one in Urdu. 50
Fink's remarks pointed directly to a basic contradiction in British
language policy in education. On the one hand, the curriculum for
government primary and secondary schools included both Urdu and
Hindi from the very beginning in the NWP&O. 51 (In the Punjab, by
way of contrast, the primary curriculum did not include Hindi until
1917.)" On the other hand, as we have seen, the great majority of
British officials regarded Hindi as an artificially created language and
the increasing divergence of Hindi and Urdu as pernicious. By
recognizing Hindi as a medium of instruction on the primary and
secondary levels, the government gave an enormous impetus to a
process of differentiation between Urdu and Hindi that might otherwise
have taken many decades longer. Since the schools needed textbooks in
both Hindi and Urdu, the government naturally turned to educated
Hindus and Muslims to write them. These groups, usually designated as
pandits and maulvis in contemporary references, by all accounts
laboured mightily to Sanskrit-ize Hindi and Persianize Urdu. In some
cases we would be more
 Language, Education and Employment 103

accurate in saying that the pandits Sanskritized Khari Boli Urdu, for Hindu
scholars 'translated' more than one textbook from the Urdu. 53 In any case they
already had models of Sanskritized Hindi (see Chapter II) whether translating
or writing de novo. Once the process of creating textbooks had begun in
earnest, the government proved unable to reverse the trend. In short, the very
government whose officials decried the existence of Hindi had done a great
deal to nourish this medium. J. C. Nesfield, Director of Public Instruction in
Oudh, made one of the most eloquent statements of the British dilemma in an
1876 report. He asserted that while Oudh had two different scripts, the Persian
(Urdu) and the Nagari, the people spoke only one language, Urdu. While Urdu
schoolbooks contained an accurate version of the vernacular, the Hindi texts
contained something quite different.
These books, instead of using Hindustani [Urdu] words to express common
objects and ideas, confine themselves to words of Sanskrit origin, which may
have been common once, but are now obsolete and have been so for several
centuries. The Hindustani language can borrow from two different sources,
Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit. But instead of encouraging and attempting to widen
the common element, we have been doing our utmost to widen the differences,
and to create, under the name of Hindi, a language which no one speaks, and
which no one, unless he has been specially educated, can interpret. . . . This is
the weakest point in our educational policy. How we have been drawn into it, it
is hard to say. Possibly our action may to some extent be ascribed to the
example set in the North-Western Provinces and elsewhere; possibly we have
been too ready to fall into the groove prepared for us by pandits and pedants.
The antagonism of maulvis and pandits, each endeavouring to supersede the
vernacular currency with words coined from their respective mints, has, no
doubt, done much to widen the breach between Urdu and Hindi, and to give
rise to the false impression that they are two different languages.54 Though
Nesfield seemed unaware of the regional standard Avadhi, undoubtedly far
more widely spoken by the rural masses of Oudh than Urdu, he had accurately
diagnosed the increasing differentiation between the two forms of Khari Boli.
Highly Sanskritized Hindi schoolbooks had already existed for several
decades when Nesfield wrote. One of the most popular of'these, Bal-Bodh
[Lessons for Children] first appeared in 1852 and went through twelve editions
in the next thirty years." The report of the Hunter (Indian Education)
Commission, issued in 1883, criticized the Hindi readers then in use. As a
result, Rama Shankar Misra, a Hindi scholar, was commissioned to draw up a
new series which remained in use until 1895 when yet another series created by
the Allahabad Literary
104 One Language, Two Scripts

Institute replaced Misra's. This series too soon required revision on the
basis of widespread complaints against its Sanskritized Hindi and
resulting unintelligibility to students. In the meantime Misra's books
regained their old position only to be once again supplanted in 1901 by
the Institute's revised series. Misra protested and learned that the Hindi
Sub-Committee of the Provincial Text-Book Committee considered his
style objectionable. The Committee noted that he used Persian, Arabic,
and Sanskrit words where simpler everyday expressions would have
sufficed, and that he often employed a grotesque mixture of Persian
and Sanskrit words in the same phrase.56
The melange of Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit which filled Misra's
schoolbooks suggests that he may have been trying to comply with the
government's policy of a 'common language' for elementary texts. This
policy, enunciated by the government of the NWP in 1876, rested on
the assumption that the educated classes spoke the same language,
whether written in the Persian (Urdu) or in the Nagari script. The test
of a proper elementary schoolbook, therefore, was that the contents
could be printed 'without violence' in either script.57 The provincial
government reaffirmed the policy of preceding administrations in 1903,
stating that only 'the language of every-day life . . . free alike from the
peculiarities of dialects and the elaborations of the literary style', and
written in either script, should be used for elementary texts. 58 By 'the
language of everyday life' the government clearly did not mean to
advocate the regional standards of language spoken by the
overwhelming mass of the people, but rather a style of Khari Boli
which did not employ excessive numbers of either Persian and Arabic
or Sanskrit words. Something like the style of Devki Nandan Khatri
(see Chapter II) was wanted, a style not at either extreme of the Khari
Boli spectrum.
Within a decade, however, increasingly irreconcilable differences
between Urdu and Hindi supporters forced the government to retreat
from this principle. In 1907 the Provincial Text-Book Committee
issued a fresh set of readers, calculated to better meet the official
mandate for 'the common language'. A storm of criticism ensued, for
the new style satisfied neither side; both condemned it as too poor and
too bald to meet the needs of those students planning to continue their
studies beyond the primary level. Critics derided the simplicity of the
new subject matter as 'silly or offensive or useless'.59
A year later a joint committee of the Hindi and Urdu Sub-
Committees met to review the many criticisms and to once again revise
the readers. At this point the provincial government decided to review
 Language, Education and Employment 105

the whole question of the suitability of the primary education

programme for the rural population, and the matter of the textbooks
passed into the hands of a special Rural Education Committee in 1910.
The proceedings of the new committee revealed a fundamental division
of opinion. The majority passed a resolution to introduce simple
passages in 'distinctive Urdu and Hindi' in the higher level of primary
readers while retaining the lessons in 'the common language' on in the
lower level. The minority, all Muslims, strongly dissented and refused
to admit any need to differentiate the language to be used by Urdu and
Hindi students even on the graduate level. After reviewing the
proceedings, the government directed the committee not to
compromise the principle of a common language and to rescind the
resolution. Such discords made further progress impossible, and the
committee never met again.60
In 1913 the whole matter came up once more. The government of
the United Provinces61 appointed an advisory Committee on Primary
Education to consider a wide range of questions, among them the
proper language of primary readers. The committee, twelve members
in all, considered three points of view, one from the two Muslim
members, and two from two of the four Hindu members. Asghar Ali
Khan and Saiyid Abu Jafar, the Muslim members, strongly objected to
even raising the issue, and contended that the government had already
made its policy clear in previous statements: the language of all
primary readers, whether in the Nagari or Persian (Urdu) scripts, had to
be absolutely identical. In their opinion the Committee had no
authority to consider the matter. Khan denied the existence of 'any such
thing as [the] Hindi language in the sense . . . of any living language
which has a fixed literary standard, is spoken and written, and is used
in correspondence and in law courts'.62 The proponents of Hindi, he
said, were reviving a long-dead language, understandable only to those
knowing Sanskrit, to the harm of the true lingua franca of the country,
Urdu or Hindustani. Urdu represented a compromise between Arabic
and Persian on the one side and Sanskrit on the other; moreover Urdu
had received official recognition.63
The chairman, T. C. Piggott, overruled these objections and the
Committee proceeded to discuss resolutions put forward by Ganga
Prasad Varma, a prominent Khatri newspaper publisher of Lucknow,
and Dr Sundar Lal, both important members of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha of Banaras.64 Varma proposed that two different sets of readers,
each written by well-known Hindi and Urdu scholars, be prepared for
106 One Language, Two Scripts

upper primary classes, one in the Nagari and one in the Persian (Urdu)
script. He spoke of Urdu and Hindi as different forms of the vernacular
or even different languages. He argued against a 'common language'
which would mean keeping the vernacular at a much lower level by
depriving both Hindi and Urdu of much of their higher vocabulary.
Moreover, he declared, when Muslims referred to the 'common
language' they really meant Urdu and intended to abolish Hindi. 65 The
Committee, however, felt that Varma's proposals meant too sharp a
change in the declared policy of the government, and voted them down.
Dr Lai's scheme, more modest in scope, carried the day, though both
the Muslim members and two of the six British members voted against
it. Lai urged that the language and subject matter of upper primary
readers should be generally the same, though in some cases alternative
words for readers in either script should be indicated in brackets. In
addition, the Hindi readers should include passages from recognized
Hindi books or newspapers and the Urdu readers similar passages from
Urdu sources.66 In other words, the Committee accepted the principle
that even on the primary level there should be some distinctive teaching
in Urdu and Hindi, though avoiding too radical an application of this
new approach.
The government proved more realistic than its committee this time,
and eventually ordered the preparation of supplementary readers for
upper primary classes, one set in Hindi and the other in Urdu, which
came into use in 1916. Students who mastered the lower primary reader
in the 'common language' qualified for promotion to the supplementary
readers. The government, in effect, accepted Varma's proposal and the
earlier resolution of the Rural Education Committee to introduce two
distinctive sets of teaching materials at the primary level. As a
justification for this decision, the government noted 'a growing
tendency to diverge from simple Hindustani in which it has hitherto
been sought to write all the primary readers', even in newspapers and in
books for the ordinary reader, not to mention works of a more elevated
or literary nature.67
The government's decision amounted to an admission that the policy
of a 'common language' had failed. Seventy years had passed since
Fink's pious hope for a 'universal language' but the breach between
Hindi and Urdu in the educational system had only widened. Pandits
and maulvis had certainly played an important part in this process of
differentiation; their hold on the schools reminds one of the hold of
Indian officials on the vernacular courts and offices. From a broader
perspective, the increasing differentiation between the two forms of
 Language, Education and Employment 107

Khari Boli in the schools reflected a much wider linguistic rivalry

which in turn reflected a still wider communal rivalry between Hindus
and Muslims.
The existence of two separate and completely unblendable scripts
exacerbated this rivalry and provided unambiguous symbols for Urdu
and Hindi supporters. Unlike the situation with vocabulary, no
continuum of scripts existed along which one could choose something
more towards the Urdu end or more towards the Nagari end: one chose
either the Urdu or the Nagari script. One contemporary British observer
wrote:
The very sight of the Nagri Character tends to perpetuate the
antagonism between Urdu and Hindi, and to give an undue prominence
to words of Sanskrit origin, on account of the Jong standing and almost
resistless association existing between the Nagri character and the
Sanskrit vocabulary.68 The great numbers of schoolbooks (see Chapter
II, page 41) which used this script and its associated Sanskrit
vocabulary did much to lend weight to the claim that Hindi (in the
sense of highly Sanskritized Khari Boli) actually existed. The irony lay
in the fact that the British government, many of whose officials
deplored the development of this form of Khari Boli, had created the
educational system which did much to give Hindi life.
Although the Nagari script did do much to intensify the rivalry
between Hindi and Urdu, the same process of Sanskritization would
very likely have occurred even without the existence of Urdu. One of
the most highly Sanskritized Indian languages of the nineteenth century
was Bengali, whose literature had great influence on Hindi authors. Yet
Bengali writers had no need to distinguish their language from a
closely related but highly Persianized Bengali written in the Persian
script because such a rival did not exist. Moreover, as we have seen
(Chapter II) the earliest writers of Khari Boli Hindi saw no
contradiction in also creating works in Islamic languages or scripts. In
short, the Sanskritization of Khari Boli—or any other regional standard
of the Hindi area which through historical accident might have
provided the grammatical basis of a lingua franca—would have taken
place in any case. The existence of Urdu simply intensified this process
by presenting a rival from which to distinguish Hindi. The fact that
Khari Boli became 'Hindi' stemmed from the historical and
geographical situation in which Urdu—the lingua franca of north India
when the Hindi movement began—arose. Had Braj Bhasha, for
example, furnished the
108 One Language, Two Scripts

grammatical basis for an Islamic-Hindu lingua franca, then

undoubtedly Braj Bhasha Hindi, suitably Sanskritized, would have
served the interests of Hindu nationalism just as well. 69 And as events
in other areas such as Bengal and the Marathi-speaking part of Bombay
Presidency made clear, Hindu nationalism did not need linguistic
symbols to flourish, though it would certainly use them if they were at
hand, as in the United Provinces.

Hindus and Muslims in Government Employment

Competition for government employment did much to generate
communal feelings between educated Hindus and Muslims in the
nineteenth century NWP&O. This economic rivalry underlay much of
the linguistic antagonism between Urdu and Hindi supporters, since
government service usually required certain language qualifications.
While a tiny minority of educated Indians won prestigious positions
through their knowledge of English, the bulk of aspirants to public
service had to rely on their knowledge of one of the vernaculars. Hence
the two closely related issues of the proper proportions of Muslims and
Hindus in government service, and of the proper language and script
for the official vernacular, affected many thousands of educated Indians
throughout the province. From their ranks came the most active
protagonists of Urdu and Hindi.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the question of the
appropriate ratio of Muslims and Hindus in government service
assumed considerable importance in several provinces. In 1882 the
National Muhammadan Association of Calcutta sent a memorial
complaining of a great decline in the proportion of Muslims in
government service, which stimulated the Government of India to order
an inquiry into the position of Muslims in the public service throughout
India. The results for the NWP&O made plain the fact that Muslims
held appointments far out of proportion to their actual numbers in the
population. Of the total of 54,130 Indian officials holding appointments
under the provincial government, 35,302 (65.2 per cent) were Hindus
and 18,828 (34.8 per cent) Muslims. The 1881 census showed 86.8 per
cent of the provincial population were Hindus, and 13.3 per cent
Muslims, with the percentage of literates for each community relatively
close, 5.1 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively. Thus based on their
share of the literate population, about 11.8 per cent, Muslims held
nearly three times their proportionate share of government positions. 70
Despite this advantageous position, educated Muslims felt that
 Language, Education and Employment 109

equity demanded a still greater share of government service. The

National Muhammadan Association had expressed dissatisfaction in its
memorial that 'the Hindus outnumber the Muhammadans in the
Government offices'.71 A writer in an 1885 issue of the Khair Khwah-i-
Islam (an Urdu weekly of Allahabad) observed that the number of
Hindu officers in Budaun district (western NWP&O) had exceeded the
number of Muslim officers. As a result, the Hindu community had
become more arrogant; to remedy the situation at least five of the ten
highest judicial and executive posts should be held by Muslims.72 The
Government of the NWP&O offered an explanation of these attitudes:
under Muslim rule, Muslims had enjoyed a near monopoly of the
highest and most lucrative offices, whereas the establishment of British
rule inevitably diminished their share of the public service.73
Educated Hindus, on the contrary, argued that their far greater
numbers justified a much greater proportion of public service positions.
Thus a writer in an 1882 issue of the Hindi Pradip (Allahabad) noted
that while only a small number of Muslims held high appointments in
Bengal, a much larger number held similar posts in the NWP&O. He
claimed that Muslim subordinate judges, munsifs (minor judicial
officials), Assistant Commissioners, and tahsildars (minor revenue
officials) outnumbered their Hindu counterparts, and that Muslims
dominated the Police Department. On the basis of population, he
asserted, Hindus should outnumber Muslims seven to one.74 Similarly,
a writer in an 1887 issue of Bharat Jivan (a Hindi weekly of Banaras)
pointed out that the civil list of the NWP&O showed 269 Hindus and
267 Muslims in the native civil service and in the subordinate judicial
and executive services. According to the proportion of Muslims in the
population, however, there should have been 480 Hindus and only 73
Muslims.75
The results of the inquiry showed something else, suggested by
Hindu complaints in the vernacular press, namely that Muslims held a
much greater share of appointments in some departments of
government than in others. They held more than half of the highest
posts in the Judicial, Revenue and Police Departments, the most
sought-after government positions. More Muslims than Hindus held
some of the very highest posts: in Oudh only one Indian, a Muslim, had
reached the rank of judge, and in the NWP two Muslims but no Hindus
had attained the rank of Assistant District Superintendent of Police. In
other departments, however, the proportion of Muslims fell sharply. In
the Post Office, for example, their numbers did not even reach their
proportional share.76 In the Department of Public Instruction they filled
only about a
110 One Language, Two Scripts

quarter of the appointments, almost certainly a result of the greater

importance of Hindi vis-a-vis Urdu in the primary and secondary
schools of the province. No striking regional disparities appeared, with
the exception of the hill districts. Here the population consisted almost
entirely of Hindus and almost no one knew Urdu. Thus not a single
Muslim appeared on the roster of government employees in the office
of the Commissioner of Kumaun.77
In other provinces of north India Muslims faced somewhat different
situations. In the Punjab, for example, Muslims had nearly half of the
highest administrative and judicial appointments, quite close to their
proportion in the provincial population.78 In the Central Provinces
Muslims filled a little over a quarter of the nearly 20,000 government
positions though they comprised only about 3.5 per cent of the
population.79 In Bengal, however, quite a different situation prevailed:
here Muslims held a significantly lower proportion of positions than
their proportion in the population.80 The dominance of Muslims in the
Punjab paralleled the dominance of Urdu in vernacular courts and
offices. The less dominant but still important position of Muslims in the
Central Provinces both reflected and influenced the slowness of the
change to the Nagari script (see Chapter III). The position of Muslims
in the NWP&O, less powerful than that of their coreligionists in the
Punjab, more powerful than that of their fellow Muslims in the Central
Provinces, and perceived as unjust by Hindu rivals for government
service, ensured a lengthy struggle between Urdu and Hindi supporters.

The Relationship of Education and Employment

As we have seen, the Government of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh generally favoured Urdu throughout the nineteenth century, and
the domain of education proved no exception. Though both Hindi and
Urdu received government support at the primary and secondary levels
of vernacular education, when the question of government service
arose, Urdu had more practical value since only Urdu was recognized
as the official vernacular language. In 1877 the provincial government
first prescribed the Middle Class Vernacular and the Middle Class
Anglo-Vernacular Examinations81 as qualifications for government
service, and explicitly recognized Urdu as the superior vernacular
language.
The official order declared that from 1 January 1879, all
appointments to public service with a monthly salary over Rs 10 would
(with a few exceptions) require certain linguistic qualifications in
addition to passing the prescribed examination. In offices using
English, candidates needed
 Language, Education and Employment 111

a Middle Class Anglo-Vernacular Examination certificate, with Urdu

or Persian as the second language. In offices using the vernaculars
candidates needed a Middle Class Vernacular Examination certificate,
with either Urdu or Hindi credentials. In any office those having
University Entrance Examination certificates with Urdu or Persian as a
second language would have superior qualifications. 82
By the mid- 1880s the sizeable increase in the numbers of candidates
for these examinations showed that the order had begun to take effect.
Each Collector or Deputy Commissioner (the chief officer of a district)
received lists of successful candidates, and was supposed to fill
vacancies from them. By the late 1880s the two Middle Class
Examinations had come to be the educational events of greatest interest
to the educated public. Towards the end of the century, however, their
popularity began to wane in the face of increasing competition from the
expanding numbers of School Final Examination and Entrance
Examination pass candidates.83
Success in either of the two Middle Class Examinations did not
guarantee government service, however, as Babu Bharatendu Harish-
chandra of Banaras noted in his testimony to the Hunter Commission in
1882. After repeated complaints by educated Indians, Bharatendu said,
the government had made these examinations necessary qualifications
for public service. Unfortunately the new rule had become a dead letter
for two chief reasons: first, the majority of British officials had strong
prejudices against graduates and undergraduates; second, Indian court
officials spared no efforts to prevent these new candidates from
intruding into their offices, and their superiors generally accepted their
recommendations for new positions. Only the Educational Department
held out hope of employment to the educated.84 These remarks found
partial corroboration from John Nesfield of the Oudh Division of the
Educational Department. He pointed out that although district officers
usually encouraged those educated in government schools, Indian
officials worked to prevent these graduates, whom they regarded as
invaders, from securing appointments. According to Nesfield the
majority of students reported to have secured government employment
had done so in the Educational Department.85
For a few years beginning in the mid-1880s the provincial
government published statistics on the social and religious
backgrounds of successful candidates for the two Middle Class
Examinations which revealed patterns exactly parallel to those
appearing previously in indigenous and government schools.86 Tables
11 and 12 show that in the typical year
112 One Language, Two Scripts

of 1887, Kayasths not only composed the largest single block of

candidates, but also exceeded their proportionate share many times
over. This caste group, generally recognized as the best Hindu scholars
of Persian and Urdu, looked upon government service as a birthright. 87
Towards the end of the century, however, increasing numbers of
complaints in the vernacular press from Kayasths suggested their
growing concern that other castes were beginning to threaten this
supposed birthright.88 The Kayastha Conference, which held its first
meeting in Lucknow in 1887, included the promotion of employment
for Kayasths in commercial and industrial occupations (where
opportunities were deemed superior to those in government and private
service) as a major purpose of the new organization.89 A typical lament
appeared in an Urdu-language Kayasth newspaper of Agra. The writer
deplored the unhappy situation of many of his caste-mates in the
Central Provinces, unable to secure government employment despite
university degrees. Kayasths had followed the profession of literary
service for untold ages, he proclaimed, and had no aptitude for other
kinds of employment. If the government would only make other classes

TABLE 11
Castes of Successful Candidates in the Anglo-Vernacular and
Vernacular Middle Examinations for 1887

Anglo-Vernacular Vernacular
Caste or Number Percentage Caste or Number Percent
a
Religion Religion
Kayasth 376 32.7 Kayasth 417 25.2
Brahman 237 20.6 Brahman 373 22.5
Baniya 140 12.2 Baniya 176 10.6
Khatri 81 7.1 Khatri 10 0.6
Rajput 43 3.7 Rajput 147 8.9
Other 70 6.1 Other 122 7.4
Muslim 202 17.6 Muslim 413 24.9
TOTAL 1149 100.0 TOTAL 1658 100.1

Note: All figures have been compiled from the NWP&O Education Report 1886-87,
16-17, 19. All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1 per cent. For Anglo-
Vernacular 'Other' included: 15 Christians, 32 unspecified, and 23 divided among 10
Hindu castes, mostly lower, including Ahir, Kalwar, Sonar, etc. For Vernacular 'Other'
included: 10 unspecified, and 112 divided among 25 Hindu castes, mainly lower,
including Ahir, Lohar, Mali, Sonar, etc.
 Language, Education and Employment 113

TABLE 12
Proportions of Students of Various Castes Passing the Anglo-Vernacular and
Vernacular Middle Examinations for 1887 Compared to their Proportions
in the Population in 1881

Caste or Population Number Ideal Pass Ratio of

Religion Proportion Passed Numbers Representation
Khatri (0.1) 91 (3.8) (24.1)
Kayasth 1.0 793 37.8 21.0
Baniya 2.4 316 88.8 3.6
Rajput 5.9 190 222.0 0.9
Brahman 9.1 610 343.0 1.8
Muslim 11.5 615 434.0 1.4
Other 44.4 192 1677.0 0.1

Note: All figures have been compiled from the NWP&O Education Report 1886-87, 16-
17, 19, and Report on the Census of the N.-W. P. and Oudh, and of the Native States of
Rampur and Native Garhwal, taken on the 17th Fehruary, 1881 (Allahabad: 1882), pp.
60, 136. The figures for the Khatri population did not appear in the 1881 census and were
based on the Census of the N.-W. Provinces, 1872, Vol. I (Allahabad: 1873), pp. 77, 79.
All figures have been rounded off to the first figure after the decimal point. Population
Proportion was calculated by using the number of Kayasths as an arbitrary base equal to
1.00. Using percentages of the total population would have brought the same results, but
the arbitrary base method was easier to calculate. Ideal Pass Proportion represents the
numbers of students of each caste had their numbers been distributed according to their
proportions in the population. Ratio of Representation indicates the degree to which each
caste exceeded or fell short of its ideal pass proportion. Thus Kayasths appeared among
successful candidates 21 times more often than their numbers in the population would
theoretically justify, while Muslims appeared only 1.4 times more often than their
numbers in the population.

return to their hereditary professions, leaving the public service free for
Kayasths, they would not find themselves in their present miserable
condition.90
Kayasth complaints undoubtedly concerned not Muslims, who made
up the second largest group of candidates, but other Hindus—chiefly
Brahmans, Baniyas, Rajputs, and Khatris—who comprised about half
the total, nearly outnumbering Kayasths and Muslims combined.
Khatris, like Kayasths, exceeded their proportionate share many times
over. Brahmans and Baniyas were only slighdy over-represented, while
Rajputs were slightly under-represented. Not surprisingly, other castes
with no tradition of education, were grossly under-represented. The
chief
114 One Language, Two Scripts

competitors of Kayasths and Muslims, then, came from the ranks of

high-caste or middle-caste Hindus, the same groups who dominated the
indigenous Hindi schools four decades earlier, and the same groups
who were to control the leading Hindi organization of the nineteenth
century, the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of
Nagari) of Banaras.91
Table 13 shows the effect of government language policy on the
language choices of candidates for the Vernacular Middle Examination.
Between 1874-75 and 1895-96 the proportions of candidates taking
Hindi vis-a-vis Urdu reversed themselves. During the first few years
Hindi candidates accounted for more than three-quarters of the total.
Soon after the 1877 order, however, the balance began to shift and by
1886-87 Urdu candidates made up more than three-quarters of the
whole, and this remained the case for the rest of the century.92 'The
reason, of course,' noted an education official in 1896, 'is that Urdu is
the vernacular language of the law courts and Government offices, and
that the examination is chiefly valued as a means of obtaining
employment in connection with them.'93
A comparison of the figures for 1886-87 in Table 11 with those for
the Vernacular Middle Examination in Table 13 produces some
interesting results.94 Let us assume that all Muslims (413) and Kayasths
(417) chose Urdu instead of Hindi. A few calculations will show that
slightly over a quarter of the non-Kayasth Hindus (209 of 828) must
have opted for Urdu too. If we assume that a very few Muslims and a
few Kayasths chose Hindi, the fraction of non-Kayasth Hindus
choosing Urdu might rise to a third.9' We can make the comparison in a
different way. Let us again assume that all Muslims decided in favour
of Urdu. This means that Hindus split almost exactly down the middle,
a little over one-half (626) for Urdu, a little under one-half (619) for
Hindi. However one manipulates the figures, the results show that a
significant number of educated Hindus, Kayasths and non-Kayasths
alike, chose Urdu. While the equation Hindi = Hindu may have held
true in this case, the equation Urdu = Muslim did not. This basic fact
shows clearly that no matter how vociferous the champions of Hindi
might wax, they could not claim that all Hindus shared their views.
Hence the process of multi-symbol congruence of which the Hindi
movement formed a major part did not include the majority even of
educated Hindus in the nineteenth century NWP&O.
One might ask why any candidates at all chose Hindi for their
Vernacular Middle Examination. To answer, let us imagine a fanciful
 Language, Education and Employment 115

TABLE 13
Candidates Taking Hindi or Urdu in the Vernacular Middle Examinations
from 1874-75 to 1895-96

Urdu Hindi
Year Candidates Percentage Candidates Percentage
1874-75 434 24.8 1315 75.2
1875-76 231 24.2 723 75.8
1876-77 199 24.5 614 75.5
1877-78 196 22.3 683 77.7
1878-79 154 87.0 23 13.0
1879-80 382 46.3 443 53.7
1880-81 596 49.2 615 50.8
1881-82 627 47.9 681 52.1
1882-83 715 49.9 717 50.1
1883-84 908 52.5 822 47.5
1884-85 1761 (535) 65.4 (57.5) 931 (396) 34.6 (42.5)
1885-86 2298 (732) 69.2 (58.7) 1025 (512) 30.8 (41.3)
1886-87 3382 (1039) 74.2 (62.7) 1175 (619) 25.8 (37.3)
1887-88 3179 (1234) 73.8 (69.7) 1127 (536) 26.2 (30.3)
1888-89 345 (1616) 77.4 (71.4) 1005 (648) 22.6 (28.6)
1889-90 3625 79.8 920 20.2
1890-91 3290 79.1 869 20.9
1891-92 2727 (1121) 81.2 (76.1) 628 (351) 18.8 (23.9)
1892-93 2689 (1254) 78.8 (74.6) 724 (426) 21.2 (25.4)
1893-94 2967 (1428) 78.9 (77.9) 792 (406) 21.1 (22.1)
1894-95 2931 (1205) 78.3 (75.7) 814 (386) 21.7 (24.3)
1895-96 2814 (1247) 78.2 (72.5) 785 (474) 21.8 (27.5)

Note: All figures except the percentages have been taken from Malaviya, Court
Character, p. 31. The figures in parentheses indicate successful candidates; no
figures for these were given before 1884-85, or during the years 1889-90 and
1890-91. The three years underlined indicate: (1) the year in which the 1877 orders
favouring Urdu first came into effect; (2) the year analysed in Tables 11 and 12
above; (3) the year in which the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras was founded.
All percentages have been calculated to the nearest 0.1%. ,

picture based on the preceding data. A large pair of gates labelled

Vernacular Middle and Anglo-Vernacular Examinations stands before
us. Through them pours a crowd of hundreds, moving in the direction
of more distant gates. Many more hundreds fail to pass through even
these first two gates. A small portion of the successful gate-passers
116 One language, Two Scripts

manages to enter two of the more distant gates, more splendid than the
rest, designated as Subordinate Judicial and Executive Services, but
many others are turned aside. Some of these, mainly Brahmans,
Rajputs, Baniyas and Khatris, along with some Muslims, succeed in
crossing the portals of a large plain gate entitled 'Educational
Department'. Others, among them many Muslims, pass through an
austere gate labelled 'Police Department'. While some of the crowd
manage to enter still other smaller gates, many fail to enter through any
gate at all, and straggle off into the surrounding countryside. This
imaginary picture suggests that many non-Kayasth Hindus found their
best hope for government service lay in the newer Educational
Department rather than the older, more prestigious, and better-paid
Revenue or Judicial Departments. From their ranks came many of the
leaders of the Hindi movement. The three founders of the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha of Banaras included a Brahman, a Rajput and a
Khatri; all three made their careers in education, two in government
service, the third in both government and private service. 96

The Basic Contradictions in British Language Policy

In the nineteenth century NWP&O, more than elsewhere in north India,
the pace of social mobilization outstripped that of assimilation and
Hindus and Muslims became more and more subjectively conscious
communities.'7 The government did much to shape relations between
the two groups through fundamental contradictions in educational and
administrative policies. Few set this forth more clearly than a writer in
an 1883 issue of the Bharat Bandhu (a Hindi-English weekly of
Aligarh). He noted with surprise and regret that on the one hand the
government had made the use of Hindi common among the people by
establishing Hindi schools in every village, while on the other, it had
completely prohibited the use of Hindi in the courts. 98 He had hit the
proverbial nail on the head. While the provincial government
recognized Hindi and Urdu as separate subjects in the educational
system, used textbooks printed in different scripts, and even required
prospective teachers to become qualified in both language styles and
scripts, the same government refused to grant Hindi and the Nagari
script equal status with Urdu and the Persian (Urdu) script in courts and
offices.
Government officials could always find reasons to justify the
subordinate position of Hindi and Nagari. The language, they asserted,
could match neither the literary development nor the technical and
legal terminology of Urdu, while the script could equal neither the
speed nor
 Language, Education and Employment 117

the elegance of the Persian (Urdu) script. Their reasons, however, smacked of
rationalization, for the same arguments apparently failed to apply to the Central
Provinces or Bihar, where the government enforced policies favouring Hindi
and Nagari or Kaithi. The same arguments also failed to apply to the hill
districts of the NWP&O where Hindi and Nagari had long enjoyed official
status. The government chose to favour Urdu and the Urdu script for political,
not administrative or technical reasons, but preferred to explain this policy in
non-political terms.
Government officials also conveniently ignored what might be called the
'self-fulfilling prophecy effect', namely, by favouring Urdu and the Urdu script,
the government perpetuated some of the very shortcomings of Hindi and
Nagari which purportedly rendered them unfit for official use. A flagrant
example of this second contradiction in British language policy appears in a
statement of Sir John Strachey, Lieutenant-Governor of the NWP&O, part of
an official commentary on the Educational Department report for 1874:
While, therefore, Hindi may justly be called the mother tongue in the sense of
the familiar language of the bulk of the common people, there can be no
question that a speaker who would command the largest possible audience of
intelligent natives of these Provinces would address himself to them in Urdu—
the language chiefly used in literature, in the business of Government, and for
the diffusion of public news. In these circumstances, it is a question of very
little importance which of the two shall be called the mother tongue.
Government must take facts as it finds them, and it is needless to say that it will
not attempt to alter the relative position of Urdu and Hindi, because those who
speak Hindi are numerically the stronger body.99 If Government had to take
facts as it found them, then one of those facts was that Government itself had
given the official status to Urdu which Strachey cited as a reason in favour of
Urdu and against Hindi. Moreover, the superior value of Urdu for government
service directed the efforts of many educated Hindus, especially Kayasths,
away from the enrichment of Hindi literature and the development of the Hindi
vernacular press, and thus further strengthened the case against Hindi. Strachey
rejected the argument that the government should favour Hindi because of the
greater numbers of Hindi speakers. A quarter century later another Lieutenant-
Governor, Sir Antony MacDonnell, put forth exactly the same argument to
justify government recognition of Hindi and the Nagari script. Though the
masses used local dialects or regional standards and only some among
educated Hindus used Sans-kritized Khari Boli Hindi, the increasing success of
the Hindi movement
118 One Language, Two Scripts

had much to do with the apparent volte-face of the government. The Hindi
movement, or better, the Hindi-Nagari movement, represented increasing
numbers of educated Hindus, many of whom looked to Hindi not only as a
potential means to government service, but also as a vehicle of cultural and
religious values.
The Hindi-Nagari movement of the nineteenth century NWP&O bore all the
earmarks of the first stage of the process of transformation posited by Brass100
in which ethnic groups become subjectively conscious communities. This stage
requires four essential components: an elite, a socially mobilizing population, a
symbol pool, and another group from whom the first can be differentiated. All
of these appeared in the last third of the century, strengthened by the
contradictions of British language policy. The British educational system
fostered a Hindi-speaking elite, served as an agent of social mobilization, and
provided a stimulus to the growth of Hindi literature and the use of the Nagari
script. The British administrative system, by recognizing only Urdu and the
Persian (Urdu) script for official purposes, supported a group— perceived
chiefly as Muslims though including many Hindus—opposed to the interests of
Hindi advocates. Though British policy aimed at linguistic assimilation, a
common language, the fundamental contradictions in this policy worked to
increase linguistic differentiation.

NOTES

1. NWP Educ Rpt, 1873-74, Orders of Government, p. 15.

2. As previously mentioned, the Urdu script is a modified version of the
Persian script, which in turn is a modified version of the Arabic script. The
Persian script added several letters to the Arabic script, and the Urdu script
added several to the Persian (the retroflex or cerebral sounds), though at the
same time blurring some of the original distinctions of pronunciation
represented by certain Arabic and Persian letters.
3. Benares (Banaras) Sanskrit College, the oldest institution of higher learning
in the NWP&O, came into existence in 1792, less than 20 years after the
British had annexed the easternmost part of the province.
4. NWP Educ Rpt, 1846-47, p. 32.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. See Chapter I for a more detailed explanation of these terms.
9. Ibid. Curiously, Ballantyne has received little or no attention from Indian
historians of Hindi. Even Ramchandra Shukla, author of a standard history
of
 Language, Education and Employment 119

Hindi literature and an important member of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, mentions him
only once and very briefly.
10. NWP Educ Rpt, 1846-47, pp. 33, 38; Ibid., 1852-53, pp. 68-9; Ibid., 1853-54, pp. 61-
2.
11. NPS 7th Ann Rpt, p. 61.
12. NWP Educ Rpt, 1848-49, p. 15.
13. Ibid., 1863-64, p. 6; Ibid., 1866-67, p. 17.
14. According to one Banaras scholar, Hindi cannot be written well without a through
knowledge of Sanskrit. Pandit Baldev Upadhyaya, Interview, 18 April 1972. See
also: Christopher R. King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion
of the Nagari Script and Language) of Benares 1893-1914: A Study in the Social
and Political History of the Hindi Language, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of
Wisconsin, 1974, pp. 194-7.
15. NWP Educ Rpt, 1867-68, Appendix B, p. 33.
16. This organization, established on 10 May 1866, included Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
among its leaders. Shan Muhammad, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan: A Political Biography
(Meerut: 1969), pp. 208-9.
17. The signers included six Muslims and four Hindus. One of the Hindus was a
Bengali, the other three probably Kayasths. 'Rajah Kykishen Doss Buhadur' signed
as Secretary, and 'Issen Chunder Mookerjee' as Vice-President. Among the other
signatures was that of 'Syud Ahmud'. NWP Educ Rpt, 1867-68, Appendix B, pp. 22-
4.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 1867-68, Appendix B, pp. 25, 26.
20. While a young officer in Central India and later in Banaras, McLeod found
inspiration in the educational efforts of Lancelot Wilkinson and James Ballantyne to
combine what they considered the best in traditional learning with Western
knowledge. He also admired the successful efforts of James Thomason, Lieutenant-
Governor of the NWP, to establish a widespread system of vernacular primary
education beginning in the late 1840s. See Jeffrey Price Perrill, Punjab Orientalism:
The Anjuman-i-Punjab and Punjab University, 1865-1888, Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Missouri, 1976, pp. 36-47.
21. Leitner, born in Hungary of Jewish ancestry, studied Arabic as a child in Turkey,
earned higher degrees in Germany, became a naturalized British citizen, and
eventually taught Arabic and Muslim law at London University. His scholarly and
linguistic abilities, coupled with a singular capacity to work with Indian colleagues,
made him the driving force of the Anjuman and of the Oriental College. Ibid., pp.
85-107.
22. Ibid., Chapters I, II and III passim.
23. Ironically, Aitchison had been an early member of the Anjuman. Ibid., pp. 78-80,
128, 363-4.
24. Ibid., pp. 368-81, 442-7, 463-7, 536-70, 572-8, 593-4, 605-10.
25. UP Educ Rpt, 1923-24, p. 3; Ibid., 1926-27, pp. 14.
26. NWP&O SVN, 1888, pp. 480-1.
27. S. K. Bhatnagar, History of the M.A.O. College Aligarh (Bombay, 1969), p. 60;
Muhammad, Sir Syed, p. 66.
120 One Language, Two Scripts

28. Shri Prakash, Bharat-Ratna Dr. Bhagavan Das (Meerut, 1970), p. 32; NPS 6th Ann
Rpt, p. 21.
29. NWP Educ Rpt, 1870-71, Appendix A, p. 46A.
30. A tahsildar (chief administrative officer of a subdivision of a district) of Farrukabad
noted in his report on indigenous schools that a very large number of them had been
established within six months of his investigation. He surmised that 'some
misconception prevailed among the people with respect to the views of Government
in enquiring into the state of education'. Another investigator, J. C. Wilson, Collector
of Moradabad district, noted that many schoolmasters thought enquiries into their
schools might injure their interests. The comments of other investigators showed that
their statistics were often gathered through intermediaries of unknown reliability.
Many investigators seem to have taken only a cursory interest in the subject, while a
few—most notably Fink—compiled very thorough and detailed records. The
ephemeral nature of many schools (many Hindi schools appeared and disappeared in
accordance with the demands of the agricultural cycle) compounded the
investigators' difficulties. NWP Educ Rpt, 1845-46, Appendix I, pp. xliii-xliv, xlviii;
Ibid., 1846-47, xl.
31. Ibid., 1844-45, pp. 9-10, Appendix I, pp. lxv-lxvii.
32. Fink reported that the level of achievement in these schools was low. Most of the
students in those schools teaching Sanskrit along with Hindi could not tell whether
sentences in a standard reader were Hindi or Sanskrit. Ibid., 1844-45, pp. 9-10,
Appendix I, pp. liii-liv, Ixv-lxviii, lxxi, Ixxiii, lxxiv; Ibid., 1845-46, Appendix I, p. 1.
This suggests that Fink's students may have faced the same puzzling situation as that
of Dr Ballantyne's students, i.e., the virtual nonexistence of a standardized and
highly-Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi.
33. Baniya refers to Hindu trading and merchant castes. Rajput refers to castes in the
second great class of Hindu society, Kshatriyas or warriors, especially those tracing
their ancestry to Rajasthan. Note that the number of teachers does not necessarily
equal the number of schools. One-teacher schools, however, seem to have been by
far the most common, judging from the usual close correspondence between the
number of teachers and the number of schools in any particular district. Ibid., 1844-
45, pp. 9-10, Appendix I, pp. liii-liv, lxv-lxvii, lxxi, Ixxiii, lxxiv; Ibid., 1845-46,
Appendix I, p. 1. See also Note 64, Chapter III.
34. Ibid., 1844-45, Appendix I, lxiii.
35. Contemporary sources make clear how close the relationship between Persian and
Urdu seemed to many. A writer in the 1 October 1870 issue of the Urdu newspaper
Najm-ul-Akhbar (Meerut) saw no need to translate Persian books into Urdu since the
two languages were so close to each other that a student of Urdu had little trouble
understanding a Persian passage. NWP SVN, 1870, p. 385. J. C. Nesfield, an
educational official in Oudh, in a report on indigenous schools wrote of similar
attitudes:
'The character of Urdu and Persian being the same, it is considered a waste of time to
teach a child the Vernacular, which he will learn in any case, with or without the help of a
teacher' (Oudh Educ Rpt, 1874-75, Appendix I., p. iv). 'It is believed, too, (not without
reason), that a knowledge of Persian is indispensable
 Language, Education and Employment 121

to any one who wishes to understand the language used in the courts, or to take up any
kind of literary employment, of which Urdu forms the basis. However circuitous, slow
and indirect the process may be, it is invariably found that a student, who has completed
the Persian course and has been under an energetic teacher can read and understand at
sight any ordinary Urdu book, and write an
Urdu letter with a fair degree of facility, correctness, and perspicuity ........................ '
(Ibid.)
36. NWP Educ Kpt, 1844-45, pp. 9, 10, Appendix I, pp. lv, lix, lxii, lxiii, lxxiii.
37. See Chapter V for a description of the survey of Hindu and Muslim government
servants' knowledge of Hindi and Urdu carried out by Lieutenant-Governor
MacDonnell in 1900 which parallels this description of die indigenous schools.
38. NWP Educ Kpt, 1844-45, p. 9, Appendix I, pp. lviii, lxv; Ibid., 1846-47, lv.
39. Ibid., 1845-6, Appendix I, p. xliii; Ibid., 1847-48, pp. lxxviii, c. An intriguing oddity
appeared in the district report for Meerut: a Rajput reportedly teaching Arabic.
40. Ibid., 1850-51, pp. 6, 39, 59, 72; A. M. Monteath, 'Note on the State of Education in
India during 1865-66', SRGI, Home Dept, No. LIV, p. 26.
41. NWP Educ Rpt, 1850-51, p. 24; Monteath, 'Note on the State of Education', p. 25.
42. Oudb Educ Kpt, 1870-71, p. 95; Ibid., 1871-72, pp. 128-9; Ibid., 1872-73, p. 92;
Perrill, Punjab Orientalism, pp. 44-7; Kerrin Dittmer, Die Indiscben Muslims und
die Hindi-Urdu Kontroverse in den United Provinces (Wiesbaden, 1972), p. 70. See
also Note 64, Chapter III, on the contrast between the indigenous schools of Bihar
and those of the NWP&O. Note that Thomason conceived of Hindi or Urdu as the
languages of instruction.
43. These schools included: government colleges; government schools of higher class
(secondary schools); government schools of lower class (primary schools) including
Anglo-Vernacular, female schools, tahsili schools, and halkabandi schools; privage
colleges open to government inspection; private schools of higher class open to
government inspection; private schools of lower class open to government
inspection; missionary schools; government normal schools; and the government
engineering college at Roorkee. Since students often studied more than one
language, and since the nature of the tabulation made it impossible to determine how
many students were studying which additional languages, percentages have been
calculated from the total number of students studying each language, making a total
larger than the total number of students. NWP Educ Kpt, 1859-60, Appendix A, pp.
1-62.
44. These schools included: government schools of higher class (superior zila schools);
government schools of middle class (inferior zila schools); government schools of
middle class (Anglo-Vernacular town schools and Vernacular town schools);
government schools of lower class (village schools, government female schools, and
government jail schools); private colleges, private schools of higher class, private
schools of middle class, private schools of lower class, and private female schools,
all open to government inspection; and government normal schools. Oudb Educ Rpt,
1868-69, Appendix A; Monteath, 'Note on the State of Education', p. 7.
45. By Hindu-heritage languages here I mean Sanskrit, Hindi, and Hindi taught in
122 One Language, Two Scripts

Kaithi and other cursive forms of the Nagari script. By Islamic-heritage languages here I
mean Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. These terms have been coined as useful expressions for
referring to those languages of the NWP&O and elsewhere in north India written in the
various versions of the Nagari script and associated with Hindus, and those written in the
various versions of the Arabic script and associated with Muslims.
46. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1880-81, p. 53; Ibid., 1886-87, p. 41.
47. The figures for Tables 8 and 9 do not tally because Table 8 includes both schools
directly managed by the government and schools inspected by the government,
while Table 9 includes only the former. See Note 43 above.
48. NWP Educ Rpt, 1873-74, Orders of Government, p. 16. It is important to note that in
the NWP&O the Muslim population was proportionately more concentrated in the
cities than the Hindu. Dittmer, Die lndischen Muslims, pp. 34-7.
49. NWP Educ Rpt, 1844-45, Appendix I, lxii.
50. Ibid., 1844-45, Appendix I, pp. Ixxiii, lxxix.
51. Perrill, Punjab Orientalism, pp. 44-7; Dittmer, Die lndischen Muslims, p. 70; Oudh
Educ Rpt, 1870-71, p. 95; Ibid., 1871-72, pp. 128-9; Ibid., 1872-73, p. 92.
52. Raghunandan Shastri, Panjab me Hindi ki Pragati (Varanasi, 1943), pp. 52-3.
53. Shardadevi Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose Literature in the Early
Nineteenth Century (1800-1856A.D.) (Allahabad, 1969), pp. 236-44.
54. Oudh Educ Rpt, 1875-76, p. 5. Emphasis mine.
55. Vedalankar, Development of Hindi, pp. 153-62, 236; Educ Comm Report NWP&O,
p. 437.
56. UP Educ Progs, May 1903, p. 39; UP SVN, 1903, pp. 259-61.
57. UP Educ Progs, May 1903, p. 41, Letter dated 16 May 1903, from Government of
the United Provinces to the Director of Public Instruction, United Provinces.
58. Ibid. In the same year, the provincial government instituted a scheme making it
compulsory for all students in certain middle-level classes in its schools to study
both Hindi and Urdu. Officials reasoned that students should learn to read both
scripts in their own interest, though they did not have to study more than one branch
of the vernacular. NPS 10th Ann Rpt, p. 24; NPS 11th Ann Rpt, p. 28; NPS 11th Ann
Rpt (English), p. 11. This policy, strongly opposed by the Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
was continued for many years: a Hindu official of the Sabha, Shri Shambhunath
Bajpeyi, mentioned that in his youth (he was born in 1916) students were required to
study both Hindi and Urdu in the sixth, seventh and eighth standards, while in earlier
and later standards either Hindi or Urdu could be studied. Interview, Banaras, 3
April 1972.
59. UP Educ Rpt, 1911-12, pp. 106-7.
60. Ibid., 1915-16, pp. 2, 102, 106-7; Report of the Committee on Primary Education,
United Provinces, 1913 (Allahabad, 1913), p. 65.
61. In 1902 the Northern Provinces and Oudh became the United Provinces of Agra and
Oudh.
62. Report of the Committee on Primary Education, United Provinces, 1913, p. 67.
Khan's assertion flew in the face of the facts. Post Office statistics for the mid-18705
(later discontinued) showed that even four decades previously Hindi
 Language, Education and Employment 123

letters received for delivery numbered more than 80 per cent of Urdu letters. NWP Gen
Dept Progs, August 1876, pp. 27-35. See Table5, Chapter II for more details.
63. Ibid., p. 67.
64. Varma joined the NPS as an honorary member in 1894, and Lal, a wealthy life
member of the NPS, had donated the first large sum (Rs 1000) for the creation of a
Hindi dictionary. Ibid., pp. 1-2, 19-20; Shyam Sundar Das, Meri Atmakahani [The
Story of My Life] (Prayag, 1957), p. 148; Kasi Nagaripracarini Sabha ka VinTt
Nivedan [A Modest Submission of the Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha] (Kasi 1923),
p. 19; NPS 11th Ann Rpt, Membership List, No. 484; NPS 21st Ann Rpt, Membership
List, No. 156.
65. Report of the Committee on Primary Education, United Provinces, 1913, pp. 20-3,
63.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., pp. 60-1; UP SVN, 1914, p. 1386.
68. J. C. Nesfield, Director of Public Instruction in Oudh in the mid-1870s, quoted in
Nandalal Chatterji, 'The Government's Attitude to Hindi-Urdu Hindusthani in the
Post-Mutiny Period', Journal of the Uttar Pradesh Historical Society, New Series, III
(1955), p. 30.
69. See Christopher R. King, 'Forging a New Linguistic Identity: The Hindi Movement
in Banaras, 1868-1914', in Sandria B. Freitag, editor, Culture and Power in Banaras:
Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800-1980 (Berkeley, 1989), pp. 189-
92.
70. 'Correspondence on the Subject of the Education of the Muhammadan Community in
British India and Their Employment in the Public Service Generally', SRGI, Home
Department, No. CCV, Home Department Serial No. 2 (Calcutta, 1886), pp. 240,
286.
71. Ibid., p. 240.
72. NWP&O SVN, 1885, pp. 77-8.
73. 'Correspondence on the Subject of the Education', pp. 240, 285. Sir Antony
MacDonnell, Lieutenant-Governor of the NWP&O around the turn of the century,
wrote concerning his policy of achieving a balance between Hindus and Muslims in
government service: 'I have in ordinary circumstances endeavoured to adjust my
appointments with reference to the relative numbers and influence of the two great
religions. Other things being equal, I have endeavoured to appoint three
Muhammadans for every five Hindus. These proportions are, of course, far more
favourable to the Muhammadans than would emerge from a mere consideration of
the census proportions of the two classes; but having regard to the traditional
position which Muhammadans have held in (he Government of the country, and to
their better education than Hindus (except the Kayasth class, of whom one can easily
have too much), the proportions seem to me to be fair.' A. P. MacDonnell, 'Note on
U.P. 1901', MacDonnell Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS. Eng. Hist. (355), p.
37.
74. NWP&O SVN, 1882, p. 673.
75. Ibid., 1887, p. 267. The writer's arithmetic was either faulty, or incorrectly recorded,
for the first pair of numbers adds up to 536, the second to 553.
124 One Language, Two Scripts

76. The relatively low proportion of Muslims in the Post Office may be partly explained
by the substantial number of Hindi letters sent through the mail, and the very small
number of educated Muslims familiar with Hindi and Nagari. See Table 5, Chapter
II.
77. 'Correspondence on the Subject of the Education', pp. 287-9, 290.
78. Ibid., pp. 292-3.
79. Ibid., p. 319.
80. The Hindu-Muslim disparity in government employment in Bengal was of long
standing: in 1868 Hindus held 345 of the highest posts, Muslims 93, a ratio of almost
four to one, although the population ratio was only two to one. Pioneer (Allabahad),
1 June 1868, pp. 2-3, citing Englishman (Calcutta).
81. The government educational system at this time included two great divisions: the
Anglo-Vernacular, in which the medium of instruction was the vernacular (Hindi or
Urdu) and English was taught as a separate subject; and the Vernacular, in which the
medium of instruction was the vernacular and English was not taught. These
divisions remained in place up to Independence, though language policy
occasionally shifted. In 1891, for example, English for a while became the medium
of instruction for all subjects in the Anglo-Vernacular curriculum. The middle class
examination in each case came about halfway through the secondary level. NWP&O
Educ Rpt, 1890-91, p. 163; Ibid., 1891-92, p. 20, Orders of Government, p. 7.
82. 'Correspondence on the Subject of Education', pp. 290-1.
83. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1880-81, p. 62; Ibid., 1885-86, Orders of Government, P. 6;
Ibid., 1886-87, p. 15; Ibid., 1887-88, Orders of Government, p. 4; Ibid, 1899-1900,
p. 31. The School Final Examination marked the end of secondary education for
those not planning to continue further. The Entrance Examination, on the other hand,
marked both the end of secondary education and the beginning of higher education
for those planning to continue further; admission into higher education required it.
Ibid., 1902-1903, pp. 6-7.
84. Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O, p. 205.
85. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1880-81, p. 62.
86. Statistics on the social and occupational backgrounds of candidates in the Anglo-
Vernacular Examination first appeared in the annual education reports of the North-
Western Provinces and Oudh in 1884-85 and continued until 1892-93. Those for the
Vernacular Examination candidates appeared between 1886-87 and 1891-92. It
would be interesting to know the social and religious backgrounds of the
unsuccessful candidates, usually two or three times the numbers of successful
candidates, but this information does not appear in the reports.
87. Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O, pp. 229-30.
88. NWP&O SVN, 1896, p. 435; Ibid., 1898, pp. 63-64, 406, 415; Ibid., 1900, p. 313.
89. Charles H. Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton,
1964), p. 282.
90. NWP&-OSVN, 1899, pp. 8-9.
91. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1892-93, pp. 50-1. The English Middle Examination—the
 Language, Education and Employment 125

direct continuation of the Anglo-Vernacular Middle Examination—of 1895, showed

similar caste proportions among its successful candidates: Kayasths numbered 403 or
31.0%, Brahmans 300 or 23.1%, Muslims 251 or 19.3%, Baniyas 134 or 10.3%,
Kshatriyas (Rajputs) 61 or 4.7%, Khatris 47 or 3.7%, Christians 21 or 1.6%, and Others
81 or 6.3%. Ibid., 1894-95, p. 38. See also King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Chapter
IX.
92. NWP&O Educ Rpt, 1895-96,p.37;Ibid., 1896-97,p.53;Ibid., 1897-98,p.40; Ibid.,
1898-99, p. 36.
93. Ibid., 1895-96, p. 37.
94. Unfortunately, the government's statistics do not show the numbers of those from
each caste or religious group choosing Urdu or Hindi.
95. This speculation is suggested by the figures for Muslim and Kayasth students in
indigenous Hindi schools. See the section of this chapter entitled 'Indigenous
Schools in the North-Western Provinces'.
96. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, pp. 247-51.
97. See the section of Chapter I entitled "Theoretical Background' for the meaning of
these terms.
98. NWP&O SVN, 1883, p. 764.
99. NWP Educ Rpt, 1873-74, p. 16, Orders of Government, No. 667A of 1874, Naini
Tal, 4 November 1874. Emphasis mine.
100. See the section of Chapter I entitled "Theoretical Background' for a summary
of Brass's theory.
 CHAPTER V

The Hindi-Nagari Movement

Hindi's condition at this time was very bad. It was remarkable that it was still
living. . . . To even mention the name of Hindi was considered sinful. There
was absolutely no respect for it in the courts. In schools it had a place only up
to middle class. The majority of students took Urdu. A student who could speak
English fluently was considered excellent and capable and held in esteem.
Hindi speakers were regarded as stupid yokels.1

Introduction and Overview

The Hindi-Nagari movement in the sense of organized groups seeking change
through political action began in the late 1860s and continued with varying
intensity well into the twentieth century. The supporters of Hindi and the
Nagari script did not achieve final success until shortly after independence in
1947, when the Government of Uttar Pradesh adopted Hindi written in the
Devanagari script as the official state language.2 During the nineteenth century
the movement remained largely on a provincial level, and mostly in the
NWP&O, but in the next century the issue of the proper language and script
advanced to a national level and did much to exacerbate Hindu-Muslim
relations.
In the NWP&O one of the most important milestones in this lengthy
controversy occurred in 1900, when the provincial government issued a
resolution granting the Nagari script equal status with the Urdu in certain
important areas of official business.3 Though scholars discussing the language
politics of this period usually cite the 1900 resolution as the culmination of the
Hindi-Nagari movement, a careful investigation reveals that Hindi-Nagari
adherents had won a largely symbolic victory which brought little real change
in the dominance of Urdu in the official sphere.4
The Hindi-Nagari movement in the NWP&O flared up and died down
several times before the twentieth century, with periods of intense activity
followed by periods of nearly total inactivity. Part of the explanation for this
lies in the lack of a stable organizational base before the founding of the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of Nagari) of Banaras in 1893.
Prior to this date, no major organization
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 127

had had the promotion of Hindi and Nagari as a chief goal, with the
result that sustained efforts proved impossible. The Sabha provided a
body of men emotionally and intellectually devoted to the growth of
their chosen language and script, and effectively channelled resources
for a wide variety of political and cultural purposes. The Nagari
Pracharini Sabha (NPS) not only spearheaded the agitation which led to
the resolution of 1900 but also conducted a search for old Hindi
manuscripts, founded a library, published numerous Hindi works
including school texts, awarded prizes for good Nagari handwriting and
good Hindi literature, and published a scholarly journal in Hindi. 5 The
NPS also had much to do with the founding of the Hindi Sahitya
Sammelan (Society for Hindi Literature) of Allahabad in 1910, which
soon became the premier organization for the promotion of Hindi and
Nagari on the national level.
The leaders and members of the Sabha represented a Hindi-speaking
elite which attempted to promote certain views of the proper nature of
Hindi, Hindi literature, and the Nagari script. For example, the NPS
constructed a major myth about the antiquity of 'Hindi' by using the
term to include older writings in other literary dialects, particularly Braj
Bhasha, but to exclude modern writings in these same dialects. Also,
many of the Sabha's activities aimed at attaching value to Hindi,
Nagari, and a literature which glorified a Hindu past, thus implicitly
expressing a Hindu communalism and supporting the equation Hindi =
Hindu.
This emphasis on a Hindu past was reflected in the social origins of
the Sabha's earliest membership, which bore a striking resemblance to
that of students enrolled in Hindi schools fifty years earlier and to that
of Hindu candidates (excluding Kayasths) for the Anglo-Vernacular
and Vernacular Middle Examinations a decade previously. The com
position of the Sabha's membership remained essentially unchanged for
many decades. Despite several efforts, the organization failed to enlist
any significant support from the Kayasth community, and never suc
ceeded in attracting more than minuscule numbers of Muslims. The
equation Urdu = Muslim + Hindu remained unchanged, though not
unchallenged, by the Sabha.
The supporters of Urdu, chiefly Muslims and Kayasths, enjoying all
the benefits of government patronage and never finding themselves on
the defensive before the resolution of 1900, felt no need to establish a
permanent organization devoted exclusively to the promotion of Urdu.
The picture changed after 1900, however, when numbers of short-lived
Urdu Defence Associations sprang up, followed by the creation of the
128 One Language, Two Scripts

Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Society for the Progress of Urdu) in 1903,

which became the major Urdu organization on the national level.
Though the practical effects of the 1900 resolution hardly injured
Muslim interests, the psychological impact proved substantial. After
1900 Muslims in the NWP&O could no longer take for granted
government support for one of their most cherished cultural symbols.
The resolution did little to aid the interests of Hindi partisans but much
to embitter Hindu-Muslim relations. In the end, all attempts at
compromise between Hindi and Urdu adherents, whether by
government or by national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, came to
nothing. The partition of British India into India and Pakistan found an
echo in the partition of Khari Boli into Hindi and Urdu.

The Hindi-Urdu Controversy of the 1860s and 1870s

To attempt to establish the exact date on which the Hindi-Urdu
controversy began in the NWP&O would prove neither practical nor
profitable. Nevertheless, contemporary evidence indicates a terminus a
quo in the early 1860s. About this time debating clubs, societies,
institutes, and other similar organizations whose members included
Europeans and educated Indians sprouted like mushrooms in cities all
over north India. Since their aims often included the discussion of
contemporary ideas and problems, the issue of the proper language and
script inevitably arose. Thus, in 1864 some members of the Benares
Institute (founded in 1861) raised the question of whether the
vernacular of the North-Western Provinces (NWP) was Hindi or Urdu;
the membership opted for Hindi.6 In 1866 a contemporary observer, the
French scholar of languages Garcin de Tassy, reported that a great
dispute had arisen between Hindus and Muslims over the respective
merits of Hindi and Urdu, and mentioned the pro-Hindi views of Navin
Chandra Ray of the Anjuman-i-Punjab (Society of the Punjab).7
In 1867 the British Indian Association of the North-Western
Provinces, among whose prominent members was Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan, put forth a proposal for a Vernacular University and met with
strenuous opposition from the Anjuman-i-Punjab which had advanced
the idea of an Orientalist University. The former urged the exclusive
use of Urdu as the medium of instruction, while the latter called this
approach 'onesided'.8 In 1868 a Bengali member of the Allahabad
Institute raised the question of the proper vernacular for the NWP and
advocated Urdu written in the Devanagari script.9
The vernacular press provided another forum for the discussion of
language and script. For example, the Allahabad Institute meeting
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 129

touched off a debate in the Aligarh Institute Gazette between Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan, one of the leading Muslims of the NWP, and Saroda
Prasad Sandel, a member of the Allahabad Institute. Sandel asked Khan
whether Hindi, which he called the mixed language of north India, in
the Devanagari script should become the official language of the
NWP.10 Khan replied that he called this mixed language Urdu, though
he would not oppose the recognition of the Nagari script. Sandel then
asserted that Hindi and Urdu were not the same, and that Urdu should
make room for the more popular Hindi, just as Persian had made room
for Bengali and Urdu.11 In a subsequent exchange of views Khan
argued against any proposal to discontinue Urdu and revive 'the old
dead Bhasha'.12
This series of interchanges represented in miniature much of the
debate that continued up to independence and beyond. Urdu's
champions emphasized assimilation by maintaining that their language
originated in India and represented a joint Hindu-Muslim product, and
that Hindi stood for an attempt to resuscitate a defunct tradition. Hindi's
advocates, on the other hand, emphasized differentiation by arguing
that Urdu contained many foreign elements, and that Hindi would
promote the welfare of the (largely Hindu) masses.
The Hindi-Urdu controversy continued to occupy the vernacular
press intermittently during the rest of the century. During 1869 the
issue occupied more space in the Hindi and Urdu newspapers of the
NWP than any other single subject. Thereafter the matter died down,
but surged up again in 1873, the year in which supporters of Hindi and
Nagari presented a memorial to the provincial Lieutenant-Governor.
The early 1880s and the late 1890s saw even greater bursts of activity,
though in the intervening years the torrents of contention shrank to
mere trickles of disputation.
Throughout the entire controversy many of the same arguments,
some of them in existence since the original decision to replace Persian
in 1837, appeared again and again. Those in favour of Hindi repeatedly
attacked the Urdu script as illegible and ambiguous, 13 and the Urdu
language as foreign. Those in favour of Urdu derided the Nagari script
as slow and clumsy, and Hindi as unstandardized and poor in technical
and scientific vocabulary. The strongest argument which Hindi
partisans could muster reappeared ad nauseam: the good of the Hindu
majority required the introduction of Hindi even if the Muslim minority
should suffer Lorn the change.14
The Hindi-Urdu controversy found yet another outlet, the public
arena of petitions, memorials and memorandums to the government. In
130 One Language, Two Scripts

1868 Babu Shiva Prasad, a prominent official of the provincial Department of

Public Instruction, wrote a memorandum on the question of the official
language in favour of Hindi.15 The provincial government received other
memorandums and memorials in 1869, 1872 and 1873. 16 Two of these four,
those of 1868 and 1873, deserve more detailed discussion, for they contain
statements of an elite which has already passed through the first stage of
becoming a subjectively conscious community and entered the next stage of
becoming a nationality through articulating political rights. For their authors,
language and script have become symbols of religious and cultural identity, and
they reveal the process of multi-symbol congruence in their implicit assumption
that Hindi = Hindu.
Prasad's work, Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper Provinces of
India, though bearing the words 'For Private Circulation' on the title page,
clearly aimed at influencing the government. The author presented a full-blown
myth of the antiquity and ubiquity of Hindi:
When the Muhammadans took possession of India, they found Hindi
the language of the country, and the same character the medium through
which all business was carried on.17 By 'the country' he meant the great
plains of northern India including Bihar, the North-Western Provinces, Oudh,
Rajputana, the Punjab, and parts of the Central Provinces; by 'Hindi' the
different dialects spoken throughout this area; and by 'the Hindi character'
Devanagari and all its various cursive forms including Kaithi. Among these
dialects, Prasad continued, those originating from Mathura, Kanauj and Delhi
(i.e., Braj Bhasha and Khari Boli) had formed the basis of this grand universal
speech of most of north India.
The new Muslim rulers, however, wrote Prasad, did not trouble themselves
to learn Indian languages, but rather forced Hindus to learn Persian. Whoever
aspired to wealth and power had to learn Persian, but outside the cities and
Muslim courts the masses of people had still carried on their business in Hindi.
Moreover, he added scornfully in an obvious reference to the Kayasths, those
Hindus 'who did not aspire or seek to gain the favour of the Muhammadans by
becoming, if not altogether, half Muhammadanized, still valued Hindi works'.18
Persian words, finding their way into the dialects that made up Hindi, had
brought about a new mixture of languages known as Urdu or 'semi-Persian'.19
Prasad reserved some of his harshest words for the British, whose language
policy he blamed for forcing a foreign language, Urdu in the Persian script, on
the masses:
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 131

The Persian [in this context, including Urdu or 'semi- Persian'] of our day is
half Arabic; and I cannot see the wisdom of the policy which thrusts a Semitic
element into the bosoms of Hindus and alienates them from their Aryan speech
[i.e., Hindi]; not only speech, but all that is Aryan; because through speech
ideas are formed, and through ideas the manners and customs. To read Persian
is to become Persianized, all our ideas become corrupt and our nationality is
lost. Cursed be the day which saw the Muhammadans cross the Indus; all the
evils which we find amongst us we are indebted for to our 'beloved brethren'
the Muhammadans. ... I again say I do not see the wisdom of the policy which
is now trying to turn all the Hindus into semi-Muhammadans and destroy our
Hindu nationality.20 In addition, went on Prasad, by supporting Urdu in the
NWP, Oudh and the Punjab, the government was cutting off the vernacular
literature of this area from other branches of the Aryan language family such as
Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati. Scientific and technical terms for all these
Aryan languages could easily be coined from the same Sanskrit roots, while
similar terms for Urdu had to be formed with greater difficulty from Arabic.21
Prasad concluded his memorandum with a plea that the government should
drive the Persian script from the courts as it had previously expelled the
Persian language, and bring in Hindi. Numerous advantages would result: the
masses would understand court proceedings, only one vernacular would exist,
the time required for an education would lessen, vernacular literature would
rapidly expand, and most important, 'Hindu Nationality' would be restored. 22
The memorial of 1873, presented by Hindi supporters to the Lieutenant-
Governor, Sir William Muir, opened by asking for 'the restoration of Hindi or
Nagari characters' in all courts and offices using the Persian script. The authors
reiterated many of the arguments against Urdu and the Urdu script already
published in the vernacular press: the Persian (Urdu)2' script made court
documents illegible, encouraged forgery, facilitated the use of
incomprehensible Arabic and Persian words, and had a foreign origin; the bulk
of the population used Hindi and only a part of the higher classes—who
themselves formed only a small part of the population—had become used to
Persian; Muslims, who probably would not like the change, made up only one-
eighth of the population, and even many of them lived in villages and used
Hindi for their ordinary business; courts in Rajputana, Central India, Nepal,
and in the hill districts of the NWP used Hindi without experiencing any
difficulty.24
In short, government should favour the interests of the majority.
132 One Language, Two Scripts

Among the benefits, emphasized the memorialists, would be the great impetus
which the education of the masses would receive from the introduction of the
new script. Such a change would combine the already existing 'national
sympathy' for the Hindi script with greatly increased prospects for the public
service, and thereby lead to 'the rapid and general spread of knowledge among
the people'.25
The concern of the memorialists for the education of the masses smacked of
self-interest, for the vast majority of the population could never hope to receive
employment in the public service whatever the official language or script.
Behind this invocation of benefits to the masses, most likely lay the potential
rewards for those Hindus who did not share the Kayasth and Muslim near-
monopoly of government service. A change of the official language would have
greatly benefited those Hindu aspirants to government employment—notably
Brahmans, Rajputs, and Baniyas—educated in the Hindi-Sanskrit rather than
the Urdu-Persian tradition.
Like others before and after them, the memorialists several times confused
the names for language and script; 'Hindi', 'Hindi character', and 'Nagari
character', all seemed interchangeable to them, as did 'Persian' and 'Persian
character'. So persistent was this tendency among language partisans that Sir
George Grierson, author of the massive Lingistic Survey of India remarked:
Amongst fanatics who ought to know better, but do not wish to do so,
this question of characters has unfortunately become a sort of religious
shibboleth ... these fanatics have confused alphabet with language. They
say, because a thing is written in Devanagari therefore it is Hindi, the
language of Hindus, and because a thing is written in the Persian
character therefore it is Urdu, the language of Musalmans.26
The radical differences between the two scripts provided the most
salient feature for those who wished to differentiate Hindi and Urdu.
Writers could and did use a mixed language incorporating Persian,
Arabic and Sanskrit words, but no writer could use a mixed script
including elements of the Persian and the Devanagari. This irreducible
difference contributed much to the process of multi-symbol congruence
by which language, script and religion fused into one common identity
for increasing numbers of Hindus.
Despite their efforts, the memorialists failed to bring about any change in
government language policy. Muir, known for his fondness for Urdu and
Persian, retired without passing any definite orders on the subject. His
successor, Sir John Strachey, regarded Hindi as an inferior
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 133

language, and his successor, Sir George Couper issued the order of
1877 (see Chapter IV) giving preference to candidates for government
service taking Urdu in qualifying examinations.27 Moreover, near the
end of 1873, a number of Muslims formed a temporary league to
prevent any concessions on the issue of the court language, and this too
may have prevented serious consideration of the memorial. More
important, the document's authors could speak only for a small fraction
of all Hindus, and only a part of educated Hindus. They represented an
elite which had become a self-conscious community trying to expand
that community and to forge a nationality.

The Hindi-Nagari Campaign of 1882

During the latter half of the 1870s the Hindi-Nagari movement
languished on the political front, and only occasional items in the
vernacular press betrayed the fact that the Hindi-Urdu controversy still
smouldered in the hearts of some. In the early 1880s, however, Hindi-
Nagari partisans in the NWP&O regained hope, for in 1880 the
Government of Bengal had issued a resolution ordering the Nagari (or
Kaithi) script to be used exclusively in large parts of Bihar. 28 In 1882
they became enthusiastic when the Government of India appointed a
commission under the chairmanship of Sir William Hunter to review
the progress of education in India. Many believed that this body had the
power to bring about a change in the language policy of provincial
governments, and the Hunter Commission soon found itself the focus
of an extensive campaign in the NWP&O and to a lesser extent in the
Punjab and elsewhere. Several NWP&O organizations collected over
67,000 signatures in favour of Hindi and Nagari and sent them to the
Commission along with more than a hundred memorials. Twenty-eight
witnesses from the province either appeared before the Commission or
sent written testimony, among them Babu (now Raja) Shiva Prasad,
Babu Harishchandra (Bharatendu), and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. 29
These developments aroused great expectations in the vernacular
press and elsewhere. For example, the Hindi Prayag Samachar
(Allahabad) reported that the agitation attending the visit of the
Commission had produced a widespread impression that Hindi would
shortly take the place of Urdu as the court language of the province. 30
During much of 1883 the vernacular press dealt frequently with the
matter, but when the Commission declined to deal with the controversy
in its report issued later in the same year, coverage once again shrank to
almost nothing.31
134 One Language, Two Scripts

Urdu partisans made minimal efforts in the NWP, submitting only a single
memorial, which nevertheless gave a clear picture of how its Muslim authors
interpreted the motives of their opponents.32 To them, Hindu religious feeling
lay at the bottom of all the agitation for Hindi and Nagari. Those who wanted
to change the court language and script to Hindi and Nagari had no concern
with the public interest, but rather had simply expressed their religious bigotry.
By extending the use of Hindi and Nagari they thought they were 'giving
currency to one of their religious points'." Moreover, the advocates of Hindi
showed an astonishing inconsistency, claiming that Nagari and Hindi were the
'common character and language of the country' but using Urdu in their
domestic and social lives, indeed even in the meetings they held to promote
their chosen language.
These views had some justification, since several memorials plainly showed
the connection between Hindi and Hinduism in the minds of their authors. The
memorial submitted by the Satya Dharmavolambini Sabha (Society for
Supporting the True Religion) of Aligarh asserted that 'for the people at large
the study of Hindi is not necessary only because it is their vernacular, but also
because it is the only language, except of course Sanskrit, through the medium
of which they can be instructed in their social and religious duties'. 34 A
memorial from the Meerut Association declared that 'the Muhammadans have
no religious prejudices against learning the characters of the Hindus, but the
Hindus are bound not to utter a single word of Persian or Arabic in their divine
devotion'.35 A memorial from the Hardoi Union Club presented a view of an
impure Urdu and a pure Hindi which appeared again and again in the course of
the movement: Hindi exercised a beneficial and positive moral influence on
people, while Urdu enticed them to lead dissolute and immoral lives. To
introduce Hindi for official and educational purposes would lead the public to
read religious books and avoid 'the immoral effects of so many Urdu love
stories'.36
Whatever the true motives of Hindi partisans, no previous campaign had
mobilized them in the tens of thousands, which suggests that the more and
more Hindus had begun to accept the twin equations of Hindi = Hindu and
Urdu = Muslim. Several witnesses appearing before the Hunter Commission
spoke to this point. Babu Bireshwar Mittra, a pleader in the High Court of the
NWP averred that the people regarded the recognition of Urdu as the court
language 'as a pure and simple survival of the old Moslem tyranny in India.'37
Professor Raj Kumar Sarvadhikari, speaking of Oudh, put the matter more
baldly:
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 135

'Urdu is the dialect of the Muhammadan inhabitants and Hindi of the

Hindus.38
Despite enjoying greater support than previous campaigns, 39 the
1882 campaign failed for essentially the same reasons as earlier efforts,
namely, Muslim opposition, British patronage of Urdu and disregard
for Hindi, and Hindu apathy. This setback, however, did not discourage
the stauncher supporters of Hindi. As the editor of the Banaras Hindi
weekly Bharat ]ivan wrote in grandiloquent style: 'Shall we cut out our
tongues and cast them away and not speak the truth? No. No. If the
government does not listen we must cry out so loudly that the sound
reaches its ear.'40 The Hindi-Nagari movement continued though a
campaign had been lost, because the forces which generated it
continued to grow stronger.

The Hindi-Nagari Movement in Vernacular Literature

The Hindi-Nagari movement took yet another form, namely, Hindi
literature, particularly drama and poetry. These literary genres
presented familiar arguments with more depth and passion, and also
developed other themes more suited to literature than to memorials,
newspaper editorials, and learned discussions. Contemporary evidence
suggests that such literature had some impact: people saw some of the
dramas and read the poems, one of which stirred up considerable local
controversy.41 A brief glance at four such works reveals several aspects
of the Hindi-Nagari movement from a different perspective.
In 1889 the Devanagari Gazette (Meerut) reported that Hindi
advocates had taken advantage of a recent mela (local religious fair) to
make speeches in favour of Hindi and to perform four dramas. The
Gazette edified its readers by printing the first and last scenes of one of
these dramas, entitled Kishti Kasbi Natak [The Drama of the Boat and
the Prostitute]. In this drama, the first of our four works, a District
Superintendent of Police sends an order in Urdu to one of his Sub-
Inspectors to keep a boat (kishti) ready for his coming. The sub-
Inspector, misreading the order because of the ambiguity of the Persian
script, arranges instead for a prostitute (kasbi). When his superior
arrives he produces the prostitute, arousing the fury of the
Superintendent and the jealousy of his wife. In the end the
Superintendent's head clerk removes the wife's suspicions and her
husband's wrath by explaining how the nature of the Persian script
brought about the unfortunate misunderstanding. 42
The author of this play may well have been Pandit Gauri Datta, a
136 One Language, Two Scripts

Saraswat Brahman who founded the Devanagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for
the Promotion of Devanagari) sometime before 1882, published the
Devanagari Gazette for several years, sent a memorial to the Government in
favour of Hindi in 1894, and established or inspired the founding of several
Nagari schools. He also wrote a number of works in Hindi including several
school books, a dictionary, and a play entitled Nagari aur Urdu ka Svang [The
Melodrama of Nagari and Urdu], the second of our four works.43 He earned
his living as a teacher until the age of forty, when he gave up his career, made
over all his property to the cause of Nagari, and became a sanyasi (a homeless
wanderer who has renounced the world), devoting the rest of his life to a
crusade for his chosen script. Whenever a fair or festival took place in the area
around Meerut he was likely to be found with a crowd of boys around him
speaking on the virtues of Nagari. While other Hindus used greetings like 'jay
Ram' [victory to Rama], he used the salutation 'jay nagari ki' [victory to
Nagari].44
Babu Ratna Chandra, the author of the third work, practised law in the High
Court at Allahabad. His drama, Hindi Urdu ka Natak [A Play of Hindi and
Urdu], used a British court as the setting of a confrontation between the two
rivals.45 Sohan Prasad, the author of the fourth work, a poem of about 400
stanzas in Avadhi with a sprinkling of Khari Boli Hindi, taught school in
Gorakhpur district (northeastern NWP). His poem, Hindi aur Urdu ki Larai [A
Quarrel between Hindi and Urdu], caused a furore on its first appearance in
1885. Local Muslims, protesting that the poem contained strictures against
Islam and one of the caliphs, appealed to the government to have the work
banned and all copies burned, and started legal proceedings against the author.
Various Hindu organizations raised funds to support Prasad, and eventually the
opposing parties reached an out-of-court settlement under which Prasad
promised to withdraw the most offensive stanzas from future editions.46
The latter three works share a number of characteristics worthy of attention.
All three date between the Hunter Commission of 1882 and the government
resolution of 1900;47 as a result, they portray a despised, rejected and
despondent heroine, Hindi or Nagari,48 and a proud, conceited and triumphant
villainess, Urdu. In Datta's play, for example, one of Urdu's supporters, Begam
Wanton-Pleasure, contrasts the two adversaries thus:
All have love for Urdu, ask anyone you want.
No one cares for Nagari, Nagari old and gaunt.49 In Chandra's play, Maulvi
Akil, one of Urdu's lawyers, presents a
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 137

counter-statement in which he asserts that 'the plaintiff [Hindi] has stayed so

long in the jungle that... she is not even fit to live in the city, let alone come
before a court of law. She has become a savage.'50 Akil adds that even her own
offspring consider her uncivilized and despise her, echoing the words of Shyam
Sundar Das at the beginning of this chapter that 'Hindi speakers were regarded
as stupid yokels.'51
The most dominant theme, which we have encountered before, contrasts the
virtue and morality of Nagari or Hindi with the vice and immorality of Urdu
with more subtle overtones and innuendoes than non-literary mediums.52 This
theme allowed Hindi supporters both to enhance the value of their own and to
diminish the value of their opponents' symbol. In all three works Urdu behaves
like a woman of loose morals or a prostitute, though she is seldom openly
labelled as such. In Datta's play, for example, Urdu's testimony to the Hindu
judge, Maharajah Righteous-Rules, seems more like an indictment than a
defense:
This is my work: passion I'll teach,
Your household tasks we'll leave in the breach.
We'll be lovers and rakes, living for pleasure,
Consorting with prostitutes, squandering our treasure.
Give heed, you officials, batten on graft,
Deceiving and thieving, till riches you've quaffed.
Lie to your betters and flatter each other,
Write down one thing, and read out another. 53 Urdu's immorality, as Datta's
words suggest, takes several forms. Her script leads to a great deal of fraud—
Prasad's poem devotes many stanzas to possible misreadings of Urdu words—
and thus harms the general public. Moreover, she corrupts Hindus and leads
them astray from their own religious and cultural heritage. Perhaps worst of all,
she and her mother, Persian—forced on the people by Muslim rulers—have
replaced the golden age of justice and goodness under Hindi and her mother,
Sanskrit, with a darker era of misrule and tyrannyy.
Datta, Chandra, and Prasad all agree with the twin equations Hindi = Hindu
and Urdu = Muslim, though the latter two implicitly admit that Urdu = Muslim
+. Hindu by discussing the motives of those Hindus who support Urdu. In
Chandra's play one of Hindi's lawyers, Pundit Buddhi Prakash (light of
wisdom) explicitly equates language and religion when he identifies his client
as 'Lady Hindi Devi, daughter of Sanskrit, caste Hindu, resident of
Hindustan'.54 The Pundit explains the embarrassing fact of extensive Hindu
support for Urdu by economic necessity, which drives Kayasths and others to
become devotees of
138 One Language, Two Scripts

Urdu, though as Hindus they cannot totally reject Hindi. In Prasad's poem, an
Urdu-loving Hindu, called on to give his opinion of Urdu, hesitates before
speaking:
He thinks in his heart of hearts: now nothing but lies from me, For if I speak
against Urdu, out the window my service will be. If Hindi enters my office,
through begging my living I'll earn, For we know nothing of Hindi—at home
it's Urdu we learn.55 Chandra's drama goes still deeper into the question of the
motives of Hindus who support Urdu, by giving a whole scene to a dialogue
between Hindi, her advocate Pandit Satyanand, and two Urdu defenders almost
certainly Kayasths, Lala Ilahi Das and Khuda Ram. Satyanand berates his
fellow Hindus for failing to consider their own welfare and that of their
countrymen: they have dishonored Hindi, the real ruler of the country, and
called in the foreigner Urdu to usurp her place. They have not only prospered
unduly through Urdu's favours but also attacked their countrymen 'like mad
dogs'. When Hindi meets the two Kayasths, she questions their motives, but
they defend themselves by saying they wish to acquaint themselves with their
possible future ruler. They justify themselves; Urdu's sweet speech and alluring
glances, and the intemperate assaults of Hindi's partisans have led them to
behave as they have. They address Hindi respectfully, calling her 'mother', but
also point out the obstacles she faces, namely, Muslim opposition to Hindi,
especially that of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and government patronage of Urdu. In
the end, they promise nothing.56
Prasad's work goes far beyond the others in expressing anti-Muslim
animosity, thinly disguised as tirades against Urdu by her adversary Hindi.
Hindu calls Urdu a prostitute, a murderer, unclean, a wicked Muslim, and—
because she is Muslim—low-caste. Hindi refers to Muslims as mlecch, a word
with stinging connotations of alien, unclean, and vile. The two threaten each
other with physical violence; Hindi tells Urdu that she will seize her by the
hair, throw her down, and pull out her teeth. Hindus who worship the god of
Muslims will spend many years in hell, says Hindi, and any Hindu who
abandons Hinduism for Islam makes his mother wish she had never given birth
to him. Hindi goes still further, and taunts Muslims with not following their
own religious traditions: Muslims use intoxicating drugs and drink alcoholic
beverages, they do not allow their widows to remarry despite the injunctions of
the Koran, and they allow their women to sing during marriage ceremonies
against Islamic principles.57
One of the most significant parts of Prasad's publication occurs when he has
Hindi raise the issue of cow slaughter. Anticipating the 1893 anti-
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 139

cow-slaughter movement, which reached the greatest intensity in the eastern

NWP&O, he castigates his fellow Hindus, especially Hindu princes, for doing
nothing while cows all over India are weeping and bawling in agony as they
are butchered by mlecch's. In a final plea for Hindu unity near the end of his
poem, he links the two issues of cow slaughter and Hindi:
Let Hindi enter offices, cow killing cease to be, Then India like the sun and
moon will shine most splendidly.58 This part of the poem gives us a revealing
glimpse of the process of multi-symbol congruence: the author identifies Hindi,
the cow, and patriotism with the master symbol of Hinduism. He expresses the
dark side of the Hindi-Nagari movement—narrow, smugly pious, bigoted, and
malicious. Had these three works been expressed visually, they might have
taken the form of an illustration which appeared in the November 1902 issue of
Saraswati, the leading journal of the Hindi literary world for many years. On
the left stood a Muslim prostitute, decked out in all the finery of her profession.
On the right, facing her rival, sat a Hindu matron, modestly clothed in an
ordinary sari. The caption—'Hindi-Urdu'—and the Hindi dialogue below,
clearly indicated that on the left stood Urdu personified and on the right sat
Hindi. The author of the verses was Radha Krishna Das, a cousin of
Bharatendu Harishchandra and a leading member of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha of Banaras.59

Precursors of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha

Several organizations promoted Hindi and Nagari before the founding of the
Nagari Pracharini Sabha (NPS) in 1893, but none showed the staying power of
the Banaras institution. Their activities foreshadowed those of their more
effective successor, suggesting that the NPS did not so much innovate new
policies as more successfully implement existing ones. The NPS became the
only major Hindi organization founded in the nineteenth century to survive
right up to the present; many other Hindi organizations came and went.
During the Hindi-Nagari campaign of 1882 a number of these organizations,
which might otherwise have remained shrouded in obscurity, emerged into
temporary prominence. The Satya Dharma-volambini Sabha (Society for
Supporting the True Religion) of Aligarh, for example, came into existence in
1878, drawing supporters not only from the city and district of Aligarh, but
also from other parts of the country.60 By 1882, the organization had published
a few books, written by members, in the Nagari script. The Aligarh Bhasha
(i.e., Hindi) Improvement Society, founded a year earlier, had soon published
140 One Language, Two Scripts

several works in Hindi on a variety of subjects. The general aim of the

organization was to improve Hindi, regarded as the true vernacular of
the country, through the publication of original works and the
translation of other works from both ancient and modern world
languages. By the time of the Hunter Commission, the Society had
plans to give prizes of up to Rs 200 for books in Hindi on subjects
considered important, e.g., Indian agriculture, female education, and
chemistry, and had also established a small library. The membership of
150 came from all parts of India and included a few Europeans and
Muslims. Members had no fees or subscriptions to pay, but had to
purchase one copy of each work published by their organization. The
Society discouraged difficult and uncommon Sanskrit words in these
publications, and accepted Arabic and Persian words which had
become part of Hindi through long usage.61
The Devanagari Pracharini Sabha of Meerut, founded by Pandit
Gauri Datta, took part in the 1882 Hindi-Nagari campaign. By 1889 the
Sabha had also established a school, the Devanagari Pathshala, in
which children received a primary education in Hindi. In addition to the
activities of Datta already mentioned above, the Sabha held frequent
public meetings to celebrate auspicious events or to award prizes and
certificates to the Pathshala's graduates. Some of these meetings
resulted in memorials and addresses in favour of Hindi and Nagari,
linked with expressions of loyalty to the British government. By 1895
the Meerut organization had established formal relations with its
Banaras counterpart, the Nagari Pracharini Sabha. The former never
achieved the prominence of the latter, however, and faded into
obscurity by the beginning of the twentieth century.62
Two other organizations, though devoting only a fraction of their
efforts to the Hindi-Nagari movement, deserve mention, partly for their
contributions and partly for their blend of Hindi and Hinduism. The
first of these, the Hindu Samaj (Hindu Society) of Allahabad, came into
being in 1880 under the leadership of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya,
later one of the most prominent members of the Indian National
Congress. Though not listed among those organizations sending
memorials to the Hunter Commission, the Samaj soon took up the
cause of Hindi. In 1884 the Samaj began a drive to send memorials in
favour of Hindi to both the Government of the NWP&O and the
Government of India, though nothing ever seems to have resulted. Later
in the same year the Samaj sponsored a conference at Allahabad to
consider various matters, among them the promotion of Hindi to
official court language. Over fifty persons from all over northern India
attended the four-day
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 141

conference, including prominent landowners such as Raja Rampal

Singh of Oudh. A year later the Samaj held a similar conference and
again considered the question of Hindi. By 1889, when the Samaj held
an anniversary meeting, the subject had receded into the background,
although in 1890 the organization briefly—and unsuccessfully—
agitated for the inclusion of Hindi in the University of Allahabad
entrance examinations, and then lapsed into inactivity. By 1894 both
Malaviya and Singh had joined the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of
Banaras.63
The second of these, the Arya Samaj, a Hindu revivalist organization
founded in 1875 by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, played an important
role in the promotion of Hindi in the Punjab, and a lesser role
elsewhere in north India. Dayananda himself became an active
promoter of Hindi after meeting the Brahmo Samaj leader Keshab
Chandra Sen, who advised him to make that language his medium.
Subsequently the Swami used Hindi for speeches, polemical works,
correspondence, and popular translations of Sanskrit scriptures. The
earliest rules of the Samaj provided for a newspaper in Hindi, and later
rules enjoined all members to learn either Sanskrit or Hindi. 64 In 1882
the Samaj took part in the Hindi-Nagari campaign and collected more
than 5,000 signatures in the western NWP&O and in the Central
Provinces.65 An Oudh newspaper reported that the local Arya Samaj
had sent a memorial in favour of Hindi to the Hunter Commission with
the signatures of 1,366 Hindus and 69 Muslims. 66 Arya Samaj leaders,
one of whom (Lala Lajpat Rai) confessed that he did not know the
language at the time, actively promoted the cause of Hindi in the
Punjab in 1882, and continued to lend their support as the Hindi-Nagari
movement began to gather momentum in their province in the first
decades of the twentieth century.67 In all of these groups and their
activities we can see elements of the processes through which ethnic
groups become subjectively conscious communities: elites taking the
lead in attaching value to a linguistic symbol, in differentiating Hindi
speakers from Urdu speakers, and even in articulating political rights
for themselves.
The Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras
The premier Hindi organization of the nineteenth century rose to
prominence in an ideal location. Banaras, probably one of the oldest
continually inhabited cities of the world, had achieved fame as a centre
of sacred learning several centuries before the birth of Christ. Many
prominent religious and literary figures had made their home there: the
fifteenth century poet-saint Kabir; the sixteenth century poet Tulsi Das,
142 One Language, Two Scripts

author of the Ramcharitmanas, an immensely popular Avadhi version

of the great Hindu Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana; Raja Shiva Prasad, and
Bharatendu Harishchandra, key figures in the development of Khari
Boli Hindi; and many others. Under British rule Banaras continued its
tradition of learning, becoming the site of one of the oldest colleges
established by the East India Company. Banaras Sanskrit College,
dating from 1792, was intended to encourage the study of the Hindu
linguistic, literary and religious heritage.68
Banaras, long renowned for Sanskrit learning, had also become a
major centre of Hindi (i.e., Braj Bhasha and Avadhi) literature by the
early nineteenth century, and the largest publisher of Hindi works by
the early twentieth. During the decade 1891-1901 the census showed
Banaras to be the second largest city in the NWP&O, surpassed only by
Lucknow, and also the most polyglot.
Thousands of Hindus from all over India visited or settled in
Banaras, as one of the holiest sites of Hinduism. Speakers of Bengali,
Marathi, Gujarati, Nepali, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu
mingled with speakers of Bhojpuri and other Hindi dialects in the city's
narrow streets and lanes, and princely families from Maharashtra,
Bengal, Bihar and south India lined the banks of the sacred Ganga with
many massive buildings. Just across the river lay the town of Ramnagar
and the palace of the Hindu Maharaja of Banaras. In short, size,
religious and literary heritage, a thriving publishing industry, possible
princely patrons, and close contact with other Indian literary traditions
made Banaras a uniquely suitable environment for the growth of the
Sabha and the Hindi-Nagari movement.69
The first meeting of what eventually became the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha took place in Banaras in March 1893, ironically in a classroom
used for teaching English in one of the buildings of Queen's Collegiate
School.70 Several schoolboys had decided to form a debating club
whose chief aim soon became the promotion of Nagari (in the sense of
both language and script). The fledgling organization led a precarious
existence for a few months, driven from the classroom meeting place
by schoolmates supporting Urdu, and gathering first in a nearby park
and later in a room over the stables of the father of one of its more
affluent members. During the summer holidays in May and June the
little group temporarily disbanded, but reconvened in July. Twelve
students came to this meeting, three of whom, Shyam Sundar Das, Ram
Narayan Mishra, and Shiv Kumar Singh, were to remain members for
the rest of their lives, and later came to be considered the joint founders
of the
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 143

Sabha.71 Their long and stable relationship with the Sabha had much to
do with the organization's long and stable existence.
All three spent much of their lives in Banaras and had careers in
education. Thakur Shiv Kumar Singh, a Rajput, was born in Banaras
district in 1872, and enrolled in Queen's Collegiate School to study
English in 1888. He began his career as a teacher in 1897, gradually
rising to the position of Deputy Inspector of Schools by the time of his
retirement. He played a minor part in the history of the NPS. Pandit
Ram Narayan Mishra came from a Saraswat Brahman family of Delhi.
The influence of his maternal uncle, Dr Channulal, one of the leading
members of the Arya Samaj in Banaras, brought him to Queen's to
complete his education. After receiving his BA. he became a member
of the Provincial Education Service in which he held the rank of
Deputy Inspector of Schools for ten years. After retiring from
government service, he occupied the post of headmaster at several
schools in Banaras, including Harishchandra High School (founded by
Bharatendu Harishchandra) and Central Hindu School (founded among
others by Mrs Annie Besant). He also was the unsalaried head of the
D.A.V. (Dayananda Anglo-Vedic) College, an Arya Samaj institution
in Banaras, for several years. He played a much more important role in
the affairs of the Sabha than his Rajput colleague. 72
Shyam Sundar Das, who came from a Khatri family of small
shopkeepers originally from the Punjab but residents of Banaras for
three generations, had a deeper influence on the Sabha than either of
his two associates. More than anyone else he charted the course of the
Sabha and took a disproportionate share of literary and administrative
burdens upon himself. He enrolled at Queen's after passing his Anglo-
Vernacular Middle Examination in 1890, and succeeded in receiving
his B.A. in 1896, after failing on his first attempt because of illness.
Thereafter his career took him to a variety of institutions, mainly
educational, including ten years at Central Hindu School, three years in
the State Office of the Maharajah of Kashmir, nine years at Kalicharan
High School in Lucknow, and sixteen years as the first head of the
Department of Hindi at Banaras Hindu University. An indefatigable
worker, Das earned the sobriquet of the 'soul' of the Sabha.73
The three founders of the Sabha acquired their devotion to Hindi
from several sources. Shiv Kumar Singh had learned to love Hindi
through the influence of his village school teacher, who had introduced
him to the writings of Bharatendu Harishchandra. Not long after his
entrance into Queen's Collegiate School, Singh became acquainted
144 One Language, Two Scripts

with two students from Gorakhpur, one a nephew of Harishchandra,

who acquainted him with more of Bharatendu's writings and also
introduced him to friends and relatives of the late author. Among these
were Radha Krishna Das, later to become the first president of the
Sabha, a cousin of Bharatendu, and Shri Jagannath Das 'Ratnakar', a
renowned poet of Braj Bhasha, also to become a member of the Sabha.
Ram Narayan Mishra gained some of his fondness for Hindi from his
maternal uncle, whose Arya Samaj affiliations influenced him in favour
of that language. Shyam Sundar Das first began to take note of Hindi as
a boy of ten when his studies at a local school exposed him to Tulsi
Das's Ramcharitmanas and brought him into contact with Babu
Gadadhar Singh, the head clerk of a government office in the
neighbouring district of Mirzapur. Singh had collected a small library
of Hindi books which found a home at Das's school, and had also
translated several books from Bengali into Hindi.74
By the end of the first year the membership of the Sabha had grown
to 84, of whom 46 came from Banaras. The Sabha's roster included a
number of distinguished men: Dr G. E. Grierson, author of the
Linguistic Survey of India; Raja Rampal Singh; Madan Mohan
Malaviya; Devki Nandan Khatri, a widely popular Hindi author;
Shridhar Pathak, one of the first poets of Khari Boli Hindi; Ram
Krishna Varma, the Khatri publisher of the Hindi weekly Bharat Jivan
of Banaras; and Radha Krishna Das, cousin of Bharatendu and Hindi
author and poet in his own right. The membership of Das, who had
hesitated for several months before joining the Sabha in January 1894,
fearing that it might prove to be a short-lived failure, did much to
increase the organization's prestige. Moreover, through his efforts
many friends and associates of the late Bharatendu joined, further
enhancing the Sabha's stature.75
The Sabha's membership list for 1894 shows several notable aspects
of the social origins of Hindi supporters. Brahmans, Bhumihars
(considered a Brahman caste by some), Rajputs, Agarwals and
Vaishyas (the latter two both classifiable as Banias, a generic term for
merchant castes) together accounted for over 60 per cent of the total,
and Brahmans alone over 40 per cent.76 These same groups had
predominated in the indigenous Hindi schools many decades
previously, and had made up the bulk of the non-Kayasth Hindu
candidates for the Anglo-Vernacular Middle and Vernacular Middle
Examinations a decade earlier (see Chapter IV). The proportion of
Khatris—over 15 per cent—seems surprising when we recall the Khatri
tradition of Persian and Urdu learning. Perhaps the greater occupational
diversity of Khatris, especially
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 145

in business, made them less dependent on government service than

their fellow Hindus, the Kayasths.77
Of the 73 members whose caste could be ascertained, only two were
Kayasths, and none Kashmiri Brahmans. Though the Sabha
approached the Kayasth community on more than one occasion,
nothing ever resulted. Looking back over nearly fifty years of pro-
Hindi efforts by the Sabha, Shyam Sundar Das wrote disparagingly of
both these groups:
If Kayasths and Kashmiris would place themselves on the side of
Hindi,
then a great deal of help would be gained for promoting Hindi. But
when
among Kashmiri pandits there are even those individuals who consider
it their good fortune to accept Urdu as their 'mother tongue' [written
ironically in words of Persian origin] then what hope can there be? 78
Not surprisingly, no members were Muslim, although four years later
the roster included a single Muslim name, Syed Akbar Husain, and a
year later two more. Though nothing in the Sabha's rules prohibited
Muslim members, they never constituted more than a minuscule
fraction of the Sabha's supporters.79 The composition of the Sabha's
membership explicitly suggested that the equation Hindi = Hindu, and
implicitly the equation Urdu = Muslim + Hindu still held true.
The geographical distribution of the Sabha's membership, like its social
origins, paralleled other patterns. The majority of the members came
from areas where Hindi students predominated in government schools
and where Hindi publications outnumbered others (see Chapter IV). In
1894 about 80 per cent of the membership came from the NWP&O,
and 85 per cent of these came from the eastern NWP, with 70 per cent
from Banaras itself. Ten years later these proportions had shifted to 70
per cent from the NWP&O, 61 per cent of these from the east and 33
per cent from Banaras. By 1914, 70 per cent still came from the
NWP&O, but only 50 per cent of these from the east and 25 per cent
from Banaras. In sum, for the first twenty years the Sabha remained an
overwhelmingly north Indian organization, and continued to be centred
in the NWP&O. Within the home province, however, a shift away from
the lopsided dominance of the eastern NWP and Banaras district took
place, mirroring the shift occurring about the same'time in Hindi
publishing (see Chapter IV). In overall terms, the Sabha's membership
increased steadily from 1894 until 1915, when the number of members
began a gradual decline for the next ten years and finally stabilized at a
level the Sabha had reached during its eleventh year. 80 The Sabha's
financial support came from a number of sources
146 One Language, Two Scripts

including dues, book sales, loans, government aid, and donations of various
sorts including large amounts from princely patrons. During the first six years,
the organization faced severe financial difficulties, for annual income averaged
only Rs 500 and a large percentage of this came from the somewhat unstable
sources of dues and donations. In its seventh year (1899-1900) the Sabha first
received financial aid from the Government of the NWP&O, and in the next
few years annual income increased by leaps and bounds, reaching a high point
during a fund-raising campaign for a permanent headquarters building. During
the Sabha's eighth and ninth years, the annual income expanded to nearly five
times the level of the first six years, and thereafter, though considerable
fluctuations of income occurred, the Sabha's financial condition remained
viable.81
Donations provided a substantial portion of the Sabha's income, as suggested
above. Just how substantial became apparent when the Sabha published a list of
all donors—government, princely, and private—for its first thirty years. This
document revealed that donations accounted for more than one-third (37 per
cent) of the organization's total income. Various levels of government
accounted for a little over 13 per cent (with the Government of the NWP&O
topping the list at more than 9 per cent), princely donors for nearly 12 per cent,
and private donors for the remainder of about 12 per cent. (The roster of Hindu
princes included the Maharajas of Gwalior, Rewah, Bikaner, Chatrapur, Alwar
and Banaras, all of whom became recognized patrons of the Sabha.) Of the
nearly 24 per cent from non-governmental sources, over 43 per cent came from
Rajasthan with only 14 per cent of the membership in 1924.82
The heavy reliance of the Sabha on government and on politically
conservative Rajasthan (which together furnished nearly a quarter of the
average annual income for the first thirty years) clearly indicated that the
Banaras organization did not intend to take political risks. Unlike the Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan (Society for Hindi Literature) of Allahabad, whose members
included political leaders of national stature such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra
Prasad and Mahatma Gandhi, the Sabha took little part in any political activity
associated with the Indian National Congress. For the most part, the Sabha
laboured to promote Hindi and Nagari through literary activities.83
In this area after little more than a decade the Sabha could point to a number
of accomplishments: establishing a series of prizes for Nagari handwriting and
Hindi literature, founding a library of Hindi and English books and journals,
initiating a search for old Hindi manuscripts
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 147

—later to win critical acclaim, starting two long-lived and successful journals,
producing numerous Hindi textbooks, publishing several classics of 'Hindi'
literature (i.e., in Braj Bhasha and other literary dialects), compiling a Hindi
dictionary of scientific terms, and constructing a permanent headquarters
building.84 In most of these endeavours the Sabha was carrying out activities
similar to those of its predecessors, but on a larger scale and more successfully.
During the same period the Sabha garnered considerable prestige by leading
a campaign to secure the recognition of the Nagari script by the Government of
the NWP&O. The Hindi elite who led the Sabha had clearly begun to articulate
and even acquire political rights, even though Hindus had hardly become a
cohesive group at the level of a 'nationality'. Indeed the Sabha's success in this
activity, though not leading to further political exertions, gave considerable
fillip to the organization's continuing literary efforts.
Before turning to examine the role played by the Sabha in bringing about the
official recognition of the Nagari script, we must briefly examine its language
attitudes.85 The official principles of the organization, embodied in a report
written after an extensive survey of various Hindi authorities, seemed to place
the Sabha in a moderate position concerning the proper style for Hindi. In
practice, however, the language of many of its publications was highly
Sanskritized. Moreover, the Sabha made explicit which certain kinds of
publications merited praise: in 1897 these included a work in Braj Bhasha by
the sixteenth century poet Surdas, another in a mixture of Braj and other
literary dialects by the seventeenth century poet Bihari, a volume on integral
calculus, and a translation of a Bengali novel into Hindi. Members of the Sabha
had written or edited all of these.86
The Sabha also expressed literary opinions implicitly. Despite the fact that
the novels of Devki Nandan Khatri had won a wider circle of readers than any
other vernacular works of their time, and that Khatri became an early member
and even General Secretary of the Sabha for a year, no mention of his literary
efforts ever appeared in the annual reports. One can therefore surmise that
Khatri's writings, which would certainly have been considered 'Hindustani' by
the Sabha, fell below the standards the organization had set for good Hindi
literature. A passage from the autobiography of Shyam Sundar Das written
years later bears out this inference:
I think that there is danger of great harm to Hindi from the promotion of
Hindustani, because the advocates of Hindustani are especially those
148 One Language, Two Scripts

people who are badly acquainted with Hindi or not at all, but are well
acquainted with Urdu. Besides this, the creation of elevated works of
literature is not possible in Hindustani.87 Das went on to say that
Hindustani could never embody the common religious and cultural
heritage of the Hindus of India, because this style replaced Sanskrit
words with Urdu words, striking a mortal blow at the very root of
Hindi. The use of Hindustani would sever the connections of the
Hindus of the UP with other parts of the country, e.g., Bengal,
Maharashtra, and Gujarat.
Perhaps most revealing was the Sabha's controversy with its first
President, Pandit Lakshmi Shankar Mishra, who held office from 1894
to 1902. Mishra was the holder of an M.A., then a rare
accomplishment, one of the first scholars to publish on the subject of
science in Hindi, and a highly-placed official in the provincial
Educational Department who had made efforts to increase the use of
Hindi in government schools.88 Matters came to a head in 1902 when
Mishra, writing to the Provincial Text-Book Committee, argued that an
'attempt should be made to assimilate the two forms [Urdu and Hindi]
into one language, which may be called Hindustani, and may be written
either in the Persian character or the Nagri character'. 89 Since the raison
d'etre of the Sabha lay in the differentiation of Hindi from Urdu, any
attempt to combine them or to eliminate or reduce their differences
undermined the very foundations of the organization. Mishra resigned
soon after and the Sabha found another President.

The Hindi-Nagari Campaign of 1895-1900

The Sabha's earliest efforts to change government language policy
came in the form of a letter to the provincial Board of Revenue,
pointing out that Act XIX of 1875 and Act XII of 1881 enjoined
officials to fill out summons and other documents in both Hindi and
Urdu. Since these rules had remained a dead letter in practice, however,
the Sabha asked the Board to enforce them. Receiving no answer for
nearly two years, the Sabha sent a memorial to the Government of the
NWP&O, whereupon the latter issued a circular letter late in 1896
instructing officials of all districts to have all Board of Revenue
summons and similar documents completed in both Hindi and Urdu.
This fresh reminder of the rules had little effect. 90
The arrival of Sir Antony MacDonnell as the new Lieutenant-
Governor in 1895 gave new hope to the champions of Hindi and
Nagari. MacDonnell's record in Bihar, where he had supported the
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 149

change to the Nagari and Kaithi scripts, led many to believe that he would
support a similar change in the NWP&O.91 Soon after his accession,
MacDonnell paid a visit to Banaras, and the Sabha wasted no time in sending
him an address of welcome. The Lieutenant-Governor's reply expressed interest
in the question of the substitution of Hindi for Urdu as the official language of
the courts but avoided any commitment to any definite opinion beyond the
promise that he would give the matter his attention at some future time. A
major drought and famine occupied much of MacDonnell's attention during
1896-97, but early in 1898 he found the time to meet a delegation of leading
Hindu citizens which asked him to elevate Nagari to the dignity of an official
script and presented him with a memorial bearing many thousands of
signatures. Nevertheless, he gave little time to the issue until mid-1899 when he
initiated the process of inquiry and deliberation which eventually led to the
official recognition of Hindi and Nagari.92
Soon after MacDonnelTs visit to Banaras, leaders of the Sabha and other
Hindi supporters, encouraged by MacDonnelTs response and by other signs, 93
began to devote their energy to a province-wide campaign. In the summer of
1896 the Sabha appointed a special sub-committee for this task, and sent
representatives to at least nineteen districts, mainly in the eastern part of the
province. Radha Krishna Das travelled to the western districts of Meerut and
Muzzaffarnagar where he received considerable help from the Meerut
Devanagari Pracharini Sabha, while Shyam Sundar Das journeyed to Allahabad
and Lucknow. The Sabha's representative collected over 60,000 signatures,
which compared favourably with the 67,000 gathered during the Hunter
Commission campaign. The memorial which accompanied the signature did not
ask for a change in the court language or for the elimination of the Urdu script,
but rather requested that 'the written character of the immense majority of the
people [i.e., the Nagari script] should be used in Government courts, and all
summonses, decisions and decrees should be issued in that character.'94
The sentiments of the Sabha's memorial echoed those expressed in a book by
Madan Mohan Malaviya entitled Court Character and Primary Education in
the N.-W. P. and Oudh.95 Malaviya, leader of the Hindu Samaj which had made
some desultory efforts for Hindi several years earlier, and already an important
figure in the Indian National Congress, came from a Malaviya Brahman family
of Allahabad. His father and grandfather had had reputations as Sanskrit
scholars, and Malaviya himself studied Sanskrit in his childhood and went on to
learn Hindi,
150 One Language, Two Scripts

Urdu and English. He graduated from the University of Calcutta in

1884 and the next year began a career as a teacher. Soon he changed to
a career in journalism, and became the editor of the Hindi daily
Hindustan from 1887 to 1889 at the invitation of the proprietor, Raja
Rampal Singh. In 1892 Malaviya received an LL.B. and began the
practice of law with considerable success, becoming a lawyer at the
Allahabad High Court in 1893. He went on to become President of the
Indian National Congress in 1909 and again in 1918, and to found
Banaras Hindu University in 1916.* After joining the Sabha early in
1894, he remained a member for more than twenty years, and on the
important occasion of the 1898 delegation to MacDonnell, he acted as
the Sabha's representative.97
Malaviya's book, presented to MacDonnell on that occasion along
with the Sabha's memorial, fell into four parts: the first dealt with the
historical background of the linguistic situation, the second with the
merits of the Nagari and the defects of the Urdu script, the third with
the relation of the official language and script to education, while the
fourth contained dozens of supporting documents. In the first section
Malaviya repeated the oft-asserted idea that 'Hindi' had served as the
medium of public business in much of north India before the Muslim
invasions of medieval times, traced the history of Muslim and British
language policy, and asserted that the bulk of the population
understood 'Hindi' but found Urdu unintelligible. In the second section,
he reiterated most of the arguments already used over and over again
by critics of the Urdu script, especially its shikasta form.98 In the third
section, which contained the heart of his argument, Malaviya linked the
deficiencies of the provincial educational system—especially primary
education—to the fact that in the NWP&O the official language and
script differed from the language and script most widely known and
taught. In other provinces such as Bihar and the Central Provinces or
even in the hill districts of his own province, he pointed out, education
had progressed more satisfactorily because no such linguistic
mutilation existed. To remedy this situation the government had only to
substitute the Nagari script for the Persian (Urdu) in courts and offices;
no change in the official language should prove necessary, for the
introduction of the Nagari script would naturally lead to a simpler style
closer to the language of the people.99
Although well-written, persuasive, and thoroughly documented,
Malaviya's book contained important flaws in reasoning and also
reflected the narrow interests of a professional class. On more than one
occasion he fell into the error of identifying Hindi and Urdu with their
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 151

respective scripts. In some places he urged a change of script only, while in

others he spoke for a change of both script and language. His linguistic panacea
for all the troubles of the educational system grossly oversimplified a complex
situation. Though he frequently invoked the welfare of the masses as the most
pressing reason for a change in policy, the very title of his book suggested that
he, as a lawyer, was more concerned for the interests of the professional classes
which had sprung up around the British-initiated judicial system. Thus he paid
as much attention to the few hundred candidates for the Middle Class Anglo-
Vernacular Examination as he did to the tens of thousands of children in
primary schools, and he ignored the fact that the vast bulk of the population
could never aspire to government service whatever the official language or
script. Moreover, he overlooked the consideration that large numbers of
students at both primary and secondary levels continued to study Hindi, which
suggested that the language had other social uses—such as keeping business
accounts, maintaining land records, and carrying on private correspondence—
than preparing candidates for government service.100 Finally, he failed to
mention even once the widespread use of the Kaithi script, both in the
NWP&O and elsewhere.
The most important shortcoming in Malaviya's work, which vitiated much
of his argument, came from his ambiguous use of the word 'Hindi'. The 'Hindi'
in use when the Muslims came to India, the 'Hindi' in use in government
schools, and the 'Hindi' in use by the masses of the NWP&O blended into one
monolithic entity stretching far back into the past and sprawling great distances
across India. The first 'Hindi' referred to north Indian languages generally or to
various literary dialects such as Braj Bhasha and Avadhi, the second to a highly
Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi (the style promoted by most Hindi enthusiasts),
and the third to various local dialects or regional standards such as Bhojpuri,
Avadhi, Braj Bhasha, and Khari Boli.101
The same mythical 'Hindi' appeared in the Sabha's first annual report, which
credited Hindi literature with an age of eight centuries. The Muslim invasion of
India, said the Sabha, had prevented the further progress of Hindi. India's new
rulers, seeing that they could not settle in India unless they knew Hindi, and
wishing to avoid Sanskrit-mixed Hindi, created Persian-mixed Hindi or Urdu.
When the Sabha talked of the distant past, only 'Hindi' was mentioned, but
when the Sabha talked of the more recent past, phrases like 'Braj Bhasha or
Hindi' were used. The meaning of 'Hindi' expanded when moving backwards in
time, but
152 One Language, Two Scripts

contracted when moving forwards. To give 'Hindi' a glorious past one had to
include all of her elder sisters, but when one came to the present only the
youngest sister—Khari Boli Hindi—received attention.102 This basic
contradiction reflected the need to invest the symbol 'Hindi' with dignity and to
mask the embarrassing fact that the rise of Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi could
hardly have occurred without the previous widespread use of Urdu. We can
reasonably conjecture that this form of Hindi represented the creation of a new
style of language according to the time-honoured formula of the Sanskritization
of an existing form. Only such a transformation could make Hindi an
acceptable symbol for the process of multi-symbol congruence which expressed
itself in the equation Hindi = Hindu.
The same arguments, assumptions and shortcomings found in the writings of
Malaviya and the reports and memorials of the Sabha began to fill the pages of
the vernacular press once more. Articles and letters on the issue of Hindi versus
Urdu began to appear more and more frequently in both Hindi and Urdu
newspapers in 1897, swelled to a torrent in 1898, flooded the columns in 1899
and 1900, and quickly subsided by 1901. The same arguments and counter-
arguments repeated themselves again and again with occasional new twists
such as the writer who argued that the encouragement of the Nagari script
would benefit the cause of female education and thereby transform Indian
women from shrews into models of amity.103 Most writers, whether Hindi or
Urdu partisans, spoke in uncompromising tones: either Hindi and the Nagari
script or Urdu and the Urdu script should have official status. Few advocated
the use of both. Many, though not all, identified Hindus with Hindi and
Muslims with Urdu, and many confused language and script. Before the 1900
resolution of government recognizing Hindi and Nagari, Hindi newspapers
published most of the polemical materials, after the decision Urdu papers
indulged in the same kind of articles.104
While the controversy raged in the vernacular press, the Sabha conducted a
vigorous campaign to influence the government, particularly MacDonnell. Not
long after the Lieutenant-Governor returned from a leave late in 1898,
Malaviya informed officials of the Sabha that Sir Antony intended to make a
tour of the western NWP&O to determine the real feelings of the people on the
language issue. On Malaviya's advice the Sabha sent Shyam Sundar Das and
another member to several western cities where they met leading citizens and
founded organizations for the promotion of Nagari not long before
MacDonnell's own visit. About the same time the Sabha sent the Lieutenant-
Governor
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 153

another memorial, and letter after letter and thousands of signatures

began to pour into his office. The Sabha also published and distributed
thousands of copies of a pamphlet in English entitled 'Should Nagari be
Introduced in the Courts?105
A nearly religious fervour animated all these activities. The annual
report of the Sabha for 1897-98 condemned as bigots those who
opposed the recognition of Nagari, and declared that any thoughtful
person could see that the progress of education, the spread of justice,
the destruction of forgery, and the establishment of good relations
between ruler and subjects all depended on this change. Even the
Kayasths aided the Sabha's efforts for a while. In 1899 the Kayasth
Conference, founded in Lucknow to advance the interests of Kayasths
and to promote reforms in Kayasth society, passed a resolution
favouring the introduction of the Nagari script in government courts
and offices and sent a memorial to the Lieutenant-Governor.106

The 1900 Decision: The Machinery of Deliberation

While the Sabha was conducting a vigorous campaign and the
vernacular press was indulging in high-flown rhetoric, the Government
of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh was pursuing a leisurely
process of investigation which began in July 1899 and continued until
April 1900, when the Lieutenant-Governor issued a resolution
purporting to give the Nagari script a status equal to that of the Urdu.
During the course of this inquiry MacDonnell consulted with the
provincial Board of Revenue, the High Court of the North-Western
Provinces, and the Judicial Commissioner of Oudh. Further
consultation with the Government of India after the issuance of the
resolution brought the promulgation of a modified version a month
later. Despite the length of these deliberations, their outcome only
added to the existing confusion. Though hailed as a great victory for the
champions of Hindi and lamented as a calamitous defeat by the
defenders of Urdu, once the uproar had died down, little had actually
changed.107
The series of documents setting forth the process of inquiry reveals
several striking features, not the least remarkable of these being the
rapid geographical expansion of Hindi in the letters of the provincial
government. Writing to the Board of Revenue in July 1899 the
Lieutenant-Governor asked for opinions of various reforms concerning
the Nagari script proposed for the appropriate areas, namely, the three
easternmost divisions of Gorakhpur, Banaras, and Allahabad. Seven
months later in a letter to the Judicial Commissioner of Oudh, the
Government of the
154 One Language, Two Scripts

NWP&O referred to these three divisions and Agra division as those in which
Hindi was 'by far the most prevalent language', and added that it was 'very
largely used' in the western divisions of Meerut and Rohilkhand as well.108 In a
May 1900 letter to the Government of India the provincial government
claimed:
Hindi is the language of the vast majority of the inhabitants of these Provinces.
Throughout the whole of Oudh and in Gorakhpur, Benares, Allahabad, Agra
and Kumaun Divisions, it is the language of the people. It is more largely
spoken than Urdu in the Meerut and Rohilkhand Divisions.109 In ten months the
spread of Hindi from the eastern divisions to the entire province was wonderful
to behold!
Comparisons of several of the documents reveal a good deal of fuzzy
thinking about language and script. In a February 1900 letter to the High Court
of the NWP the government referred to Hindi as a 'language' while in the April
resolution Hindi had become a 'character'. The same confusion appeared in the
government's May 1900 letter to the Government of India:
I am to state for the information of His Excellency the Governor-General in
Council, that Hindi is the language of the vast majority of these Provinces. . . .
The proscription of the Hindi character in public offices has long been a cause
of discontent . . .110 This muddle did not escape the eye of an observer in
London, C. J. Lyall, the Secretary of the Judicial and Public Department of the
India Office at the time. Lyall, the author of a work on Hindustani grammar,
wrote that the 'NWP letter of 4th May displays much confusion of thought as to
the use of the words Urdu & Hindi for difference of language, whereas the sole
question at issue is one not of language, but of character.'111 The Government
of India did little better in commenting on the April resolution of the provincial
government. Rule (3) of this resolution had used the terms 'Nagri and Persian
characters' while the Government of India replaced these with the 'Hindi and
Urdu . . . languages', displaying a almost incredible lack of clarity and
precision.112 The obtuseness of the supreme government seems almost perverse
because MacDonnell's resolution had clearly stated that he intended to deal
with script only and not with language.113
The clearest heads in the whole process belonged to the Board of Revenue
who recognized that no 'Hindi' spoken generally by the people existed, and that
Khari Boli had assumed two extreme forms which they labelled 'Pandit's Hindi'
and 'Persianized Urdu'. The junior member of the Board, D. T. Roberts,
displayed a superior grasp of another facet of
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 155

the situation. He remarked that the Kaithi script had a currency nearly equal to
that of the Nagari in the province as a whole, while in the eastern districts
Kaithi had practically superseded Nagari for ordinary manuscript. The
proposals which the government had presented to the Board, he continued,
mentioned only the Nagari script, but to allow the use of the Nagari and not the
Kaithi as well would prove largely in vain because of the lack of any practised
Nagari writers for the courts and offices. If the government wished to allow
those dealing with the courts to use the script most familiar to them, then in the
eastern districts at least, that script should be Kaithi and not Nagari.114
The April 1900 resolution of the Government of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh, however, took no notice of the Kaithi script in the new
rules, which read as follows:
(1) All persons may present their petitions or complaints either in the Nagri or
in the Persian character, as they shall desire.
(2) All summonses, proclamations, and the like in vernacular issuing to the
public from the Courts or from Revenue officials, shall be in the Persian and
the Nagri characters, and the portion in the latter shall invariably be filled up as
well as that in the former.
(3) No person shall be appointed, except in a purely English office, to any
ministerial appointment henceforward unless he can read and write both the
Nagri and Persian characters fluently.115
In failing to give Kaithi recognition, the Government of the NWP&O
continued a long-standing tradition of opposition on the part of both
government officials and Hindi-Nagari supporters.116
The new rules displayed other elements of continuity, for in fact all of the
second and most of the third rule already existed. The second was the very rule
which the Nagari Pracharini Sabha had earlier asked the Board of Revenue to
enforce, while the third was already in effect for persons appointed to
executive positions. As the Board of Revenue had remarked in its reply to the
provincial government, these rules were 'prescribed at present, but not
sufficiently insisted upon'.117
Only the first rule represented an innovation, yet several considerations
made enforcement impossible. While there was a class of government officials,
legal practitioners, petition writers, and numerous other petty officials with a
strong vested interest in maintaining the Persian (Urdu) script, no
corresponding class for the Nagari script existed. In rejecting the Kaithi script
the leaders of the Hindi-Nagari movement also rejected the possibility of a
ready-made class of minor officials to replace that already entrenched. The
experience of F. J. Shore with this class sixty years earlier in the Saugor and
Nerbudda Territories,118 and
156 One Language, Two Scripts

the experience of MacDonnell himself in Bihar should have made it obvious

that only orders enjoining the exclusive use of Nagari as the court script could
bring about any real change. The Government of the NWP&O had ordered only
the permissive use of Nagari, had created no incentives for the development of
a new class of Nagari-knowing writers and officials, and had provided no
sanctions to enforce this new rule or the two older rules, which had been
continuously ignored in the past. In short, while the resolution of April 1900
seemed to be an important political victory for the Hindi-Nagari movement, the
triumph was little more than a symbolic one, and had few practical results.

The Aftermath of the 1900 Decision

MacDonnell's decree took most Urdu partisans by surprise. After all, the Hindi-
Nagari movement had been sputtering along in fits and starts for more than
three decades with no visible result, so why should any renewed efforts be
taken seriously? A few concerned supporters took steps to protect Urdu: several
lawyers, mainly Muslims, established an Urdu Defence Association at
Allahabad not long after MacDonnell's meeting with the pro-Nagari delegation
in March 1898; the Muham-madan Anglo-Oriental Educational Conference, a
creation of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, passed a resolution in 1899 protesting any
official recognition of the Nagari script; a large anti-Congress meeting held in
Lucknow in December 1899 condemned the proposal to substitute the 'Hindi'
for the Persian script; and a group of Muslims from the eastern district of
Pratapgarh sent a memorial to the Lieutenant-Governor complaining that the
movement to adopt Hindi as the court language clearly aimed at excluding
Muslims from public service.119 For the most part, however, Muslims and other
Urdu partisans disregarded the potential threat. Hamid Ali Khan, a prominent
Muslim barrister and member of the Indian National Congress, found his
efforts to warn fellow Muslims pooh-poohed.120
The April resolution galvanized Urdu's defenders into action. They held scores
of meetings all over the province, passed resolutions condemning the new
rules, sent memorials, letters, and telegrams to the provincial and imperial
governments, and formed several organizations to protect Urdu. Some
expressed highly emotional and exaggerated feelings of shock and dismay. For
example, in a letter in the Indian Daily Telegraph a month after the resolution's
promulgation, a Muslim wrote: . . . this new calamity [the resolution] . . . hangs
above our head; we are required thereby to wander amidst the zigzag of the
strange and horrible
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 157

characters of the Deo-Nagri and to bid farewell to the language which reminds us [of] the
glory of our forefathers ... Is it not the severest suffering for a man of the slightest
sentiment?121 Others complained that the change threatened Muslim
businesses and Islamic literature, that the people found the Nagari
script no less foreign than the Persian, that even the partial substitution
of Hindi for Urdu would retard the progress of the province, that
MacDonnell had reversed a long-standing policy, and that the
resolution would harm Muslim prospects for the public service. 122
Sir Antony stood firm in the midst of the storm of protests. He
defended himself by declaring that his measure provided 'the merest
justice to over 90 per cent of the people of these Provinces, including
the poorest classes of Mahomedans as well as Hindus'.123 In a letter to
the Government of India he asserted that the provisions of his
resolution allowed no tenable objections, though some 'extreme
Muhammadans . . . would prohibit the use of Hindi altogether from
short-sighted motives of personal, race, or religious intolerance'.124
Elsewhere he noted that the opposition to his decree came largely from
Muslim members of the legal profession, and hardly at all from any of
the important landlords or from the agricultural and industrial interests
of the province.125 In the meantime, as if to justify a decision already
made, MacDonnell ordered an investigation to determine the respective
numbers of Hindu and Muslim clerks in provincial courts and offices
familiar with Hindi or Urdu or both. The results, though almost
certainly skewed in favour of Hindi, showed that Muslims had a heavy
vested interest in Urdu, while Hindus, though rivalling Muslims in
knowledge of Urdu, far surpassed them in Hindi. 126
The most determined opposition came from Aligarh, home of the
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College founded by the recently
deceased (1898) Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, the
Secretary of the College, Theodore Morison, the Principal, and many
prominent Muslims from Aligarh, other western districts of the
NWP&O, and the Punjab, took part in a protest meeting less than a
month after the resolution was proclaimed. From this meeting grew
another on a larger scale, held three months later in Lucknow under the
direction of Mohsin-ul-Mulk. Several hundred delegates came from the
NWP&O, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, and elsewhere. Many
Muslim students and merchants came from Lucknow itself. A number
of Hindus attended the meeting, among them Pandit Kedarnath of
Banaras, and some Indian Christians also took part. The numerous
Muslim landlords of Oudh, however, were conspicuous by their
absence.127
158 One Language, Two Scripts

Despite the lack of support from some quarters, the gathering took
place with considerable panache: when Mohsin-ul-Mulk arrived at the
station, he was greeted by a guard of sixty Muslim volunteers wearing
red badges embroidered with the word 'Urdu' on their chests. 128
Most of the eleven resolutions passed by the meeting expressed the
already time-worn arguments in favour of Urdu and against Hindi. The
eleventh resolution, however, foreshadowed the birth of an
organization for the promotion of Urdu very much like the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha. This resolution gave the meeting the right to establish
a society for the defence of Urdu and to collect subscriptions for it. No
permanent organization resulted until January 1903, when the Anjuman
Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Society for the Progress of Urdu) came into being as
part of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Education Conference. For
the first nine years, the Anjuman's headquarters remained at Aligarh,
and its leaders were associated with the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental
College. Though the new society accomplished little during these years
compared to the Sabha, the Anjuman eventually rose to prominence as
the leading Urdu organization of India.129
The Lieutenant-Governor did not allow these expressions of
opposition to go unchecked. Several weeks before the Lucknow
meeting he persuaded a prominent Muslim landlord of Oudh, Kunvar
Ali Khan, to resign the presidency of the Urdu Defence Association. A
speech at Banaras in which MacDonnell described efforts against his
resolution as 'unreasonable and mischievous' caused other Muslim
notables to take alarm and withdraw their support from the Urdu
movement."0 He reserved his severest measures for Aligarh, which he
visited in November 1900. While he took pains to reassure a gathering
of Muslims there that no harm could come to Urdu, Sir Antony
declared that if the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College wished to
continue receiving government funds and if Mohsin-ul-Mulk wished to
retain his position as Secretary to the College Committee, he would
have to sever all connections with the anti-Nagari agitation. The Nawab
eventually yielded, submitted a written apology, ended his connection
with the Urdu Defence Association, and refused to sign a memorial
which the Association had prepared. Many other eminent Muslims
followed his example, and by 1901 the whole affair had come to an
inglorious end.131
Paralleling the protests of the defenders of Urdu, the wave of
controversy in the press which had been gathering strength for many
months finally crested and burst with the proclamation of the April
resolution. Thereafter the conflict flooded the columns of both English
and
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 159

vernacular newspapers for many months until finally subsiding well into 1901.
While many of the arguments had appeared time and again previously, some
merit further attention.
Several writers expressed the oft-mentioned equations of Hindi = Hindu and
Urdu = Muslim more starkly than ever before. On the Hindu side one of the
most extreme statements came from a public notice circulated with issues of
the Hindi monthly Brajbasi (Brindaban). This document urged all Hindus to
use 'the Hindi character'. Any Hindu who continued to use the foreign Persian
script did not even deserve to be called a Hindu."2 On the Muslim side an
equally extreme statement came from the Urdu weekly Al Bashir, exhorting all
Muslims to consider attendance at an upcoming meeting at Lucknow in support
of Urdu more important than the traditional religious duty of a pilgrimage to
Mecca.133 Underneath such dramatic statements lay fears for the future of
Urdu. Many writers expressed their apprehension that even the optional use of
the Nagari script would eventually lead to the complete extinction of Urdu.
None stated Muslim misgivings as clearly as a correspondent of the Punjab
Observer who conjectured that the introduction of Nagari would lead to the
abolition of Urdu which would in turn cause Muslim boys to become Hindu in
thought and expression.134 One could hardly find clearer examples of the
process of multi-symbol congruence.
Such extreme misgivings partly stemmed from an exaggerated notion of the
power of the government to bring about linguistic changes. Again and again
opponents of the resolution wrote as if change could take place overnight, and
they seldom mentioned the entrenched resistance facing the introduction of the
Nagari script. They forgot the example of Bihar, where the permissive
introduction of Nagari had failed to bring any significant change, and even its
mandatory and exclusive introduction had met with difficulties. A striking
example of this naive faith in the powers of the government came from a
resident of Aligarh writing in the Indian Daily Telegraph:
Let us consider that if Urdu were to be substituted for Gujarati in the Bombay
Presidency, what would be the result? Each and every person will, the next day
the Resolution is passed, be seen with an Urdu primer in his hands, and will not
in the least care if Gujarati is to live or to perish, as his existence, so to speak,
depends on his knowledge of Urdu.135 Such views also underlined the fact that
those most concerned about the resolution were those who looked to
government for employment. The most extended Muslim statement in defence
of Urdu, a direct
160 One Language, Two Scrtpts

reply to Malaviya's Court Character and Primary Education, appeared

in July 1900. Bearing the title A Defence of the Urdu Language and
Character, and published under the auspices of the Urdu Defence
Association of Allahabad, this work repeated many earlier arguments,
added some new ones, and severely criticized several of Malaviya's
basic pronouncements. Unlike the more extreme writers in the
vernacular press, the Association argued that Urdu belonged to both
Hindus and Muslims, and explicitly denied the equations Hindi =
Hindu and Urdu = Muslim. Moreover, since both Urdu and Hindi
shared the same fundamental grammar, they were not distinct
languages. To call the spoken language Urdu or Hindi, then, amounted
to a 'mere difference of opinion'.136 Judged from the viewpoint of those
with a taste for Persian, this language became Urdu; judged from the
viewpoint of those with an inclination to Sanskrit, Hindi. To quarrel
over nomenclature was 'simply fighting over a shadow and useless
speculation'.137 In short, the Association declared that Urdu = Hindi and
Urdu = Hindu + Muslim, explicitly arguing for assimilation rather than
differentiation. Two of the Association's more important arguments
deserve consideration, namely, that dealing with the relationship of the
official script to primary education, and that dealing with Malaviya's
use of statistics. Contrary to Malaviya's assertion that the basic cause of
the stagnation of primary education in the NWP&O lay in the exclusive
use of the Persian script in government courts and offices, the progress
of primary education, the Association pointed out, depended on far
more complex factors and faced a number of non-linguistic obstacles.
The great bulk of the population earned a living through agriculture and
hence had little appreciation of education. The people of the province,
particularly the literary castes, looked upon mass education as
something unprecedented and unnecessary. Moreover, numerous castes
and sects using different languages existed, the strict purdah system
prevented females from taking advantage of educational opportunities,
and the lack of religious instruction in government schools offended
many who looked to education to provide religious training. Further,
the facilities for primary education in the NWP&O lagged behind those
in other provinces. Educated parents who desired more than primary
education for their children considered the instruction in elementary
arithmetic and the Hindi alphabet provided by Hindi primary schools a
waste of time. Hence the great majority of students reaching the
secondary level took Urdu or Persian as their second language. Finally,
even the United Kingdom needed laws to enforce mass education; how
much more
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 161

difficult to promote this in India where such a scheme was something

'quite foreign'.138
The Association then turned to Malaviya's use of statistics; he had
cited figures for the Punjab and the NWP&O purporting to show that
primary education among the Muslims was languishing, and had
attributed this to the use of the Persian script in the courts. 139 In reality,
countered the Association, the low figures for Muslim primary
education showed that the village schools which furnished Hindi
training did little to fulfil the educational aims of Muslims, who
consequently made private arrangements for elementary education. In
another section of his work Malaviya had quoted figures showing that
the number of pupils in the primary schools of the NWP&O had
dropped continuously from 1880-81 to 1895-96, claiming that this
resulted from the neglect of Hindi and the patronage of Urdu. 140 During
the previous decade, however, argued the Association, according to
Malaviya's own figures, the number of pupils enrolled in primary
schools had increased substantially—from 153,252 in 1870-71 to
204,512 in 1881-82. Obviously government patronage of Urdu had
little to do with the state of primary education. Furthermore, the decline
in enrolment after 1881 had nothing to do with the question of the
official language or script. The annual report of the Educational
Department (which the Association cited in considerable detail)
showed that the decline had resulted from a variety of causes. These
included stricter registration practices, the closure of many marginally
successful schools, the introduction of new fees, the imposition of
stricter standards of inspection, and widespread sickness in 1879-80.141
Perhaps the most significant part of the Association's assault on
Malaviya's work lay in the undisguised contempt for Hindi and Nagari
which emerged from time to time. Such stinging expressions as 'one
can hardly come across a man with a Hindi education only to whom the
epithet of an educated man could in any sense be applied', or 'the
introduction of Nagri will degenerate and defile the Hindustani
language', or 'the shifting vulgar speech used by the rude villagers is
known as Hindi', showed the truculence of Muslim partisans of
Urdu,and boded ill for any hope of harmony between the opposing
groups.142 The Association's book typified much of the Hindi-Urdu
controversy: an intellectual edifice erected on an emotional foundation.
162 One Language, Two Scripts

Epilogue
The jubilation of Hindi supporters over the April 1900 resolution
reached heights of rhetoric in extolling the government hitherto
unknown. One Hindi newspaper avowed that Sir Antony had earned
immortal fame for himself by doing justice to the Nagari script.
Another said that the Lieutenant-Governor's resolution had made his
name a household word in the NWP&O, and reported that some
enthusiasts had proposed establishing a memorial for him, while others
had suggested placing a photograph of him in every house.143
The euphoria soon dissipated as the leaders of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha discovered to their chagrin. Although donations of nearly Rs 600
from the Raja of Bhinga (a minor prince in the NWP&O) and the
Maharaja of Rewah (a more important prince of the Central Provinces)
allowed an agent to make two extensive tours of the province in 1900,
during the next two years the Sabha received and spent little for the
promotion of Nagari. While the agent visited almost every district,
meeting with well-known lawyers, influential citizens and Hindi
enthusiasts, and urging them to promote the use of the Nagari script,
soon after his return the interest of those whom he had visited began to
wane.144
In 1903 the Sabha took a fresh approach. Abandoning any hope that
the old class of lawyers and legal officials might be persuaded to
change, and despairing of sufficient efforts from Hindi lovers, the
Sabha decided to set about establishing a new class of legal officials
trained to write Nagari. Each district in the province was to have two
muharrirs (writers or scribes), one for the civil court, and one for the
criminal court, who were to write plaints and other legal documents in
Nagari without charge. Since the Sabha's finances did not permit the
shouldering of so massive a burden, the district of Banaras alone would
benefit at first. Should the experiment prove successful, the scheme
could be extended to other districts.
By August 1903 the Sabha had managed to appoint a Nagari
muharrir to the Banaras criminal court, who wrote nearly 900 petitions
in the course of the next ten months. By the end of 1904, financed
largely by another donation from the Raja of Bhinga, two more
muharrirs joined the ranks, one in Fyzabad and the other in Bahraich,
both districts of Oudh. The grand plan of two Nagari writers in each
district never materialized; indeed the Sabha experienced great
difficulty in even finding competent men, and still greater difficulty in
employing them.145 The Sabha's failure bore out the earlier statements
of D. T. Roberts
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 163

about the lack of practised Nagari writers especially in the eastern districts of
the province.146
A similar lack of success attended efforts to create a legal dictionary in
Hindi. First conceived in 1904, and intended to consist of simple words to
replace the difficult Arabic and Persian legal terms currently in use, the
dictionary did not appear until 1932. To replace the entrenched legal
terminology proved no easier than to replace the equally entrenched Urdu
script or the class of lawyers and officials which used them both.147
The Sabha's most enduring contribution to the Hindi-Nagari movement took
the form of another organization, the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (Society for
Hindi Literature), whose success eventually far overshadowed that of its older
sister. The idea of an annual conference for writers, editors, publishers and
other persons interested in the development of Hindi had received attention for
some time in the Hindi press. In late 1910 the Sabha sponsored the first Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan which met in Banaras with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya
serving as president.148 Approximately three hundred delegates from several
provinces attended along with more than forty editors of Hindi newspapers and
journals. The Sammelan soon passed out of the Sabha's tenuous grip and came
under the firm control of members in Allahabad, chief among whom were
Malaviya and another prominent political leader, P. D. Tandon. Subsequently,
several leaders of national stature became associated with the Sammelan,
including Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi. The
leadership of the Sabha, composed mainly of figures from the Hindi literary
world and the Educational Department, and concentrated chiefly in Banaras,
lacked the political experience and national status needed to guide the
Sammelan, which soon became concerned with the promotion of Hindi as the
national language of India.149
The Sammelan's chief rival on the political front eventually became the
Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Society for the Progress of Urdu) under the
leadership of Maulvi Abdul Haq, who guided the organization from 1912 until
his death in 1961 in Pakistan.150 During the Anjuman's earlier decades, its
activities displayed striking parallels to those of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha.
After Haq managed to bring stability to the Anjuman's finances, starting with
an annual grant from the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1914, he initiated a series of
projects. In 1917 the Anjuman received a grant from the Nizam to prepare a
dictionary of scientific and technical terms, nineteen years after the Sabha had
begun its scientific dictionary. In 1921 the Anjuman's journal Urdu first
appeared, twenty-five years
164 One Language, Two Scripts

after the inauguration of the Sabha's Nagari Pracharini Patrika. In the

late 1920s Haq started a search for old Dakani manuscripts, nearly
three decades after the beginning of the Sabha's search for old Hindi
manuscripts.151
The parallels even extended to the lives of the dominant figure in
each organization. In 1930 Haq retired from the principalship of an
Aurangabad school and took a post as the head of the Department of
Urdu in the Muslim University of Osmania in Hyderabad. Shyam
Sundar Das had left the headmastership of a school in Lucknow in
1921 to accept the position of head of the Department of Hindi in
Banaras Hindu University.152 Such remarkable likenesses suggest that
both Hindi and Urdu supporters operated through parallel institutional
structures though they opposed each others' aims, much like two people
filling the same algebraic equation with two different sets of numbers.
Leaders of two rival language elites, each strove to attach value to
opposing linguistic symbols and to increase their differentiation from
each other, and each aided the process of multi-symbol congruence to
divide Hindus and Muslims into opposing nationalities.

NOTES

1. Shyam Sundar Das, Men Atmakahani (Prayag, 1957), pp. 20-1.

2. Report of the Uttar Pradesh Language Committee (August, 1962), p. 51. The
NWP&O became the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in 1902, and Uttar Pradesh
in 1947.
3. The Government of India modified this resolution—apparently due to a confusion
between language and script—to the effect that Hindi, not the Nagari script, was to
have equal status with Urdu, not the Urdu script.
4. See for example: Paul R. Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India
(London, 1974), p. 132; Jyotirindra Das Gupta, Language Conflict and National
Development (Berkeley, 1970), p. 105; Kerrin Dittmer, Die lndischen Muslims und die
Hindi-Urdu-Kontoverse in den United Provinces (Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 103-13.
5. See: Christopher R. King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of
the Nagari Script and Language) of Benares 1893-1914: A Study in the Social and
Political History of the Hindi Language, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin,
1974, Chapters XV, XVI, and XVII.
6. Jiirgen Lutt, Hindu-Nationalismus in Uttar Prades 1867-1900 (Stuttgart, 1970), p. 41.
7. M. Garcin De Tassy, La Langue et la Lttterature Hindoustanies de 1850 a 1869
(Paris, 1874), pp. 322-3. Also see the section of Chapter IV entitled Attitudes towards
the Vernaculars'.
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 165

8. Jeffrey Price Perrill, Punjab Orientalism: The Anjuman-i-Punjab and Punjab

University, 1865-1888, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Missouri, 1976, pp. 360-1; Shan
Muhammad, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: A Political Biography (Meerut, 1969), pp. 208-9;
NWP Educ Rpt, 1867-68, Appendix B, pp. 22-4.
9. Dittmer, Die Indischen Muslims, pp. 89-90; NWP SVN, 1868, p. 551; Ibid.,
1869, pp. 94, 125.
10. Oudh was not officially joined to the North-Western Provinces and Oudh until 1877,
when the two became known as the North-Western Provinces and Oudh.
11. Dittmer, Die Indischen Muslims, p. 90. See also the Pioneer (Allahabad) of 20
November 1868, p. 7, for a letter to the editor from Sandel on the subject of 'The
Dev Nagree as a Language of Our Courts'.
12. NWP SVN, 1869, p. 125.
13. One of the most difficult-to-read forms of the Persian and Urdu scripts was Shikasta
(literally meaning broken writing), the cursive or running hand form of the script.
14. A typical example of this argument appears in the Kavi Vachan Sudha (Banaras) of
8 August 1873. See NWP SVN, 1873, p. 528.
15. Shiva Prasad, Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper Provinces of India
(Banaras, 1868).
16. Dittmer, Die Indischen Muslims, p. 89; NWP SVN 1900, p. 162; The Pioneer
(Allahabad), 24 March 1869, p. 5.
17. Prasad, Memorandum, p. 3.
18. Ibid., p. 4.
19. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
20. Ibid., pp. 5-6. Emphasis mine.
21. Ibid., p. 6.
22. Ibid., p. 7.
23. The Urdu and Persian scripts are nearly identical; the chief difference is several extra
letters in Urdu to represent sounds in Khari Boli—e.g., retroflex consonants —with
no equivalents in Persian.
24. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P. and
Oudh (Allahabad, 1897), Appendix, pp. 74-5.
25. Ibid
26. Sir George Abraham Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India (Calcutta: 1903-1928),
Volume IX, Part 1, pp. xiv, 49. Emphasis in original.
27. The Pioneer (Allahabad), 1 March 1869, p. 6; NWP&O SVN, 1900, p. 162; NWP
Educ Rpt, 1873-74, Orders of Government, p. 16.
28. The Calcutta Gazette, 16 June 1880, pp. 502-3. Also see the section of Chapter III
entitled 'The Nagari and Kaithi Scripts in Bihar'.
29. Report of the lndian Education Commission (Calcutta, 1883), pp. 630-1, 635-9, and
Appendix C. In the Punjab, the Hunter Commission became the centre of a three-
cornered controversy between Hindi (or Bhasha), Urdu and Punjabi (or Gurmukhi).
Its report listed a total of 67,290 signatures in support of Hindi; at least 30,063 came
from the western part of the NWP&O, 25,946 from the eastern, 6,392 from other
provinces or princely states (including Gwalior, Central India, Rajputana and the
Punjab), and 4,673 were untraceable. Interestingly, fewer than 3,000 signatures came
from Oudh, all from Lucknow, and very few from Banaras.
166 One Language, Two Scripts

30. NWP&SVN, 1882, p. 660, summarizing an article in the 2 October 1882 issue.
31. One example of continuing efforts appeared in the Hindi weekly Bharat Jiwan
(Banaras), 23 June 1884. The paper reported that some residents of Kanpur had sent
a memorial to the Lieutenant-Governor with twenty-three statements attached. These
statements dealt with several contentious issues: the large number of Hindi speakers,
the small number of Urdu speakers, the problems of villagers in finding Urdu-
knowing translators for government documents in Urdu, the use of Hindi by
missionaries, the difficulty of Urdu, the faults of the Urdu script, the greater ease of
learning the Nagari script, and the use of Nagari or its variants by both Hindu and
Muslim merchants and patwaris (village record keepers). The memorial closed with
a request for Hindi and Devanagari in the courts.
32. In the Punjab, Urdu supporters displayed much greater vigour, collecting thousands
of signatures and sending more than twenty memorials. In contrast, the Commission
did not encounter any linguistic agitation at all in Madras, Bombay, Bengal and the
Central Provinces. Educ Comm Rpt, pp. 632-9.
33. Education Commission. Report by the North-Western Provinces and Oudh
Provincial Committee; with Evidence Taken before the Committee, and Memorials
Addressed to the Education Commission (Calcutta, 1884), p. 421.
34. Ibid., p. 422.
35. Ibid., p. 479.
36. Ibid., p. 543. See also Christopher R. King, 'Images of Virtue and Vice: The Hindi-
Urdu Controversy in Two Nineteenth-century Hindi Plays', in Kenneth W. Jones,
editor, Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages
(Albany, 1992) for a discussion of how Hindi supporters attached images of virtue
and goodness to their language, and of vice and depravity to Urdu.
37. Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O, p. 400.
38. Ibid., p. 462.
39. Though I know of no direct evidence of the numbers signing petitions in the pre-
1882 campaigns, a hint of the scale of earlier efforts appeared in an 1871 Urdu
newspaper. This reported a meeting of the Allahabad Institute the previous year
which resulted in a petition being drawn up in favour of Hindi and sent to the
Lieutenant-Governor of the NWP with 4,000 signatures. NWPSVN, 1871, p. 20.
40. Bharat Jivan, 24 March 1884, p. 1. Translation mine.
41. Ram Chandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya ka ltihas (Kasi, 1968), p. 462; NWP&O SVN,
1889, p. 284. See also Note 43.
42. NWP&O SVN, 1889, p. 284.
43. Pandit Gauri Datta, Nagari aur Urdu ka Svang. (Meerut, n.d.).
44. Saraswat Brahmans, a north Indian caste, were known for their close ties to the
merchant caste of Khatris. The author of the source from which these details come
does not define 'Nagari' in this context, but Datta probably included both the Hindi
language and the Nagari script in its meaning. Shukla, Hindi Sahitya, pp. 462-3.
45. Babu Ratna Chandra, Hindi Urdu ka Natak: Hindee versus Urdu (Prayag, 1890).
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 167

The author was probably a Kayasth judging from his name and from the viewpoint
expressed in his play.
46. Sohan Prasad, Hindi aur Urdu ki Larai (Gorakhpur, 1886). See Bharat Jivan
(Banaras) 6 July 1885, p. 3, and 30 November 1885, p. 6; and NWP&OSVN, 1885,
pp. 434, 783, 784, 831, and 839. During the uproar, which lasted for several months,
a number of Hindu organizations and Hindi newspapers became involved, including
the Hitkari (Champaran, Bihar), the Hindu Samaj, and the Arya Samaj; all of them
counselled moderation.
47. Prasad's poem first appeared in 1885, and a second edition in 1886, Ratna Chandra's
drama in 1890, and Datta's play some time between 1882 and 1900—for he
mentions the Hunter Commission but makes no reference to the government
resolution of 1900.
48. In the usage of many Hindi writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Nagari meant either the Hindi language or the Nagari script or both. Shri Ray
Krishna Das, Interview, 12 April 1972, Banaras.
49. Datta, Nagari aur Urdu, p. 11. Translation mine. Begam is a respectful title for a
Muslim lady.
50. Chandra, Hindi Urdu ka Ndtak, p. 29. Translation mine.
51. See Note 1.
52. See Note 36.
53. Datta, Nagari aur Urdu, p. 10. Translation mine.
54. Chandra, Hindi Urdu ka Natak, p. 17. Translation mine. Devi, literally goddess, is a
respectful term of address for a Hindu woman.
55. Prasad, Hindi aur Urdu, stanzas 280, 281. Translation mine.
56. Chandra, Hindi Urdu ka Natak, Act I, Scene 3.
57. Prasad, Hindi aur Urdu, passim.
58. Ibid., stanza 405. Translation mine.
59. Saraswati(Allahabad), III, 11 (November 1902), p. 359. In this dialogue Urdu
addresses Hindi very rudely, calling her an ill-favoured and ugly witch, and
expresses amazement that even though she has supposedly died she is still alive.
Hindi replies patiently, calling Urdu 'daughter' and asks what harm she has done that
Urdu should attack her.
60. Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O, p. 422.
61. Ibid., p. 418; Bharat Jivan, 13 July 1885, p. 1; NWP&OSVN, p. 960.
62. NWP&OSVN, 1889, pp. 403-4; Ibid., 1898, p. 641; NPS 2nd Ann Rpt, p. 8.
63. B. J. Akkad, Malaviyaji (Bombay, 1948), Appendix, pp. 1-2; Liitt, Hindu
Nationalismus, pp. 126-7; NWP&OSVN, 1884, pp. 285, 885; Ibid., 1886, p. 60; Ibid.,
1889, pp. 251-2; Ibid., 1893, p. 257; NPS 11th Ann Rpt, Membership List, Nos. 54,
89.
64. Lakshminarayan Gupta, Hindi Bhasa aur Sahitya ki Arya Samaj kiDen (Lucknow,
[1961]), pp. 25-7, 53-7, 87-93.
65. Educ Comm Rpt, pp. 636-7.
66. NWP&OSVN, 1882, p. 438. These figures tally with an entry in the Report of the
Indian Education Commission, p. 636, for 1,435 signatures for a pro-Hindi memorial
from Lucknow, though the organization sponsoring the memorial is not named. The
Hindi monthly Bharat Sudasha Pravartak of Farukhabad
168 One Language, Two Scripts

reported in its May-June 1900 issue that during the 1882 Education Commission
agitation, hundreds of Muslims, especially in the interior of Farukhabad district, had
signed memorials for the introduction of Nagari! NWP&O SVN, 1900, p. 323. Such
instances, if true, are difficult to explain.
67. Gupta, Hindi Bhasa, pp. 258-62.
68. United Provinces District Gazetteers, XXVI (Benares, 1909), pp. 106-8; R. L. Singh,
Banaras: A Study in Urban Geography (Banaras, 1955), pp. 3—4; A. L. Basham,
TheWonderThat Was India, revised edition (New York, 1963),p. 165; J. N. Farquhar,
An Outline of the Religious Literature of India (Delhi, 1967), pp. 328-9, 331-4;
Motichandra, Kasl ka Itihas (Bombay, 1962), pp. 199-202, 216-19; George A.
Grierson, The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan (Calcutta, 1889), pp. 108-
9 and following; A. M. Monteath, 'Note on the State of Education in India during
1865-66', SRGI Home Department, No. LIV (Calcutta, 1867), p. 93; Hindustan
Review (Allahabad), June 1903, p. 554; Diana Eck, Banaras: City of Light (New
York, 1962), passim; Benares State Administration Report, 1911, pp. 1-2.
69. Ibid.
70. Queen's Collegiate School was part of Queen's College—the renamed Banaras
Sanskrit College.
71. Kasi-Nagaripracarini Sabha ka Arddhsatabdi-Itihas [The History of the Nagari
Pracharini Sahha's First Half-Century] (Kasi, 1943), pp. 1-5.
72. Ibid., pp. v, 3. Saraswat Brahmans and Khatris had a special relationship. The former
served the latter as priests, and would even accept food cooked by Khatris. William
Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Province and Oudh, Volume III
(Calcutta, 1906), pp. 267-8.
73. Shyam Sundar Das, Meri Atmakahani [The Story of My Life] (Prayag, 1957), pp. 1-
19, 43-4, 131-9, 183-8, 209, 253; Shri Devi Narayan Vakil, Interview, 16 March
1972, Banaras.
74. Arddhsatabdi-Itihas, pp. v, 3; Das, Meri Atmakahani, p. 11.
75 Arddhsatabdi-Itihas, pp. 5-6, chart facing p. 252; Das, Meri Atmakahani, pp. 21-2, 27,
and Chapters 2, 3, and 6 passim; Ram Chandra Shukla, Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas
(Kasi, 1968), p. 458; R. A. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey of Hindi Literature (Delhi,
1966), p. 162; NPS 1st Ann Rpt, p. 5; NPS 11th Ann Rpt, Membership List, Nos. 227,
313; Bharat Jivan (Banaras), 14 August 1893, p. 7; Shri Ray Krishna Das,
Interviews, 6, 8, and 25 April 1972, Banaras.
76. Since the caste background of 11 of the 84 members could not be determined, these
figures may well be even higher. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, pp. 251-9,
for a more detailed analysis.
77. Ray Krishna Das, Interviews, 8 and 12 April 1972, Banaras.
78. Das, Atmakahani, p. 25. Translation mine.
79. See, for example, the membership lists in NPS 5th Ann Rpt and NPS 6th Ann Rpt.
80. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, pp. 262-8, 445-50. The Sabha's numbers
did not reach the 1914 high-water mark until its 50th anniversary in 1943.
81. For a more detailed discussion of the Sabha's income and expenditures, see King,
The Nagari Pracharini Sabha,.pp. 273-82, 452-4, 459-61.
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 169

82. All figures and percentages have been calculated from Kasi-Nagaripracarini Sabha
ka Vinit Nivedan (Kasi, 1923), pp. 15, 16, 19-23. See also King, The Nagari
Pracharini Sabha, pp. 456-7.
83. So politically 'safe' was the Sabha considered by the provincial government, that
according to an official of the organization, it was allowed to keep officially
proscribed books in its library. Shri Shambhu Nath Bajpeyi, Interview. 3 April 1972,
Banaras.
84. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Chapters XV and XVIII for a more
detailed account of these activities of the Sabha.
85. For a more extended discussion of this subject, see King, The Nagari Pracharini
Sabha, Chapter 16, 'The Language Attitudes of the Sabha', pp. 306-21.
86. NPS 4th Annual Report, 10-12.
87. Das, Meri Atmakahani, 251-2. Translation mine.
88. NPS 1st Annual Report, 35-6, 40-1.
89. UP Educ Progs, May 1903, 31-2.
90. Das, Meri Atmakahani, p. 26; Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, pp. 118-19; NPS 2nd Ann Rpt, p.
5; Radha Kishen [Krishna] Das, 'An Abstract Report on the Nagari Pracharini Sabha'
([Banaras], 1900), India Office Library MSS. Eur. D. 641, p. 4.
91. NWP&OSVN, 1896, pp. 203-4, 369. Sir Antony took office on 6 November 1895
and served as Lieutenant-Governor until 14 November 1901.
92. Das, Meri Atamakahdni, p. 30; NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October, 1900, pp. 101-
3.
93. Das, Meri Atmakahani, pp. 30, 39. Hindi supporters received encouragement at this
time from Justice Knox of Allahabad, and behind-the-scenes aid from Dr George
Grierson, author of the Linguistic Survey of India.
94. Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, pp. 119-20; Nagaripracarini Sabha Kasi ke Vigat 60 Varso ka
Sinhavalokan (Banaras, [1953?]), p. 93.
95. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P. and
Oudh (Allahabad, 1897).
96. Akkad, Malaviyaji, p. 7, Appendix pp. 1-2; Lutt, Hindu Nationalisms, 148;
Padmakanta Malaviya, editor, Malaviyaji: Jivan Jhalakiya (Delhi, [1962]), passim;
Nand Lal Singh, editor Mahamana Malaviyaji birth Centenary Commemoration
Volume 25th December 1961 (Varanasi, [1961]), pp. 197-8; Sachchidananda
Bhattacharya, A Dictionary of Indian History (New York, 1967), p. 575.
97. NPS 11th Ann Rpt, Membership List; NPS 21st Ann Rpt, Membership List; Das,
Meri Atmakahani, p. 40.
98. See Note 13.
99. See Malaviya, Court Character, passim. See also King, The Nagari Pracharini
Sabha, pp. 363-9 for a more extensive, analysis.
100. As an example of these other social uses, in the mid-1870s a series of reports,
discontinued after a few years, appeared in the annual Post Office report for the.
NWP&O. The 1875-76 report showed that the number of Hindi letters was more
than 80% of the number of Urdu letters. NWP Gen Dept Progs, August 1876, pp.
27-35. Also see Table 5, Chapter II.
101. See Chapter I and the Glossary for an explanation of these terms.
170 One Language, Two Scripts

102. NPS 1st Ann Rpt, pp. 1-3. See also Kiing, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Chapter
XIV, especially pp. 316-20, and Chapter XV, especially pp. 328-37.
103. NWP&OSVN, 1899, p. 80.
104. See King, The Nagari Pracharini Sabha, pp. 377-83, 399-407, for a more detailed
discussion of this point.
105. Das, Meri Atmakahani, pp. 25, 41-2; Charles H. Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and
Hindu Social Reform (Princeton, 1964), pp. 281-3; NWP&O SVN, 1899, p. 39;
Arddbsatabdi-Itihas, pp. 129-30; NPS 5th Ann Rpt, p. 18; NPS 6th Ann Rpt, p. 17.
106. Ibid.
107. Documents outlining the whole process are contained in the NWP&O Gen Admin
Progs for October 1900.
108. Ibid., pp. 93-120.
109. Ibid., p. 105.
110. Ibid., emphasis mine.
111. Written comments of C. J. Lyall on a Minute Paper, subject Home Department
Judicial Proceedings for June, 1900, Judicial and Public Papers 1900, 555 (21-71),
India Office Library; C.J. Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language (Edinburgh,
1880). Emphasis not mine.
112. NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, p. 117. Emphasis mine.
113. Ibid., October 1900, p. 102.
114. Ibid., October 1900, pp. 93, 94. The two members of the Board of Revenue present
at the session which drafted this 16 August 1899 reply were J. J. D. Latouche, later
Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces, and D. T. Roberts, who had served as
a Revenue Settlement Officer in the eastern district of Ballia. See D. T. Roberts,
Report on the Revision of Records of Part of Ballia District. 1812-1885 A. D.
(Allahabad, 1886).
115. Ibid., October, 1900, p. 102.
116. See the section of Chapter III entitled 'The Kaithi Script'.
117. NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, p. 95.
118. See the section of Chapter III entitled 'The Nagari Script in the Saugor and
Nerbudda Territories'.
119. NWP&OSVN, 1898, p.266; Ibid., 1899, pp. 265,671,698; Ibid., 1900, pp.35, 47-8,
113, 168. The Urdu Defence Association authored an extensive reply to Malaviya's
Court Character and Primary Education in the N. -W. P. and Oudh entitled A
Defence of the Urdu Language and Character (Allahabad, 1900) which appeared
not long after the April 1900 resolution of the Government of the NWP&O. The
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Educational Conference was founded by Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan in 1886 to further educational development among Muslims. See
Shan Muhammad, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan: A Political Biography (Meerut, 1969),
pp. 83-4.
120. Hamid Ali Khan, The Vernacular Controversy: An Account and Criticism of the
Equalisation of Nagri and Urdu as the Character for the Court of the Northwestern
Provinces and Oudh, under the Resolution No. 585 IH-430-68 of Sir A. P.
MacDonnell, the Lieutenant-Governor, N. -W. P., and Chief Commissioner, Oudh,
Dated 18th April 1900 (N.P., [1900]), p. 12.
 The Hindi-Nagari Movement 171

121. Ibid., p. 52.

122. Ibid., pp. 86-92, 101-5. 116-7; NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, pp. 117-
18. In regard to Muslim prospects for the public service, a correction to the third
rule of the resolution, allowing one year for aspirants to government service to
qualify in both Hindi and Urdu, did not appear until 26 June 1900, more than six
weeks after the Aligarh meeting.
123. Khan, Vernacular Controversy, p. 99.
124. NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, 105.
125. The Report of the Nagari-Pracharini Sabha, Benares, from 1893-1902 (Banaras,
1902), p. 14.
126. NWP&O Gen Admin Progs, October 1900, pp. 111,119,122-4. See also King, The
Nagan Pracharmi Sabha, pp. 409-12 for a more thorough discussion of this
investigation. For contemporary criticism of the investigation, see Khan,
Vernacular Controversy, pp. 15-16.
127. Khan, Vernacular Controversy, p. 101; Bhara/Jivan (Banaras), 6 and 27 August
and 3 September 1900; NWP&O SVN, 1900, pp. 348, 435. 466, 544; Sayyed
Hashmi Faridabadi, Panja Sala Tarikh-e-Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Karachi, 1953),
p. 11; Rafiq A. Zakaria, 'Foreword', Glimpses of Urdu Literature, N. S. Gorekar
(Bombay, 1961), p. xxxiii.
128. NWP&O SVN 1900, pp. 434-5.
129. Bharat Jivan (Banaras), 3 September 1900; Faridabadi, Panja Sala Tarikh, pp. 13-
20.
130. Zakaria, 'Foreword', p. xxxiii; NWP&O SVN 1900, pp. 348, 466, 544; Bharat Jivan,
6 and 27 August 1900.
131. Bharat Jivan, 26 November 1900; NWP&O SVN, 1901, pp. 124, 143; Ibid., 1902,
108-9; Zakaria, 'Foreword', pp. xxxiii-xxxiv; Mohammad Noman, Muslim India
(Rise and Growth of the All India Muslim League), (Allahabad, 1942), pp. 61-2.
132. NWP&O SVN 1900, p. 326.
133. Ibid., p. 361, citing the July 1900 issue of Al Bashir.
134. Ibid., pp. 239, 294-5; Zakaria, 'Foreword', xxviii-xxix; Khan, Vernacular
Controversy, pp. 20-1, 42, 52, 64-5, 79, 105, 117, 123.
135. Khan, Vernacular Controversy, p. 64, quoting from the June 1900 issue.
136. M. Rahmat-Ullah, LL.B., A Defence of the Urdu Language and Character. (Being a
reply to the pamphlet called 'Court Character and Primary Education in N. -W. P
and Oudh'), (Allahabad, 1900), p. 12.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid., p. 62.
139. This line of argument, if applied to the Nagari script, would vitiate Malaviya's
entire approach. No one seems to have noticed this contradiction, however.
140. Under the governments of Sir John Strachey and Sir George Couper (1874-82),
Malaviya had stated, this patronage had reached a high point with the rules of 1877
requiring Persian or Urdu as a second language for aspirants to government service.
See the section of Chapter IV entitled 'The Relationship of Education and
Employment'.
141. Rahmat-Ullah, Defence of Urdu, pp. 71-7.
172 One Language, Two Scripts

142. Ibid., pp. 34, 64, 68.

143. NWP&OSVN 1900, pp. 220, 348.
144. Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, p. 136; NPS 8th Ann Rpt, pp. 14-15.
145. NPS 10th Ann Rpt, pp. 24, 25; NPS 11th Ann Rpt, pp. 11, 29.
146. See the section of this chapter entitled 'The 1900 Decision: The Machinery of
Deliberation'.
147. NPS 11th Ann Rpt, p. 2; Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, pp. 138, 202.
148. A Short History of the Nagari Pracharini Sahha Benares City. (July 1893 to June
1915) (Banaras, [1915?]), pp. 42-3; Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, 219-220. Jyotirindra Das
Gupta in Language Conflict and National Development (Bombay, 1970), p. 113,
states that the first Sammelan was held in Allahabad, certainly an error. As the
annual Karya Vivarans [Reports of Activities] of the Sammelan show, the first
Sammelan was held in Banaras, the second in Allahabad. Kerrin Dittmer in her Die
Indischen Muslims and die Hindi-Urdu Controverse in Den United Provinces
(Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 148-9, notes that the Sabha's claim to have originated the
Sammelan has been disputed by the leaders of the latter.
149. Arddhsatabdi-ltihas, pp. 220-1; Das Gupta, Language Conflict, pp. 112-14, 118-19;
Nand Lal Singh, editor, Mahatma Malaviyaji Birth Centenary Commemoration
Volume 25th December 1961 (Varanasi, [1961?]), unnumbered pages immediately
following table of contents.
150. Faridabadi, Panja Sala Tarikh, pp. 16, 20-1, 28, 32-6, 41, 44-4, 48-50, 52-3.
151. Ibid.
152. Ibid. Das, Meri Atmakahdni, pp. 183-8, 209, 253.
 CHAPTER VI

Conclusion

Urdu: Hey you old witch! In spite of having died, you're still alive?
Hindi: Daughter! Why have you tried to kill me for so long? What
harm have I ever done to you?1

Introduction
The words above come from Radha Krishna Das, official of the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha of Banaras, relative of Bharatendu Harishchandra,
and an ardent supporter of Hindi. They appear in the November 1902
issue of Saraswati, one of the leading literary journals of the Hindi
world, as an accompaniment to a striking picture. Urdu, personified as
a Muslim courtesan, stands on the left, right hand resting on her hip,
left hand stretched out towards her rival, while Hindi, personified as a
Hindu wife, sits demurely on the right, left hand placed on her thigh,
right hand supporting her chin. The postures and the words suggest an
arrogant and provocative Urdu taunting a long-suffering and patient
Hindi. They also hint at the intensity of the clash between the partisans
of the two branches of Khari Boli in the UP: an intensity displayed in
the exaggerated reactions to the 1900 Resolution, in the agitation which
vitiated the language statistics for the 1901 census, and in many other
ways; an intensity echoed less forcefully in the adjoining provinces of
Bihar, the Punjab and the Central Provinces, and hardly at all in other
areas. This intensity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
UP increasingly infected the Hindi movement on the national level,
evidenced not only in the bitterness of the Hindi-Urdu struggle, but
also in the resentment crystallized in the expression 'Hindi
imperialism'2 and widely felt in such diverse linguistic areas as Tamil
Nadu and West Bengal. The divisiveness engendered and encouraged
by the extremists on both sides in this process of linguistic
differentiation formed part and parcel of the process of multi-symbol
congruence. As Hindi became more and more closely identified with
Hindu, and Urdu with Muslim, linguistic antagonism both reflected and
affected religious antagonism in a vicious spiral of separatism which
eventually led to the partition of British India into two countries and of
Khari Boli into two distinct forms.3
174 One Language, Two Scripts

Let us briefly retrace the steps which brought the situation to this pass,
occasionally asking ourselves along the way what might have made things turn
out differently. This admittedly speculative approach guarantees no certainty,
but can bring us to focus on some key elements with relevance to the
contemporary linguistic state of affairs. For while nineteenth century North
India may seem very far away, many of the same components of linguistic
contention exist today, e.g., generally the same low opinion of vernacular
languages—only this time in comparison with English, the same tendencies to
identify certain languages and scripts with certain social and religious groups,
the same inconsistent and sometimes contradictory government policies adding
to the confusion, the same extremist urges to 'purify' Hindi of foreign words,
the same penchant to talk of the welfare of the masses in terms convenient to
one's own interests, the same proclivity to ignore the language habits of the
masses of people in an attempt to communicate in 'shuddb' Hindi. In short,
while history hardly repeats itself, continuities have long lifespans: people
transmit attitudes; books perpetuate styles, vocabularies, and scripts; languages
in their more basic aspects change slowly. Yesterdays affect todays. The 'Hindi
imperialism' of twentieth century India has descended from the Hindi-Urdu
controversy of nineteenth century UP.
I personally encountered this nineteenth century heritage many years ago as
a student living in Birla Hostel in Banaras Hindu University. Some of my
fellow students introduced me to a young man visiting from Agra who made a
point of informing me that he spoke only shuddb Hindi. A, few moments later
he used the Arabic-derived word tarikh meaning 'date', When I twitted him on
not having used a 'purer' equivalent such as dinank or tithi he could only
splutter angrily.4 For me, this experience has come to epitomize the artificiality
of all attempts to 'purify' languages of words originating from some forbidden
source, no matter how thoroughly these words may already be imbedded in the
language, or no matter how much they might enrich a literary and linguistic
heritage.
I find the closely associated practice of artificially manufacturing unknown
and sometimes enormous words—Dr Raghuvira's infamous
agnirathviramsthan for railroad station or agnirathchalnachalanniyan-
tranpattika for railroad signal, for example—from classical sources to replace
widely-used words equally pernicious, whether carried out by either Hindi or
Urdu extremists. Part of the reasoning behind such practices seems to be the
belief that the vernaculars (Hindi and Urdu)
 Conclusion 175

are imperfect or corrupted versions of the classical languages (Sanskrit, Arabic

and Persian), or at least quite inferior vehicles which require to be enriched
from superior sources. Some students of the classical languages even go so far
as to say that one cannot speak good Hindi without knowing Sanskrit, or good
Urdu without knowing Persian and Arabic. This strikes me as akin to saying
that one cannot speak good English without knowing Greek and Latin, an
attitude formerly prevalent in English-speaking countries but now practically
extinct, and an attitude with little or no evidence to support it.
Far more noxious than these attitudes, however, is the fervent, almost fanatic
identification of language, script, and religion, and the resulting need to 'purify'
or 'cleanse' a language from any foreign and corrupting taint. There is no reason
that good Hindus cannot learn Urdu in the Urdu script or good Muslims Hindi
in the Nagari script. Moreover, Hindi can be written in the Urdu script (with
minor losses from the viewpoint of spelling and pronunciation)5 and Urdu can
be written in the Nagari script (again with minor losses).6 Both forms of Khari
Boli can also be written in the Roman script7 just as English can be written in
either the Nagari or Urdu script.8 Behind this sort of 'vocabulary cleansing' lie
attitudes of intolerance and bigotry which bear a resemblance to those behind
the 'ethnic cleansing' now occurring in the former Yugoslavia. These attitudes
have in common the rejection of cultural and religious differences, while to me
the acceptance of differences is the heart of that tolerance which must
necessarily underlie the modern secular state, the unity in diversity to which
many in India aspire.
As an outsider acquainted with both forms of Khari Boli and appreciative of
the beauties of both, I would plead for an approach which cherishes both the
differences as well as the similarities in the two traditions. We might call the
latter 'Hindi-Urdu', 'Urdu-Hindi', 'Hirdu', 'Urdi', 'Hindustani', or 'Hindi', but
whatever the name, what is shared by Hindi and Urdu has become the true
national link language, the language best known through 'Hindi' films which
are popular all over India and in many places abroad.9
As we have seen, Amrit Rai documents one off-flow from the mainstream
which resulted in a highly Persianized Urdu. I'have attempted to document a
second off-flow which resulted in a highly Sanskritized Hindi. By the
mainstream I mean the national link language, Hindi-Urdu. All three streams—
Hindi-Urdu, Persianized Urdu, and Sanskritized Hindi—have their place, but
the latter two have no business trying to be the national link language. To me,
at least, that
176 One Language, Two Scripts

approach seems most desirable which not only avoids any forced assimilation
to either form of Khari Boli, but also shuns any forced or artificial
differentiation of either form from the other.
I would also plead for the equal treatment of both scripts on the state level—
throughout the Hindi area—for both educational and official purposes on a
permissive basis. No solution which would attempt to eliminate either script, or
to substitute some other script (such as the Roman) could ever do justice to the
linguistic and cultural heritage of Khari Boli. Whether the political will to do so
can be mustered and maintained is quite another question, although the 1989
decision of the government of Uttar Pradesh to recognize Urdu as an additional
official language seems a hopeful sign.

Assimilation and Differentiation

From one angle, we can look at the whole history of the Hindi movement as a
deliberate attempt to increase differentiation (to make Hindi more and more
different from Urdu) and to reduce assimilation (to discourage Hindus from any
attachment to Urdu), while the countervailing Urdu movement strove to
accomplish the opposite. Amrit Rai argues compellingly that extensive
differentiation took place in the first half of the eighteenth century when
Muslim courtiers deliberately introduced extensive vocabulary changes in a
hitherto joint Hindu-Muslim language, Hindi/Hindavi, giving rise to a highly
Per-sianized Urdu."' His picture, however, emphasizes one side of the divide
between Hindi and Urdu, and since he focuses on the pre-nineteenth century
situation he understandably gives much less attention to later developments.
I would argue that subsequently many Hindus, especially Kayasths and
Kashmiri Brahmans, not only accepted but also mastered Khari Boli's new
form, Persianized Urdu, thus partly bridging the divide envisioned by Rai.
They assimilated to a more Islamicized version of Khari Boli without feeling
they had compromised themselves as Hindus. Let us remember the following:
the various authors, Hindu and Muslim, associated with Fort William who
wrote in both Hindi and Urdu, and used words from several different linguistic
sources; the large number of Hindus who studied in indigenous Persian schools
in the 1840s and beyond; the students of Dr Ballantyne in 1847 who saw
nothing to regret in the eventual merging of Hindi with Urdu; the Hindu
students who opted for Urdu in the Anglo-Vernacular and Vernacular Middle
Examinations in the 1880s and 1890s; the sizeable
 Conclusion 177

proportion of Hindus in government service familiar with Urdu; the complaints

in vernacular literature against Urdu-loving Hindus; the severe criticism of
Kayasths and Kashmiri Brahmans in the autobiography of Shyam Sundar Das;
and the most popular Hindi authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century, Devki Nandan Khatri and Prem Chand, the first of whom although
writing in the Nagari script used a language style close to Urdu, and the second
of whom started as an Urdu writer before becoming a Hindi writer.
The other side of the divide came with the beginning of the Hindi movement
in the 1860s when some Hindus began to assert that one could no longer be a
good Hindu and an advocate of Urdu at the same time. This movement made
deliberate changes in Khari Boli which eventually resulted in a highly
Sanskritized Hindi. The split in the common trunk of Hindi and Urdu, Khari
Boli, which began with the growth of one major branch, Persianized Urdu, now
continued with the growth of another major branch, Sanskritized Hindi. The
process of multi-symbol congruence now commenced in earnest and
culminated in slogans such as 'Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan' whose creators saw no
room for non-Hindi speakers and non-Hindus in Hindustan. We might go so far
as to call this process the 'Sanskritization of Urdu' or at least the 'Sanskritization
of Khari Boli'.
Yet throughout the history of the Hindi movement before independ
ence the equation Hindi = Hindu was never true.11 In the first place, the
rural masses of the population, those less mobilized, remained relatively
uninvolved in the struggle between Hindi and Urdu which was a major
concern of the more urban vernacular-educated elite. The bulk of the
population continued to use the regional standards and in many cases
the Kaithi script. Petitions and memorials to government in favour of
Hindi or Nagari received tens of thousands of signatures at best from
among a population of many millions. Moreover, some evidence indic
ates that on the popular level during our period Hindu and Muslim
saints had long been revered by Hindu and Muslim alike. This suggests
the possibility of a religious accommodation or even synthesis hardly
favourable to the creation of opposing congruences of language and
religion.
In the second place, even among educated Hindus, besides those wedded to
Urdu, many preferred Braj Bhasha to Khari Boli as the language of poetry, and
others adopted the Kaithi script rather than the Nagari, especially in Bihar.
Moreover, the tradition of classical Hindustani music was patronized by
educated Hindus and Muslims alike,
178 One Language, Two Scripts

suggesting a cultural synthesis on the elite level paralleling that on the mass
level. In sum, the Hindi movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries represented a vernacular elite with a vested interest in government
service. This elite, only a fraction of educated Hindus, and a tiny fraction of all
Hindus, explicitly rejected the linguistic and religious syntheses possible and
attempted with limited success to impose its linguistic-religious vision on all
Hindus. With the advent of independence, however, the Hindi movement did
make significant gains, though unable to triumph completely, and therefore we
must of necessity look at the roots of differentiation from which it grew.
No one can question that all the elements for the diverging of Hindi and
Urdu, and their blending into opposing Hindu and Muslim systems of multi-
symbol congruence existed at least as early as the beginning of the nineteenth
century. On the linguistic level, we have the apparently unbridgeable
differences between the Nagari and the Urdu scripts, and Gilchrist's vivid
testimony on the tendency of some of his colleagues to deliberately introduce
Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian words into their writings. On the communal level
we have the all-too-frequently described social, cultural, and religious
differences between Hindus and Muslims. In looking back, the process by
which language and religion became identified with each other seems
inevitable.
Of all the potential elements of linguistic differentiation, the most intractable
seems to have been script. One can speak of a grammatical continuum between
Hindi and Urdu: they share much and differ little here. One can also speak of a
lexical continuum: they have a common core and differ as much or as little
beyond this as a particular writer may wish. But no script Continuum exists
between them; no real blending of the Nagari and Urdu scripts can be achieved.
This fact more than any other has led to the no-compromise and either/or
attitudes so characteristic of the entire Hindi-Urdu controversy.
The difference between the two scripts seemed so important to some
partisans that they confused script and language, as Grierson noted, saying that
something written in Nagari had to be Hindi, the language of Hindus, and
something in Persian script Urdu, the language of Muslims.12 Both sides
rejected the possible compromise of the Roman script; both rejected another
possible solution, suggested by Gandhi, of using both scripts together. Those
caught between the extremes, the many Hindus who valued Urdu (and the few
Muslims who valued Hindi) found themselves on the defensive.
Earlier we noted the apparent contradictions in the writing style and
 Conclusion 179

language pronouncements of Raja Shiva Prasad. Among his writings

one can find not only statements opposing the forcible introduction of
Sanskrit words and but also statements opposing the influence of Urdu
and Persian. Among his publications one can also find both Persianized
Urdu and Sanskritized Hindi, both the Urdu script and the Nagari
script. Had Shiva Prasad lived at the time of Fort William College, the
'contradictions' in his writing style would have posed no problem. We
may consider the possibility that his contradictory behaviour
represented his response to an equally contradictory situation.
The Hindi movement forgave Shiva Prasad for his pro-Urdu
tendencies because he also worked hard to promote the Nagari script.
Other Hindus who valued Urdu, however, came in for harsher criticism.
One common assumption among Hindi advocates seemed to be that
such Hindus clung to Urdu for economic motives, i.e., that their
knowledge of the Urdu script and language gave them an advantage in
the competition for government service which they had no intention of
relinquishing, however much their Hindu consciences may have
pinched them for their linguistic apostasy. Such an assumption clearly
appears in the verses of Sohan Prasad of Gorakhpur quoted earlier
which attempt to explain the motives of Urdu-loving Hindus:
He thinks in his heart of hearts: now nothing but lies from me, For if I
speak against Urdu, out the window my service will be. If Hindi enters
my office, through begging my living I'll earn, For we know nothing of
Hindi—at home it's Urdu we learn." This conventional explanation,
however, overlooks the possibility that Kayasths and other Urdu-
knowing Hindus represented the continuity of an earlier tradition,
epitomized by the writers of Fort William College and the students of
Banaras Sanskrit College under Ballantyne, when one's religious
background had no necessary relationship to the language one used in
writing or speaking, and when a different cultural tradition could be
cherished for its own sake without fear of accusations by fellow Hindus
or Muslims.
All this suggests that a major reason for the Hindi movement was the
existence of Urdu. In Brass's terms, the existence of another different or
potentially different group, especially if this other group is perceived to
be benefiting more from social change, stimulates the development of
group consciousness. The Urdu vernacular elite mobilized earlier than
the Hindi elite, and was seen to be prospering beyond its deserts.
Eventually the Hindi elite drew even and surpassed its rival, partly
through the sheer strength of numbers as more and more of the
underlying
180 One Language, Two Scripts

Hindu majority was mobilized into the Hindi movement especially through the
educational system.
This process of increasing mobilization of the Hindu majority, outstripping
the pace of assimilation to Hindu-Muslim synthesis represented by Urdu,
appeared in the statistics of publishing. In the realm of publishing, as we have
seen, due at least in part to large numbers of educational texts indicating large
numbers of Hindus being educated in Hindi, Hindi began to outstrip Urdu
around the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century.14 The
remarkable expansion of Sanskrit-Hindi works is of particular interest,
suggesting perhaps another form of the Sanskritization of Khari Boli through
popularizing religious works and hence further reinforcing the already strong
association between script, vocabulary and religion. In the realm of journalism,
however, Urdu retained a lead well past the time when its rough equality with
Hindi in publishing had disappeared. In short, eventually greater numbers told,
but during the period of British rule this was not allowed to happen. The fact
that Urdu remained dominant in the courts and offices of the UP, and that many
Hindus continued to support Urdu, exacerbated and prolonged the struggle.
One of the most interesting aspects of the long-drawn-out struggle to
differentiate Hindi from Urdu appeared in the regional patterns of education,
publishing and membership in voluntary language organizations. Government
education statistics beginning with those gathered by Fink in 1845 showed
consistent patterns in the regional and social distribution of language learning.
Strikingly similar patterns appeared in publishing statistics and in the
membership statistics of the Nagari Pracharini Sabh'a. All three sources suggest
that the strongholds of Sanskritized Hindi lay in the eastern part of the
province, while those of Urdu lay in Oudh and the west. The education and
membership statistics further indicate the strong association of certain higher
Hindu caste groups with Hindi and others with Urdu, and the virtual exclusion
of lower caste groups from education. Finally, the publishing statistics show
two things: first, that powerful associations between certain languages and
certain cities existed—Arabic, Persian and Urdu with Lucknow, and Hindi and
Sanskrit with Banaras and Allahabad; and second, that by the 1920s Hindi not
only outstripped Urdu, but also began to dominate regions previously
dominated by Urdu. Perhaps we can say that at this point the eventual triumph
of Hindi began in earnest. In any case, the evidence points to a process by
which greater assimilation to Sanskritized Hindi and differentiation from
 Conclusion 181

Urdu began in the eastern part of the province, and eventually spread to the
west.
We would do well to accept this picture only tentatively, however, since
contemporary sources often do not make clear the exact nature of the language
taught or published. For example, the publishing statistics do not tell us on
what basis the language of a book is designated Hindi or Urdu. If, as I suspect,
the usual basis was the script, then the triumph of Hindi may have been a little
less overwhelming. Some contemporary evidence suggests that publications in
the Nagari script could be well towards the Urdu end of the lexical continuum.
Although the courts of the Central Provinces had used the Nagari script for
years, noted one observer in 1900, the language was just as Persianized as it
was in the NWP&O where the Urdu script was used. Furthermore, the most
popular works of literature in 'Hindi' in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century were those of Devki Nandan Khatri, who used a Persianized language
written in the Nagari script. On the other hand, as the wrangles over the proper
language for elementary and secondary school texts in the UP made clear, there
is little doubt that many Hindi works in this category—published in very large
numbers—used a highly Sanskritized language. In short, the evidence is
somewhat ambiguous. Of one thing we can be certain, however: in the UP and
elsewhere in north India, the Nagari script overwhelmed the Urdu script in the
realm of publishing early in the twentieth century.
At this point it seems useful to ask ourselves why the Nagari Pra-charini
Sabha (and other organizations and individuals promoting Hindi) did not turn
to already existing popular scripts and language styles to promote the cause of
Hindi. Why did the Sabha reject the Kaithi script, especially when Nagari
writers for the courts proved so difficult to find while Kaithi writers were
plentiful?" Why did it ignore the works of Devki Nandan Khatri and other
popular authors, even when written in the Nagari script?16 The answer, I think,
hinted at earlier, lies in the process of Sanskritization, a process which can be
looked at in two different ways.
First, as suggested above, the process of Sanskritization served to
differentiate Hindi from Urdu. Here the importance of shuddhta or purity
implied by Sanskritization is vis-a-vis Urdu. Hindi must become shuddh
through the elimination of Persian and Arabic words and their replacement with
Sanskrit words, and in doing so Hindi becomes different from Urdu. Nagari is
more shuddh than Kaithi because it has no associations with Hindustani or
Urdu as Kaithi does. (There seems
182 One Language, Two Scripts

to exist a similar tendency among Urdu speakers as implied by the

expression saf Urdiu.) This way of looking at the process requires the
existence of Urdu as a foil, a counter-example, something from which
to differentiate Hindi.
But there is a second and rather different way of looking at the
process of Sanskritization. From this angle, Sanskritization is an
ancient process which requires no foil or counter-example, which is not
necessarily anti-Urdu or anti-Muslim, but rather recognizes the
imperfection of other languages vis-a-vis Sanskrit itself, a model whose
very name means 'perfected'. In ancient Sanskrit plays the moral and
social status of various characters is partly indicated by the sort of
language they speak; lower classes speak Prakrit or other more
vernacular forms, while the upper classes, the more proper or noble
characters, speak Sanskrit. From this angle there is a hierarchy of
languages much like the social hierarchy. Just as one lifts one's social
status by imitating the higher castes, particularly Brahmans (who know
Sanskrit best), so does one lift the status of a language by imitating the
Brahman of languages, Sanskrit.
Bengali, which had a powerful influence on Hindi during our period,
had become highly Sanskritized. Yet Bengali had no need for a
counterexample in the form of a Persianized Bengali written in the
Persian script, used in the provincial courts and offices, and cherished
by a large class of Hindus. And while Bengalis played an important and
neglected role in promoting Hindi in the Nagari script for both
economic reasons (since the official adoption of Sanskritized Hindi in
the Nagari script would have given Bengalis seeking employment
outside their home province an advantage) and cultural reasons
(Sanskritization promoted a common Hindu heritage) during our
period, this was mostly carried on outside Bengal. Within Bengal the
Sanskritization of Bengali proceeded without the anti-Muslim attitudes
which accompanied the Sanskritization of Hindi in the UP. Similarly,
both Marathi and Gujarati became Sanskritized without any campaign
of 'purification' from Arabic or Persian words. In short, the
Sanskritization of Hindi would have occurred with or without Urdu; the
existence of Urdu simply intensified and lent communal overtones to a
process that would have occurred anyway. We can look on the
Sanskritization of Hindi as the forging of an acceptable symbol for the
process of multi-symbol congruence, or we can see it as an ancient and
inevitable tendency among almost all Indian languages and having no
necessary connection with communal politics.
 Conclusion 183

Virtue and Vice: The Manipulation of Symbols

The process of Sanskritization was one way in which Hindi supporters
attached value to their linguistic symbol. In a similar way, Urdu
supporters attached value to their symbol through the parallel processes
of Persianization and Arabicization. As suggested above, these
processes could occur without a potential rival on the horizon. Another
major method of increasing the value of one's chosen symbol, however,
required a visible opponent. This method, which occurred over and
over again throughout the course of the controversy, involved affixing
labels of virtue or vice to one or the other of the two rivals. Tables 14
and 15 below summarize the most frequently-occurring of these labels,
many of which we have already encountered.
One of the most striking things implicit in these tables is the close
relationship between technical and 'moral' aspects, i.e., technical
defects lead to moral or aesthetic failings. From the Hindi viewpoint,
because the Urdu script was unscientific, illegible, hard to learn, and
capable of rendering several readings for one word, therefore it easily
led to fraud and corruption. Because Urdu had a foreign script and a
foreign and profane vocabulary therefore it was impure. And because
the Nagari script was scientific, legible, easy to learn, and only gave
one meaning for one word, therefore it encouraged honesty and
truthfulness. And because Nagari was indigenous and had an
indigenous and sacred vocabulary, therefore it was pure. Similar,
though not identical, statements could be made from the Urdu
viewpoint.
Another obvious characteristic is the refusal to admit any
weaknesses in one's chosen, symbol. One cannot have a blemished
symbol—it must be perfect or at least presented as perfect. Weaknesses
are only implicitly admitted: thus the Urdu Defence Association
claimed that the Urdu script was actually quite easy to learn and that
forgery was possible in any script; the NPS more than once
demonstrated to British officials the speed with which Nagari could be
written, and boasted of the antiquity and volume of Hindi literature.
The flavour of the Hindi-Urdu controversy and of the vernacular
literature through which it found partial expression remindsone of
medieval European morality plays in which everybody knows who is
good and who is bad, and no real debate takes place. We have only
foregone conclusions instead of the to-and-fro of arguments, duologues
instead of dialogues, positions taken and then 'facts' marshalled to suit
them instead of reasoned discourse, and yes/no or right/wrong thinking
184 One Language, Two Scripts

TABLE 14
Labels of Virtue and Vice for Hindi and Urdu:
Hindi Viewpoint*

Virtue Vice

Indigenous Foreign
Pure Impure
Legible Illegible
Fraud difficult Fraud easy
Easy to learn Hard to learn
Golden past Decadent present
One word = one meaning One word = many meanings
Many speakers Few speakers
Scientific alphabet Unscientific

* Both language and script are included in the list above.

TABLE 15
Labels of Virtue and Vice for Urdu and Hindi:
Urdu Viewpoint*

Virtue Vice

Refined Crude
Pure Impure
Legible Illegible
Fraud difficult Fraud easy
Much literature Little literature
Quick to write Slow to write
Living language Dead language
Best people use Yokels use

* Both language and script are included in the list above.

instead of relative thinking; in short, all the earmarks of polemical

literature.
In all of these processes voluntary organizations played an important
role. When we examine the histories of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha
and the Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu we discover that each organization
made major efforts to attach value to its respective symbol. Each
sought out old manuscripts to publish, each founded scholarly journals,
each produced standard dictionaries, each created scientific
terminologies,
 Conclusion 185

and the most important leaders of each had strikingly similar careers in
education and scholarship. This uncanny series of parallels between the
activities of the two organizations suggests an underlying logic of
affixing value to and standardizing a symbol. It also suggests that part
of the process of standardization involved an English language model.
In the attitudes of many Indians, just as the vernaculars ranked below
the classical languages in respect of purity and refinement, so they fell
below English in respect of modernity and literary and scientific
development; such attitudes are alive and well in India even today.
The chief role of voluntary organizations such as the NPS, the HSS,
and the ATU, however, was to differentiate their respective symbols
from those of their rival. The gradual institutionalizing of this process
was an important achievement for the Hindi movement and marked the
beginning of a partial transition from 'community' to 'nation' in terms of
our theory. The efforts of the NPS embodied what was considered
important by those Hindus trying to impress their view of Hindi on
other Hindus, and many of the Sabha's activities indicated an implicitly
exclusionist view towards Muslim culture. The Sabha and other
organizations like it were bent on increasing differentiation. Any
assimilation meant assimilation of Muslims to the Hindi tradition, and
any suggestion of assimilation to the Urdu tradition was vigorously
rejected.

The Ambiguous Role of Government

As Paul Brass points out, both political organizations and government
policy often play decisive roles in shaping inter-group relations and
group consciousness. As we have seen, British language policy in the
UP and elsewhere showed contradictions, inconsistencies and
confusion, which more often than not encouraged the differentiation
between Hindi and Urdu. For some, especially Indian, writers it seems
de rigueur to explain any British policy that recognized differences as
an instance of 'divide and rule'. While such explanations have some
merit, they overlook the sheer muddleheadedness of a great deal of
policy. Are we to explain the confusion of language and script evident
in the pronouncements of the Government of India concerning the
resolution of 1900 as an example of a sinister conspiracy? Are we to
attribute MacDonnell's rapidly changing views of the currency of
spoken Hindi to deep-laid scheming? Must we consider the efforts of
Shore in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories for the Nagari script, and
the labours of Nesfield in Oudh for the Kaithi script part of a plot to pit
Indians against each other? Or can we rather consider all of these as
examples
186 One Language, Two Scripts

of confused thinking, uncoordinated local initiative and conflicting perceptions,

all in response to a vast, complex and often ill-known situation?
In any case, we have seen clear evidence of a fundamental contradiction in
British language policy in the UP, namely, the encouragement of Hindi in
education along with the preferment of Urdu in administration. To put matters
differently, language policy accomplished the following: helped to create a
flood of Hindi textbooks in the Nagari script and a class of people with a vested
interest in Sanskritizing them; exposed tens of thousands of students to a Hindi-
medium education using these textbooks; and then denied these students equal
access to the very government positions for which they had gone to school in
the first place. This glaring inconsistency found no parallel outside the UP, and
did much to increase the differentiation between the two forms of Khari Boli.
The resolution of 1900, supposedly rectifying this contradiction, only added to
the intensity of the controversy. The confused thinking of the government
exacerbated the situation; the 'new' rules excited both sides and stirred up
communal feeling, without making any real changes.
The actions of government strike the modern observer (with the benefit of
hindsight) as close to ludicrous. By sponsoring Hindi in Nagari at the
elementary and secondary school levels, the government helped to create the
very differences between Hindi and Urdu that many British officers decried.
The government created, or at least fed, the genie in the bottle and then found
itself surprised when the genie tried to get out. The clearest evidence of the
results of this almost perverse policy appeared in the proceedings of the various
educational bodies attempting to find a common language for school readers.
The previous policies of government had helped to increase the very tendencies
that it now strove to diminish. Previous partiality vitiated later attempts at
impartiality.
One can also exaggerate the power of government. Although the Muslim
reaction to the 1900 resolution suggested that a momentous shift in policy had
occurred, the actual results were paltry and little real change took place in the
language of the courts and offices, especially in the western UP, until
independence. The success of Hindi supporters, brought about by a temporarily
favourable constellation of forces (the Lieutenant-Governorship of
MacDonnell, the influence of Grierson and Knox, the exertions of the NPS, the
efforts of Malaviya, the failure of Muslims to take yet another Hindi campaign
seriously, and the death
 Conclusion 187

of Syed Ahmed Khan in 1898) resulted in a psychologically significant but

otherwise meaningless victory. Even in the Central Provinces and Bihar, where
the Muslim population was either less numerous or less influential than in the
UP, and where the government decreed the exclusive rather than permissive
use of the Nagari script, any significant change took decades.
The competition of educated Hindus and Muslims for government service,
more acute in the UP than anywhere else, brought a passionate intensity into
the struggle between Hindi and Urdu. And it was in just this arena that
government policy, by clearly favouring Urdu, did the most to heighten the
perception of uneven rates of social change by Hindi-educated Hindus and
increase the differentiation of Hindi and Urdu. Whatever the origins of the
usual British preference for Urdu,17 the result was to render vain any efforts to
diminish the ever-increasing differentiation between Hindi and Urdu.
Perhaps the most visible symbol of the failure of British language policy in
the UP was the appearance in 1927 of the Hindustani Academy of Allahabad,
sponsored by the provincial government. If the Sabha embodied the equation
Hindi = Hindu, and the Anjuman the equation Urdu = Muslim, then this new
organization represented the more ambiguous equation Hindi + Urdu = Hindu
+ Muslim. Like another British attempt to reduce differentiation—the proposed
common language for elementary and secondary school texts—this too had
little effect on the widening gulf between Hindi and Urdu.

What If?: Concluding Speculations

As noted above, in other areas of North India—present-day Maharashtra,
Gujarat and Bengal—no Persianized form of the vernacular written in the
Persian script took root. That is, no parallels to Urdu existed in Marathi-,
Gujarati- or Bengali-speaking areas. Here, unlike the UP, language did not
have the same importance as part of the process of muki-symbol congruence in
the formation of Hindu and Muslim nationalism. Hence we find little or no
evidence of movements to 'purify' Marathi, Gujarati, or Bengali of Persian and
Arabic words. We may speculate that had Persianized Khari Boli written 'in a
modified Persian script never come into existence, Sanskritized Hindi written
in the Nagari script would not have been at the heart of the process of multi-
symbol congruence in forming Hindu nationalism in much of North India.
Many Persian and Arabic words would have been added to Khari Boli Hindi, as
in the case of Bengali, Gujarati and
188 One Language, Two Scripts

Marathi Language and religion, however, would not have formed a

mutually reinforcing vicious circle, sharply reinforced by separate
scripts with all their social and religious connotations. This does not
mean that no Hindu or Muslim nationalisms would have arisen, but
rather that their forms would have been much different.
Elsewhere in India, the replacement of Persian meant a real change: a
return to regional vernaculars and the introduction of English, although
there was some initial resistance in Bengal. In much of north India,
however, the forces of continuity proved overwhelming for most of the
nineteenth century, especially in UP where Urdu in Urdu script was
hardly different from Persian in Persian script. Although there were one
or two exceptions—Kumaun district in UP, where practically no
Muslims lived, and for a while the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories in
central India—on the whole Urdu had half a century to become
established and thereby make exceptionally difficult any attempt to oust
it.
Let us also ask ourselves how things might have turned out if far
fewer Muslims had lived in the UP. Since British language policy
seemed to bear a direct relation to the numbers and the influence of the
Muslim population, the Hindi movement in the UP might have
succeeded much more quickly—as in the cases of Bihar and the Central
Provinces—and the uncompromising attitudes engendered in the long-
drawn-out struggle might never have appeared. The relationship of
Hindi to the rest of India might have turned out quite differently, and
cries of 'Hindi imperialism' might never have been heard.
Let us further speculate what might have happened if the government
of the UP had encouraged only Urdu at the elementary and secondary
levels, or if it had supported the Kaithi script instead of the Nagari.
Certainly the mobilization and differentiation of the Hindi elite would
have taken a very different form. Perhaps the Kaithi would have
become a script of equal importance to the Urdu. Perhaps the
mobilization brought about through the educational system would have
been greatly delayed. Or perhaps, judging by the attitudes of
Ballantyne's students in the 1840s towards the prospect of 'Hindi' being
absorbed into Urdu, the Hindi movement might never have come about,
and Khari Boli Hindi might have become just another literary dialect.
Let us speculate still further on what the consequences might have
been had the Hindi movement chosen Braj Bhasha instead of Khari
Boli. Since Braj was much less widespread than Khari Boli in its Urdu
form, the movement might have been confined to a much smaller area.
 Conclusion 189

Braj was, after all, more refined than Khari Boli, closer to Sanskrit in
poetic forms. If the Hindi movement had been interested only in
shuddta it should have chosen Braj as a much more suitable candidate
than Khari Boli. But the Hindi movement chose instead to 'recapture'
Khari Boli from Urdu, as it were; to make a more widespread candidate
purer rather than make a purer candidate more widespread.
In essence, the mainstream Hindi movement in the UP and
eventually in India could never accommodate a rival. Its whole
existence was based on the superiority of Hindi and its inseparable
connection with Hinduism, and on the idea that Hindi was irrevocably
different from Urdu. No spirit of compromise, of adjustment, of partial
assimilation to the benefit of both Hindi and Urdu came to the fore.
Rather, the movement was based on a spirit of win or lose, of no
compromise, of the complete differentiation of Hindi from Urdu, or of
the complete assimilation of Urdu to Hindi. Urdu had no right to exist
in India, and was a usurper of Hindi's rightful place, just as Muslims
had no right to exist in India, and were usurpers of Hindus' rightful
place. A common script might have made a big difference; such highly
dissimilar scripts as the Urdu and the Nagari stacked the cards towards
extreme differentiation. Nevertheless, some sort of synthesis was not
impossible: this had already been achieved in the common basis of
Hindi and Urdu, and the two scripts did not pose an impossible
obstacle, as Gandhiji's two-script solution, or the UP government-
sponsored Hindustani Academy indicated. Such voices of moderation
or compromise were drowned out, however, and could accomplish little
in the face of far more powerful rivals.
What occurred reminds me a good deal of what the American an
thropologist Gregory Bateson called schismogenesis, i.e., a pattern of
events in which two or more variables mutually amplify their
differences
in a vicious spiral of increasing intensity until the whole situation ex
plodes, collapses, or falls apart. The very tendency to think in
opposites,
i.e., Hindi vs. Urdu, Hindu vs. Muslim, Nagari vs. Urdu, tended to
influence the outcome by simplifying and polarizing a complex situa
tion. Those who continually strove for differentiation—linguistic, reli
gious and political—helped to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The
very
differences they magnified justified the drastic solution of partition
which they proposed, and the very proposal of this solution helped to
magnify the differences.
190 One Language, Two Scripts

In conclusion, let me turn to the theme of Hindi becoming a world

language. Certainly the numbers are there, and certainly the wish is
there: I still remember the excitement among the audience at the First
World Hindi Convention in Nagpur in early 1975 when the Soviet
delegates announced that they supported a resolution for Hindi to
become the seventh official language of the United Nations. In my
opinion, however, the proper attitudes are not widespread enough, and
the heritage of the struggle between Hindi and Urdu is partly
responsible.
If Hindi supporters wish their language to become a world language,
let them imitate the spirit of English, which became a great language
by inclusion rather than exclusion. Let them cultivate an open and
accepting attitude towards borrowing words from other sources,
including Arabic and Persian, and let them allow and encourage this
process—though likely to happen anyway since language change lies
mainly beyond the powers of a few to control. But if Hindi supporters
wish to move in this direction, they must give up the narrow
inheritance of the nineteenth century provincial struggle and its
influence on the subsequent twentieth century national struggle; they
must adopt a broader and more open outlook. Let them abandon
shuddhta and welcome diversity, let them give up parochialism and
welcome enrichment from many sources, indigenous and foreign.
Despite the picture of enormous and unbridgeable differences
between various divisions of her population so many writers delight in
giving us, India has also proved many times over that unity in diversity
can be realized, that assimilation and differentiation can coexist, and
that a real synthesis can take place.

NOTES

1. ShriRadha Krishna Das, 'Hindi-Urdu', Saraswati (Allahadad), III, 11 (November

1902), 359.
2. This phrase, I believe, was first coined by the late S. K. Chatterjee.
3. I do not mean to suggest that only language and religion played important roles in the
partition of British India, but rather to suggest that these had pre-eminent roles and
that they as well as other influences affected each other in such a way as to mutually
amplify rather than reduce, to intensify rather than diminish, the destructive
downward spiral of mutual hatred and contempt among many Indians.
4. In the same vein, one can note the irony of the fact that the Nagari Pracharini Sabha
itself, while trying to establish Nagari writers and to write its own legal
 Conclusion 191

dictionary on a Hindi-Sanskrit basis, still used the Urdu term mubarrir for the court
writers it wanted to recruit.
5. For example, neither the sound nor the symbol of the retroflex nasal can be
represented in the Urdu script.
6. For example, the three different spellings for the sibilant 'S' cannot be represented in
Nagari.
7. For example, R. S. Kaushala, New Roman Urdu Primer, 5th edition, (Ambala: 1942);
P.J. Griffiths, Shahron Ka Sudhar: Hindustan Ke Shahron Ke Sudhar Par Ek Nazar
(Allahabad: 194?); R. S. Kaushala, Azad Hindustan Ke Siirma (Ambala: 1949 [?]).
The two titles in Roman Urdu are cited just as written; the first title uses no
diacriticals, though some diacriticals appear in the main text.
8. Throughout the history of the Hindi movement, supporters of Nagari have often
claimed special virtues for their script. One of the greatest of these virtues, we are
told, is the scientific nature of the Nagari alphabet. Certainly the order of the letters of
the alphabet (though not unique to Nagari or Hindi) justifies this claim: the individual
sounds follow a carefully conceived sequence based on an analysis of articulatory
phonetics already ancient when Europeans first encountered India. But the particular
shapes of the letters display no special virtues, and some of the them—dh and gh, m
and bh—are easily confused on the average Hindi typewriter. Moreover, the necessity
for 'dead' keys to add superscripts, subscripts, etc. on the Hindi typewriter makes
typing Hindi in Nagari a far more cumbersome process than typing Hindi in the
Roman script. To confound the two very different issues of alphabetic order and letter
shape in one vague word—'scientific'—is to think badly. The Roman script—with the
addition of a few diacriticals—proves much better for rapidly typing Hindi, as anyone
who has used both scripts knows very well.
Moreover, though much better than English, the pronunciation of Hindi in the Nagari
script is not totally consistent with spelling. The order of the Urdu alphabet is certainly
less scientific and logical than that of Nagari, and the customary practice of leaving out
most vowels marks makes pronunciation more difficult. It is only fair to point out,
however, that the illogicalities of the alphabetical order of English and of its spelling and
pronunciation outweigh those of either Hindi or Urdu; nevertheless, the smaller number
of letters in the Roman script makes it much more easily adaptable to typing and word-
processing than either the Urdu or Nagari scripts.
9. Film 'Hindi' has become more and more hybridized over the years with the
addition of words and phrases from Marathi, Gujarati, and other languages,
including English.
10. Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi (Delhi,
1984). See especially Chapter 5, 'The Cultural Divide'.
11. On the whole, during our period Muslims were much less interested in any
assimilation to Hindi, than Hindus were to Urdu. This lack of symmetry was
mirrored in the membership of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, which never had more
than a tiny handful of Muslim members, and in statistics gathered by Sir Antony
MacDonnell after the 1900 decision giving equal status to Hindi and Urdu. Yet there
were a few Muslims interested in Hindi and willing to support
192 One Language, Two Scripts

it: in 1940 the Sabha published a book in Urdu entitled Mulk Ki Zabdn aur Fazil
Musalman [The Language of the Country and Learned Muslims} which contained
statements by several Muslim scholars in favour of Hindi.
12. See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Hindi-Urdu Controversy of the 1860s and
1870s'.
13. Sohan Prasad, Hindi aur Urdu Ki Lirai (Gorakhpur: 1886), stanzas 280 and 281.
14. The statistics may suggest more Hindi than was the case because we are not sure
about the nature of the language of the materials written in the Nagari script. Highly
Persianized Khari Boli could be, and was written in the Nagari script, as J. C. Lyall
noted in 1900 of the court language in the Central Provinces. (See the section of
Chapter V entitled 'The Persianization of Urdu.)
15. See the section of Chapter III entitled 'The Kaithi Script', and the sections of Chapter
V entitled 'The 1900 Decision: The Machinery of Deliberation', and 'Epilogue'.
16. See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Banaras'.
17. See the opening part of the section of Chapter III entitled 'An Analysis of Language
Policy' where F. S. Growse explains some of the reasons of the preference of his
countrymen for Urdu.
 Appendix
Sources
The Hindi movement has generated a considerable literature in many
different forms: pamphlets, petitions, government administrative
reports, newspaper articles, census reports, histories of literature,
dictionaries, journal articles, dramas, poems, autobiographies, scholarly
monographs, and organizational histories and reports. This mass of
information, embodied largely in English, Hindi and Urdu, typically
reflects the biases engendered in the long course of the movement, and
dispassionate analyses by contemporary observers are the exception.
To a large extent the language of the source indicates the bias: Hindi
sources usually reflect a pro-Hindi and Urdu sources a pro-Urdu
viewpoint, while English sources contain a whole range of outlooks.
Even supposedly neutral sources, such as census reports, did not escape
the distorting effects of strongly-held attitudes towards language and
script.
Therefore, The Census of India, prima facie one of the most valuable
sources, has limited worth. The history of those sections dealing with
language in the United Provinces, the storm centre of the Hindi
movement, shows clearly how bias and inexact terminology rendered
linguistic data almost useless. The Census of 1881, the first to include a
section on language, made some attempt to estimate speakers of
various dialects on the very rough basis of the administrative divisions
of the province. The enumerators were instructed to use the term
'Hindustani' for the vernacular, however, thus allowing no accurate
estimate of the numbers of speakers of either the regional standards or
Hindi visa-vis Urdu. Moreover, this census did not recognize the
separate existence of Khari Boli as a vernacular dialect, but included it
under Braj Bhasha. The Census of 1891, like its predecessor, used
language figures gathered by enumerators instructed to use the term
'Hindustani'. The term 'Khari Boli' first appears in this census which
made a more exact attempt to estimate the numbers of speakers of
various dialects. No mention of the Hindi-Urdu controversy occurred in
either census, though both clearly recognized Hindi and Urdu as two
separate literary standards.
In contrast, both the Census of 1901 and that of 1911 gave
considerable attention to the Hindi-Urdu controversy, and both
attempted to collect statistics on the numbers of Hindi and Urdu
speakers. Although the two censuses drew on the preliminary results of
Dr George Grierson's
194 One Language, Two Scripts

Linguistic Survey of India for their linguistic analysis of the provincial dialects,
they failed by their own admission to present an accurate picture of the
linguistic situation. The strong biases of the enumerators and of an influential
portion of the public for or against Hindi and Urdu vitiated the language figures
in both years. As a result the Census of 1921 returned to the nineteenth century
policy of lumping speakers of Hindi and Urdu under the single category of
'Hindustani'. The two following censuses continued this policy.
The viewpoint of Hindi supporters appears in a number of sources, both
English and Hindi. One of the most important English sources, Madan Mohan
Malaviya's Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P. and Oudh,
though putting forth a fundamentally flawed argument, has value not only for
insights into the thinking of Hindi partisans, but also for extensive quotations
from earlier and contemporary sources and for extensive statistics.1 Another
document by a champion of Hindi, Raja Shiva Prasad's Memorandum: Court
Characters, in the Upper Provinces of India, has particular importance as one
of the very first statements explicitly attacking Urdu and defending Hindi as
respective symbols of Muslim and Hindu culture.2 One of the most invaluable
Hindi sources, in addition to the official reports and publications of the Nagari
Pracharini Sabha of Banaras, was Meri Atmakahani, the autobiography of one
of the Sabha's three founders, Shyam Sundar Das.3 No other source gives such
an intimate picture of the activities of the most important Hindi organization of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of the motivations and
thoughts of a leading advocate of Hindi and the Nagari script.
An especially valuable English source, the Selections from the Vernacular
Newspapers beginning in 1868 and continuing until 1937, samples a wide
range of Indian opinion from both Hindi and Urdu advocates, and furnishes
many useful clues about language attitudes and policies not available
elsewhere. The coverage of this source, unfortunately, displays considerable
inconsistency due to successive officials having different principles of
selection. Another indispensable English source, the series of annual education
reports for the North-Western Provinces beginning in 1843 and continuing
right up to independence, provides not only detailed information on British
language and educational policy and Indian reactions, but also essential data on
the social backgrounds and language preferences of students in both
government and indigenous schools.
The most important English work presenting the viewpoint of Urdu
 Appendix 195

partisans was A Defence of the Urdu Language and Character,

published under the auspices of the Urdu Defence Association of
Allahabad.4 This work, an extended and well-written reply to
Malaviya's Court Character, gives a thorough account of the arguments
against Hindi and Nagari and puts the best face possible on any
shortcomings of Urdu and the Urdu script. The contemptuous attitude
of Urdu supporters towards their opponents emerges all too clearly. An
Urdu source, Panja Sala Tarikh-e-Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu, has
particular usefulness for describing the early years of the Anjuman
Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Society for the Progress of Urdu), which became
India's most important Urdu organization.5 The author's spleen against
Sir Antony MacDonnell, who promulgated the orders recognizing
Hindi and Nagari in 1900, however, mars his account of events.
One of the dangers lying in wait for the unwary researcher in most of
the sources, including those discussed above, comes from the
considerable confusion concerning the meaning of several crucial
terms, especially 'Hindi' and 'Hindustani'. 'Hindi' has at least four
distinct meanings, some of which we have already encountered. First,
writers have used the term for several centuries to denote all the spoken
dialects of the Hindi regional area, i.e., Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, Bhojpuri,
Khari Boli, and other regional standards as well as village dialects.
'Hindi in this sense appears frequently in general discussion of India's
major languages. Second, 'Hindi' can refer to 'Hindi-heritage literature',
i.e., the literary traditions of regional standards such as Braj Bhasha and
Avadhi. This usage occurs frequently in histories of Hindi literature and
the polemical writings of Hindi publicists. These same writings often
use the term in a third sense to mean 'high Hindi', i.e., highly
Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi. A fourth usage, the vaguest of the lot,
implies simply 'that which is not Urdu'. This usage appears in many
sources, especially in the vernacular press during the Hindi-Urdu
controversy of the nineteenth century. 'Hindustani' has two distinct
meanings: this term can refer either to Urdu or to a style of Khari Boli
which uses the Nagari or the Urdu script and avoids excess use of
Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian words. British writers often use the first
sense, while some Indian writers, notably Mahatma Gandhi, use the
second.
The confusion and ambiguity apparent in much of the literature
stems not only from the distortions of partisanship but also from the
inaccurate observations of amateur linguists. As the 1901 Census
stated, Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India had conclusively shown
'the unscientific nature of the old classifications of the languages and
dialects of
196 One Language, Two Scripts

the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh [the United Provinces] both according
to native ideas and also those of European students who had not the
extensive materials now available'.6 Modern linguistics did not appear
until the early nineteenth century, and trained linguists did not exist in
significant numbers until the twentieth. To unravel the tangled skein of
evidence, then, becomes a difficult though not impossible task,
requiring careful usage of terms and a constant awareness of the bias of
the sources.

NOTES

1. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in N. -W. P. and
Oudh (Allahabad, 1897). See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Hindi-Nagari
Campaign of 1895-1900' for an extended discussion of this work.
2. Shiva Prasad, Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper Provinces of India
(Banaras, 1868), located in the library of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Banaras. See
the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Hindi-Urdu Controversy of the 1860s and
1870s' for an analysis of this work.
3. Shyam Sundar Das, Meri Atmakahani (Prayag, 1957).
4. M. Rahmat-Ullah, A Defence of the Urdu Language and Character. (Being a reply to
the pamphlet called 'Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P. and Oudh')
(Allahabad, 1900). See the section of Chapter V entitled 'The Aftermath of the 1900
Decision' for a discussion of this work.
5. Sayyed Hashmi Faridabadi, Panfa Sala Tarikh-e-Anfuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Karachi,
1953).
6. Census of India, 1901, Volume XVI, Part I, pp. 174-5.
 Glossary
Geographical, Administrative, and Linguistic Terms
Anjuman-e-Taraqqt-e-Urdu: Society tor the Progress of Urdu. Founded
in 1903 as an offshoot of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental
Educational Conference. Under the leadership of Maulvi Abdul Haq,
the Anjuman became India's and later Pakistan's chief organization for
the promotion of Urdu.
Arabic script: A cursive script used for writing most Islamic languages,
in which vowels are often not represented and consonants assume
different shapes depending on their position in the word. The Persian
and Urdu scripts include all the Arabic letters and some additional
letters not in the Arabic script. Additionally, the distinctions between
certain sounds represented by Arabic letters have been lost in Persian
and Urdu.
Avadhi: One of the regional standards of Uttar Pradesh, related to but
not identical with Khari Boli Hindi. Spoken mainly in the area of Uttar
Pradesh formerly known as Oudh. An important literary language in
earlier times; used by the famous medieval poet Tulsidas for the
Ramcharitmanas, a recasting of the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana.
Bhojpuri: Another regional standard. Spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh
and western Bihar, and related to but not identical with Khari Boli
Hindi. Listed as a separate language in the 1971 Census of India.
Braj Bhasha; Another regional standard. Spoken in south-western Uttar
Pradesh, and closely related to but not identical with Khari Boli Hindi.
An important literary language in earlier times and well into the
twentieth century.
Dastan: A Persian literary form incorporated into the Urdu literary
tradition; prose romance of magic, love, and adventure.
Devanagart: A synonym for the Nagari script.
Hindi: An often carelessly-used term with several meanings:
(1) Writers have used the term for several centuries to denote all the
spoken dialects of the Hindi regional area, i.e., Braj Bhasha, Avadhi,
Bhojpuri, Khari Boli, and other regional standards as well as village
dialects.
(2) Others use 'Hindi' to refer to 'Hindi-heritage literature', i.e., the
literary traditions of regional standards such as Braj Bhasha and
Avadhi.
198 One Language, Two Scripts

This usage occurs frequently in histories of Hindi literature and the

polemical writings of Hindi publicists.
(3) Still others, especially Hindi partisans, use the term to mean 'high
Hindi', i.e., highly Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi.
(4) Others, the vaguest of the lot, use the term to indicate simply 'that
which is not Urdu'. This usage appears in many sources, especially in
the vernacular press during the Hindi-Urdu controversy of the
nineteenth century.
Hindi-Urdu: A term used by some linguists (e.g., Kelkar and Gumperz)
to refer to the linguistic continuum formed by these two divisions of
Khari Boli. This usage specifically recognizes the practically identical
grammars and the large amount of shared vocabulary.
Hindi Sahitya Sammelan: The Society for Hindi Literature. Founded in
1910. Despite its literary name, the Sammelan became the major
political force behind the promotion of Hindi and the Nagari script.
Some of India's major political figures—e.g., Mahatma Gandhi,
Tawaharlal Nehru, and Rajendra Prasad—were members at one time or
another.
Hindustani: This term has two distinct meanings:
(1) Urdu.
(2) A style of Khari Boli which uses the Nagari or the Urdu script
and
avoids excessive use of difficult Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian words.
British writers often use the first sense, while some Indian writers,
notably Mahatma Gandhi, use the second.
Hindustani Academy:, Founded in 1927 with the official sponsorship of
the provincial government. Kayasth literary figures have played an
important role in its leadership.
Hunter (Indian Education) Commission: This body, appointed to
investigate the educational situation in British India, became in 1882
the centre of an intense language controversy in the Punjab and in the
North-Western Provinces and Oudh.
Kaithi: The most important of several different cursive versions of the
Nagari script. Widely used in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries by Hindu merchant and trading castes in the NWP&O and
Bihar, and also by patwaris (village record keepers) in Oudh, the
eastern NWP, and in western Bihar. For several decades, Kaithi
became one of the official scripts of Bihar.
 Glossary 199

Khari Boli: A regional standard of Uttar Pradesh which for various

historical reasons became the common grammatical basis of both Hindi
and Urdu. Khari Boli Hindi uses the Nagari script and looks to Sanskrit
for its higher vocabulary, while the Urdu form of Khari Boli uses the
Urdu script (a modified version of the Arabic and Persian scripts) and
draws on Arabic and Persian for its higher vocabulary.
Kumaun: A division (group of districts) in the mountainous area of the
northwestern NWP&O. The Nagari script was used here from the
beginning of British rule in the area.
Mahajani: One of several cursive varieties of Nagari associated with
Hindu merchant and trading castes.
Maithili: A regional standard of Bihar sometimes lumped under the
category of Hindi in the past, but listed as a separate language in the
1971 Census of India. According to some, more closely related to
Bengali than to Hindi.
Mudiya or Munda: Another of the several cursive varieties of Nagari
associated with Hindu merchant and trading castes.
Nagari: A term with two distinct meanings:
(1) The syllabic script (in which vowels are always indicated, unlike
the Urdu script, but are still subordinate to consonants) used for
centuries for Sanskrit and earlier Hindi regional standards, as well as
modern Khari Boli Hindi and Marathi. Relatives of the Nagari script
are used for several other major north Indian languages.
(2) The script and Khari Boli Hindi as in 'Nagari Pracharini Sabha'
in which 'Nagari' refers to both script and language.
Nagari Pracharini Sabha: Society for the Promotion of Nagari.
Founded in 1893, and still in existence, this was the premier Hindi
organization of the NWP&O and of India during the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The Sabha soon
became a primarily literary rather than political body.
North-Western Provinces: A province of British India from 1836, to
1856 whose boundaries fluctuated somewhat, but roughly included all
of modern Uttar Pradesh with the exception of Oudh.
North-Western Provinces and Oudh: The predecessor of the United
Provinces. Consisted in the North-Western Provinces with the addition
of Oudh in 1856; the two were amalgamated in 1877.
200 One Language, Two Scripts

Oudh: Formerly a Muslim kingdom, Oudh came under British control in 1856
as a Chief Commissionership, subject to the authority of the Lieutenant-
Governor of the North-Western Provinces. In 1877 the two jurisdictions were
amalgamated, and the Lieutenant-Governorship and the Chief
Commissionership were held by one person. In 1902 the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh became the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and kept
this name until 1947, when the area became the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Patwari: A village record keeper, responsible for various kinds of annual

reports.

Persian: The major language of administration in north India for several

centuries. Closely associated with Muslim rule, both the Mughal dynasty and
its predecessors. Used in British India into the 1830s.

Persian script: A modified version of the Arabic script, adding several letters
not in Arabic, but losing some of the distinctions in pronunciation represented
by certain Arabic letters.
Regional standard: Regional standards are subdivisions of more major
languages, and occur in relatively homogeneous forms over large areas. In
Bihar three such standards, formerly included under the category of Hindi,
exist: Maithili, Magahi and Bhojpuri. In Uttar Pradesh, four have importance:
Bhojpuri in the eastern, Avadhi in the central, Braj Bhasha in the southwestern,
and Khari Boli in the northwestern districts. Each of these has large numbers of
speakers: the 1901 Census, the last to list such figures for each standard,
showed that they included about 95 per cent of the population of the province.
Some of these languages—Maithili, Avadhi, Braj Bhasha, and Khari Boli—
have literary traditions of several centuries, while others— Bhojpuri and
Magahi—have rich oral folk literatures. Similar regional standards exist in
other parts of the Hindi area. Villagers use these to talk with merchants in
nearby trading centres and with villagers from other areas. Small town residents
use them as their mother tongue, while both educated and uneducated city
dwellers use them at home or among friends.

Sarafi: Another cursive variety of the Nagari script associated with Hindu
merchant and trading castes. Also, a synonym for mahajani and munda.
Saugor and Nerbudda Territories: (From the town of Sagar and the River
 Glossary 201

Narmada.) A hilly area in central India, formerly administered by the

NWP&O which became part of the Central Provinces and is now
divided between the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Shikasta: Literally, 'broken'. An abbreviated or shorthand form of the
Persian script and Urdu scripts used by officials to keep records, and
notorious for its extreme illegibility.
Tahsil: A revenue subdivision of a district in British India.
United Provinces: In full, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The
official name for the North-Western Provinces and Oudh after 1902.
The United Provinces became the state of Uttar Pradesh in 1947.
Urdu: The form of Khari Boli which uses the Urdu script, borrows
much of its higher vocabulary from Persian and Arabic, and has strong
associations with the Muslim community. Urdu became one of the two
official languages of Pakistan, along with English, and very recently
(1989) an additional official language in Uttar Pradesh.
Urdu script: A modified version of the Persian script. The Urdu script
has added some letters and sounds, the retroflex series, which do not
exist in Persian or Arabic, but are common to most major north and
south Indian languages. Like the Persian script, it has lost some of the
distinctions in pronunciation represented by certain Arabic letters.
Uttar Pradesh: Literally, 'the state of the north'. The successor to the
United Provinces.

Theoretical Terms
Assimilation: A process of change which brings different peoples or
ethnic groups within the same political system into the same network of
social communication. The rate of assimilation must keep ahead of that
of social mobilization, if differentiation is not to result.
Community: This term refers to an ethnic group whose members have
developed an awareness of their common identity and seek to define
group boundaries.
Differentiation: This process, the opposite to assimilation, separates
peoples or ethnic groups into different networks of social
communication. When the rate of social mobilization outstrips the rate
of assimilation, differentiation takes place.
202 One Language, Two Scripts

Ethnic Group: This term, defined as any group of individuals with

some objective characteristics in common, also refers to groups whose
members do not necessarily give any subjective importance to their
objective distinctness.
Multi-Symbol Congruence: This term refers to the process by which
political elites choose one symbol as primary and strive to bring other
symbols into line.
Nationality: This term refers to a community which makes political
demands with a significant degree of success.
Objective Characteristic: This refers to such things as language,
culture, territory, diet, dress, etc. rather than to any role in a societal
division of labour.
Social Mobilization: This is a process of change occurring in areas
undergoing modernization, which brings increasing numbers of the
more isolated portions of the population into an ever denser 'net of
social communication'. This 'mobilized population' includes literates,
newspaper readers, people residing in cities and towns, people in non-
agricultural occupations, and others.

Note: For a brief discussion of the categories of sounds (retroflex or

cerebral, gutteral, palatal, dental, labial, etc.) the reader may refer to
any standard grammar such as Snell and Weightman's Teach Yourself
Hindi.
 Abbreviations

Bengal Quarterly Pubs Rpt: Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and

Periodicals Published in Bengal. . . Bengal Gen Progs Misc: Proceedings of
the Government of Bengal in the General
Department (Miscellaneous) CP Admin Rpt: Report on the Administration of
the Central Provinces CP Home Progs: Central Provinces Home Proceedings
(General) Educ Comm Rpt: Report of the Indian Education Commission
(Calcutta, 1883) Educ Comm Rpt Bengal: Education Commission: Report by
the Bengal Provincial
Committee (Calcutta, 1884) Educ Comm Rpt CP: Education Commission:
Report by the Central Provinces
Provincial Committee (Calcutta, 1884) Educ Comm Rpt NWP&O: Education
Commission: Report by the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh Provincial
Committee (Calcutta, 1884) NPS Ann Rpt: Nagari Pracharini Sabha Kashi:
Varsik Vivaran (Annual Report) NWP: North-Western Provinces NWP Educ
Rpt: Report on the State of Popular Education in the North-Western
Provinces NWP Gen Dept Progs: Proceedings of the Government of the N.-
W. Provinces in
the General and Educational Department NWPSVN: Selections from the
Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Panjab,
North-Western Provinces . . . NWP&O: North-Western Provinces and Oudh
NWP&O Gen Admin Progs: Proceedings of the Government of the N.-W.
Provinces and Oudh in the General Administration Department NWP&O
Quarterly Pubs Rpt: Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and
Periodicals Published in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh . . .
NWP&O SVN: Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the
Panjab, North-Western Provinces and Oudh . . . SRGI: Selections from the
Records of the Government of India . . . UP: United Provinces of Agra and
Oudh; Uttar Pradesh UP Admin Rpt: United Provinces of Agra and Oudh
Administration Report UP Educ Progs: Proceedings of the Government of the
United Provinces in the
Educational Department UP Quarterly Pubs Rpt: Statement of Particulars
Regarding Books and Periodicals
Published in the United Provinces . . . UP SVN: Selections from the
Vernacular Newspapers Published in the United
Provinces . . .
 Bibliography

General and Reference Works

Basham, A. L. The Wonder That Was India, revised edition. New York:
Hawthorn Books, 1963. Bhattacharya, Sachchidananda. A Dictionary of
Indian History. New York:
George Braziller, 1967. Bloomfield, B. C, compiler. Theses on Asia
accepted by Universities in the
United Kingdom and Ireland 1877-1964. London: Frank Cass & Company,
1967. Blumhardt, J. F. Catalogue of Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi and Pushtu
Books. London:
1893. -. Catalogue of the Library of the India Office. Vol. II: Hindi,
Panjabi,
Pushtu and Sindhi Books. London: 1902.
-. Supplementary Hindi Catalogue, 1893-1912. London: 1913.
Campbell, Frank, compiler. Index Catalogue of Indian Official Publications in
the Library, British Museum. London: The Literary Supply Company, n.d.
Case, Margaret H. South Asian History 1750-1950: A Guide to Periodicals,
Dissertations and Newspapers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Crooke, William. Tribes and Castes of the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh,
Volume III. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing,
1906. Das, Shyam Sundar. Hindi Sabdsagar, Revised edition. Varanasi:
Nagari Pra-
charini Sabha, 1971. Das, Sisir Kumar, editor. A History of Indian
Literature. Vol. 8, 1800-1910:
Western Impact: Indian Response. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1991.
Datta, Amaresh, chief editor. Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, 1987. Davies, C. Collin. An Historical Atlas of the Indian
Peninsula, 2nd edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959. Dewar, Douglas. A Handbook to
the English Pre-Mutiny Records in the
Government Record Rooms of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. N.p.:
[c. 1919]. Eck, Diana. Banaras: City of Light. New York: Knopf, 1982.
Farquhar, J. N. An Outline of the Religious Literature of India. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1967. Gidwani, N. N. and K. Navalani. A Guide to Reference
Materials on India, 2
Volumes. Jaipur: Saraswati Publications, 1974. Grierson, Sir George Abraham.
Linguistic Survey of India. 11 Volumes. Calcutta: Superintendent of
Government Printing, 1903-1928.
 Bibliography 205

Hewitt, A. R. Guide to Resources for Commonwealth Studies in London,

Oxford
and Cambridge. London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1957. The
Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume XXIV, New Edition. Oxford: 1908.
Kellog, Rev. S. H. A Grammar of the Hindi Language. London: Routledge and
Keagan Paul, 1965. Kesavan, B. S. and Y. M. Mulay, editors. The National
Bibliography of Indian
Literature 1901-1953. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1966. Low, Anthony
D., editor. Government Archives in South Asia. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1969. Majumdar, R. C. et al. An Advanced
History of India, 2nd edition. London:
Macmillan and Company, 1963. Nevill, H. R. Benares: A Gazetteer.
Allahabad: Printed by F. Luker, Supdt.,
Government Press, United Provinces, 1909. 1990 Britannica Book of the
Year. Chicago: 1990. Pearson, J. D. A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in
the British Isles
Relating to South And South East Asia, Two Volumes. London: Mansell
Publishing Company, 1989. Pincott, Frederic. The Hindi Manual. London:
W. H. Allen, 1882. Platts, John T. A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and
English. London:
Oxford University Press, 1960. Scholberg, Henry. The District Gazetteers of
British India. Zug, Switzerland:
InterDocumentation Company AG, 1970. Schwartzberg, Joseph E., editor. A
Historical Atlas of India. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1978. Shakespear, John. A Grammar of the Hindustani
Language, 5th edition. London:
Wm. H. Allen, 1846. Singh, R. L. Banaras: A Study in Urban Geography.
Banaras: Nand Kishore and
Brothers, 1955. Shell, Rupert and Simon Weightman. Teach Yourself Hindi.
London: Random
House, 1989. -. Hindi and Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader. New
Delhi: Heritage
Publishers, 1990. Spear, Percival, editor. The Oxford History of India, 4th
edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981. Stucki, Curtis W. American Doctoral
Dissertations on Asia 1933-June 1966,
Including Appendix of Master's Theses at Cornell University 1933-June 1968.
Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell
University, 1968. United Provinces District Gazetteers, XXVI. Benares:
1909. Varma, Ram Chandra, editor. Manak Hindi Kos, 5 Volumes. Prayag:
Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan, [1962?]. Wainwright, M. D., and Noel Matthews. A
Guide to Western Manuscripts and
Documents in the British Isles Relating to South and South East Asia. London:
Oxford University Press, 1965.
206 One Language, Two Scripts

Yule, Col. Henry and A. C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial

Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological,
Historical, Geographical and Discursive, New Edition. London: 1903,
reissued 1968.

Official Records and Publications: English

Administration
Benares State Administration Report. 1911-1937.
Central Provinces Home Proceedings (General Department). 1870-1885.
Judicial and Public Papers. 1880, 1204. [Manuscript]
MacDonnell, A. P. 'Note on U.P. 1901'. Oxford, Bodleian Library. MacDonnell
Papers. MSS. Eng. Hist. C355.
North-Western Provinces and Oudh Administration Report. (Variously titled.)
1877-1901.
North-Western Provinces Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder
Board of Revenue Department, 19 July to 2 August 1836, Range 221, 77,
No. 52. [Manuscript]
Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner of Oudh in the General Department.
1872-1876.
Proceedings of the Government of Bengal in the General Department
(Miscellaneous). 1870-1882.
Proceedings of the Government of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh in the
General Administration Department. (Variously titled.) 1893-94, 1896-
1901.
Proceedings of the Government of the United Provinces in the General
Administration Department. 1902-1936.
Report on the Administration of the Central Provinces. 1871-1881.
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh Administration Report. 1902-1945.

Census
Report on the Census of Oudh. Volume I. Census of the
N.-W. Provinces, 1872. Volume I. Census of India,
1881. N.-W. Provinces and Oudh. Census of India,
1891. N.-W. Provinces and Oudh. Census of India,
1901. Volume XVI. Part I. Census of India, 1911.
Volume XV Part I Census of India, 1921. Volume XVI.
Part I. Census of India, 1921. Volume XVI. Part II.
Census of India, 1931. Volume XVIII. Part I

Education
Central Provinces Education Report. (Variously titled). 1881-1886.
'Correspondence on the Subject of the Education of the Muhammadan
Community in British India and Their Employment in the Public Service
 Bibliography 207

Generally'. Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Home

Department. No. CCV. Home Department Serial No. 2. Calcutta: 1886.
Education Commission. Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee. Calcutta:
1884. Education Commission. Report by the Central Provinces Provincial
Committee.
Calcutta: 1884. Education Commission. Report by the Norlh-Western
Provinces and Oudh
Committee; with Evidence Taken before the Committee, and Memorials
Addressed to the Education Commission. Calcutta: 1884. Education
Commission. Report by the Panjab Provincial Committee. Calcutta:
1884. General Report on Public Instruction in the United Provinces of Agra
and Oudh.
(Variously titled.) 1902-3 to 1946-47. Howell, A. P. 'Note on the State of
Education in India during 1866-67'.
Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Home Department.
No. LXVII. Calcutta: 1868. Kerr, J. A Review of Public Instruction in the
Bengal Presidency from 1835 to
1851. Part I. London: 1853. Monteath, A. M. 'Note on the State of
Education in India during 1865-66'.
Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Home Department.
No. LIV. Calcutta. 1867. Proceedings of the Government of the N.-W.
Provinces and Oudh in the
Educational Department. 1893-94, 1896-1901. Proceedings of the
Government of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh in the General
and Educational Department. 1878-92, 1895. Proceedings of the
Government of the N.-W. Provinces in the General and
Educational Department. 1856-77. Proceedings of the Government of the
United Provinces in the Educational
Department. 1902-36. Report of the Committee on Primary Education, United
Provinces, 1913. Allahabad: 1913. Report of the Indian Education Commission.
Calcutta: 1883. Report of the Progress of Education in the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh.
(Variously titled.) 1876-77 to 1901-2. Report of Public Instruction in Oudh.
1868-69 to 1875-76. Report on the State of Popular Education in the North-
Western Provinces.
(Variously titled.) 1843-44 to 1875-76.

Journalism and Publication

Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Panjab, North-
Western Provinces . . . (Variously titled.) 1868-1937.
Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the
North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Registered under Act XXV of 1867 . . .
(Variously titled.) 1868-1959.
208 One Language, Two Scripts

Language
Report of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language. New Delhi: 1959.
Report of the Linguistic Provinces Commission 1948. New Delhi: 1948. Report
of the Linguistic Provinces Committee Appointed by the Jaipur Congress
(Dec. 1948). New Delhi: 1949. Report of the Official Language Commission
1955. New Delhi: 1957. Report of the States Reorganisation Commission,
1955. New Delhi: 1955. Report of the Uttar Pradesh Language Committee
(August, 1962). Lucknow: 1963.

Miscellaneous
Directions for Settlement Officers, Promulgated under the Authority of the
Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of the North Western Provinces.
September—1844. Agra: 1844.
Roberts, D. T. Report on the Revision of Records of Part of Ballia District.
1882-1885 AD. Allahabad: 1886.

Official Records and Publications of Hindi Organizations

A Common Character for Indian Vernaculars: The proceedings of a public
meeting, held on the 29th December 1905 under the auspices of the Nagari-
pracharini Sabha to discuss the question of a common character for Indian
vernaculars. Benares: 1906.
A Short History of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha Benares City. (July 1893 to
June 1915). Benares: [1915?].
Das, Radha Kishen [Krishna]. 'An Abstract Report on the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha'. [Banaras]: 1900. India Office Library MSS. Eur. D. 641.
Das, Radha Krishna. Hindi Bhdsa ke Samayik Patro ka ltihas. Banaras: 1894.
Dvitiya Hindi-Sahitya-Sammelan, Prayag, Karyvivaran—Dusara Bhag, 2nd
edition. Allahabad: [1925].
Guleri, Chandraghar Sharma. Purani Hindi. Kasi: [1948].
Guru, Kamtaprasad. Hindi Vyakaran. Kasi: [1962].
Hindi Visvakos, 1st edition. Varanasi: n.d.
Hirak Jayanti Granth. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini Sabha, [1954].
Kasi-Nagaripracdrini Sabha ka Arddhsatabdi Itihas. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini
Sabha, [1943].
Kasi-Nagartpracarini Sabha ka Niyamavali jo 17 Asdrh 1976 se Prayog me Lai
Gai. Kasi: Nagaripracharini Sabha, [1919?].
Kasi-NagaripracarinT Sabha ka Vinit Nivedan. KasT: Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
[1923].
Kast Nagaripracarini Sabha (Sthapit Sam. 1950 Vi): Uddeshya aur Niyam.
Kasi: 1940.
Pratham Hindi-Sahitya Sammelan, Kasi, Karyvwaran-Dusard Bhag. Prayag:
1910.
Nagaripracarini Sabha, Kasi ke Vigat 60 Varso ka Sinhavalokan. Kasi: Nagari
Pracharini Sabha, [1953?].
 Bibliography 209

Nagaripracarini Sabha, Kasi: Varsik Vivaran. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini Sabha,

1894-1972. Nagaripracarini Sabha, Kasi {Samvat 1950 me Sthapit):
Samvidhan. Kasi: Nagari
Pracharini Sabha, 1954. Nagaripracarini Sabha, Kasi(Samvat 1950 me
Sthdpit): Samvidhan. Kasi: Nagari
Pracharini Sabha, 1969. Nasirudinpuri, Shah Sahab, editor. Mulk ki Zabdn
aur Fazil Musalman. Kasi:
Nagari Pracharini Sabha, 1940. The Report of the Nagari-Pracharini Sabha,
Benares, from 1893-1902. Benares:
Nagari Pracharini Sabha, 1902. Rules and Regulations of the Arrah Nagri
Parcharini [sic] Sabha . . . as Amended
up to 1907. Arrah, [Bihar]: [1907?]. Shastri, Raghunandan. Panjab me
Hindi ki Pragati. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini
Sabha, [1943].

Books and Monographs: English

Akkad, B. J. Malaviyaji. Bombay: Vora & Company, 1948.
Bailey, Grahame T. A History of Urdu Literature. Calcutta: Association Press
(Y.M.C.A.), 1932. Bayly, Christopher A. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars:
North Indian Society in
the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983. Bhatnagar, S. K. History of the MA.O. College Aligarh.
Bombay: Asia Publishing
House, 1969. Beames, J. A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan
Languages of India: To
Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Mara/hi, Oriya and Bangali. Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966. Brass, Paul. Language, Religion and Politics
in North India. London: Cambridge
University Press, 1974. Chandra, Sudhir. The Oppressive Present:
Literature and Social Consciousness in
Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992. Chatterji, S. K. Indo-
Aryan and Hindi, 2nd edition. Calcutta: Firma K. L.
Mukhopadhyay, 1960. Clark, T. W. editor. The Novel in India: Its Birth and
Development. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1970. Das, Sisir Kumar. Sahibs and
Munshis: An Account of the College of Fort
Willtam. Calcutta: Orion Publications, 1978. Das Gupta, Jyotirindra.
Language Conflict and National Development. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1970. Desai, M. P. The Hindi Prachar
Movement. Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1957. Deutsch, Karl. Nationalism and
Social Communication, 2nd edition. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: 1966. Dwivedi, R A. A Critical Survey of Hindi Literature.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966. Faridi, S.N. S. N. Faridi Presents Hindu
History of Urdu Literature. Agra: Ram
Prasad, 1966.
210 One Language, Two Scripts

Fishman, Joshua A., Charles A. Ferguson, and Jyotirindra Das Gupta, editors.
Language Problems of Developing Nations. New York: John Wiley and Sons,
1968. Gilchrist, The Hindee Roman Ortheopicgraphical Ultimatum.
London: 1820. Gopal, Madan. The Bharatendu: His Life and Times. Delhi:
1972.
-. This Hindi and Dev Nagri. Delhi: Metropolitan Book, 1953.
Gopal, Ram. Linguistic Affairs of India. Bombay: Asia Publishing House,
1966. Grierson, George A. A Handbook of the Kayathi Character. Calcutta:
1881. -. The Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan. Calcutta: Asiatic
Society, 1889. Harrison, Selig. India: The Most Dangerous Decades.
Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1960. Havell, E. B. Benares, the Sacred City Sketches of
Hindu Life and Religion.
London: 1905. Heimsath, Charles H. Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social
Reform. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1964. Keay, Frank E. A History of Hindi
Literature, 3rd edition. Calcutta: Y.M.C.A.
Publishing House, 1960. Kelkar, Ashok R. Studies in Hindi-Urdu. Poona:
Deccan College, 1968. Khan, Hamid Ali. The Vernacular Controversy: An
Account and Criticism of the
Equalisation of the Nagri and Urdu as the Character for the Court of the
North-Western Provinces and Oudh, under the Resolution No. 585/III-3430-68
of
Sir A. P. MacDonnell, the Lieutenant-Governor, N.-W. P., and Chief
Commissioner, Oudh, Dated 18th April 1900. N.p.: [1900]. Kluyev, Boris I.
India: National and Language Problem. New Delhi: Sterling
Publishers, 1981. Kopf, David. British Orientalism and Bengal
Renaissance: the Dynamics of
Indian Modernization, 1773-1835. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969. Kripalani, Krishna. Modern Indian Literature: A Panoramic Glimpse.
Bombay:
Nirmala Bhatkal, 1968. Language and Society in India: Proceedings of a
Seminar. Simla: Indian Institute
of Advanced Study, 1969. Latif, Sayyid 'Abdul'l-. The Influence of English
Literature on Urdu Literature.
London: 1924. Lyall, C. J. A Sketch of the Hindustani Language.
Edinburgh: Adam & Charles
Black, 1880. Machwe, Prabhakar. Kabir. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
1968. McGregor, R. S. Hindi Literature of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries. Weisbaden: 1974. Malaviya, Madan Mohan. Court Character
and Primary Education in N.-W. P.
and Oudh. Allahabad: 1897. Muhammad, Shan. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan: A
Political Biography. Meerut:
Meenakshi Prakashan, 1969.
 Bibliography 211

Narain, Govind. Munshi Prem Chand. Boston: 1978.

Narula, S. S. Scientific History of the Hindi Language. Delhi: Hindi Academy,
1955. Nayar, B. R. National Communication and Language Policy in India.
New York:
F. A. Praeger, 1969. Noman, Mohammad. Muslim India (Rise and Growth
of the All India Muslim
League). Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1942. Offredi, Mariola, editor. Language
Versus Dialect: Linguistic and Literary Essays
on Hindi, Tamil and Sarnami. New Delhi: Manohar, 1990. Prakash, Shri.
Bharat-Ratna Dr. Bhagavan Das. Meerut: Meenakshi Prakashan,
1970. Prasad, Shiva. Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper
Provinces of India.
Banaras: 1868. (Library of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Banaras.) Pritchett,
Frances W. Marvellous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi.
Riverdale, Maryland: The Riverdale Company, Inc., 1985. Rahmat-Ullah,
M. A Defence of the Urdu Language and Character. (Being a reply
to the pamphlet called 'Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P.
and Oudh'). Allahabad: Liddel's N.-W.P. Printing Works Press, 1900. Rai,
Amrit. A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984. Ray, P. S. Language Standardization.
The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1963. Robinson, Francis C. R. Separatism
among Indian Muslims. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Sadiq,
Muhammad. A History of Urdu Literature. London: Oxford University
Press, 1964. Saksena, Ram Babu. A History of Urdu Literature. Allahabad:
Ram Narain Lai,
1940. Sarin, Dharam Paul. Influence of Political Movements on Hindi
Literature
(1906-1947). Chandigarh: Panjab University Publishing Bureau, 1967.
Siddiqi, Atique M. Origins of Modern Hindustani Literature: Source Material:
Gilchrist Letters. Aligarh: Naya Kitab Ghar, 1963, Singh, Nand Lal, editor.
Mahamana Malaviyaji Birth Centenary Commemoration
Volume 25th December, 1961. Varanasi: The Secretary, All-India Malaviyaji
Centenary Celebration Committee, [1961]. Smith, Donald E. India as a
Secular State. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963. Srivastava, Ramesh Chandra. Development of the Judicial System in
India under
the East India Company 1833-1858. Lucknow: 1971. Tandon, Prakash.
Punjabi Century: 1857-1947. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1968. Vedalankar, Shardadevi. The
Development of Hindi Prose Literature in the Early
Nineteenth Century (1800-1856 AD). Allahabad: Lokbharti Publications,
1969.
212 One Language, Two Scripts

Books and Monographs: Other

Bahari, Hardev. Hindi: Udbhav, Vikas, aurRup. Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1969.
Das, Shyam Sundar. Hindi Sdhitya. Prayag: 1956.
-. Men Atmakahani. Prayag: Indian Press, 1957.
De Tassy, M. Garcin. La Langue et la Litterature Hindoustanies de 1850 a
1869.
Paris: 1874. Dittmer, Kerrin. Die Indischen Muslims and die Hindi-Urdu
Kontroverse in den
United Provinces. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972. Dwivedi, Hazari
Prasad. Hindi Sdhitya ki Bhumika. Bombay: Hindi Granth
Ratnakara, 1963. Gupta, Lakshiminarayan. Hindi Bhdsd aur Sdhitya ki Arya
Samaj ki Den.
Lucknow: [1961]. Faridabadi, Sayyed Hashmi. Panja Sala Tdnkh-e-
Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu.
Karachi: 1953. Lutt, Jurgen. Hindu-Nationalismus in Uttar Prades 1867-
1900. Stuttgart: Ernst
Klett, 1970. Malaviya, Padmakanta, editor. Malaviyaji: Jivan Jhalakiya.
Delhi: National
Publishing House, [1962]. Mohan, Braj. Nagari Lipi (Rup aur Sudhdr).
Varanasi: Shabd Lok Prakashan
1968. Motichandra. Kasi ka Itihas.
Bombay: 1962.
Mishra, Shitikanth. Khariboli ka Andolan. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
1956. Prasad, Vasudevanandan. Bharatendu-Yug kd Natya-Sahitya aur
Rangmanc.
Patna: 1973. Rai, Amrit. Premcand: Kalam ka Sipahi. Allahabad: 1962.
Saraswati Hirak ]ayanti Ank. Allahabad: Indian Press, 1961. Shukla, Ram
Chandra. Hindi Sdhitya ka Itihas. Kasi: Nagari Pracharini Sabha,
1968. Tivari, Bholanath. Rajbhasa Hindi. Delhi:
1982.
Tiwari, Gopinath. Bharatendu ke Natako ka Sastriya Anusilan. Delhi: 1971.
Varma, Dhirendra. Hindi Bhasa aur Lipi, 9th edition. Allahabad: Hindustani
Academy, 1950. Varma, Lakshmikant, editor. Hindi-Andolan. Prayag:
Hindi Sahitya Sammelan,
1964. Varshney, Laksmisagar. Bharatendu Hariscandra. Allahabad: 1965

Periodical Articles and Book Chapters

Beames, J. 'On the Arabic Element in Official Hindustani'. Journal of the
Asiatic
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Linguistic Nationalism', Gandhi Marg (New Delhi), N.S., vol. XIII, no. 3
(October-December 1991), 342-6. Chatterji, Nandalal. 'A Forgotten
Official Enquiry on the Hindi-Urdu
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Controversy', Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings, XXX

(1954), 30-3. -. 'A Forgotten Plea for the 'Kaithi' Script in Uttar Pradesh'.
Indian
Historical Records Commission, Proceedings, XXXI (1955), 75-6. -. 'The
Government's Attitude to Hindi-Urdu Hindusthani in the Post-Mutiny Period'.
Journal of the Uttar Pradesh Historical Society, New Series,
III (1955), 10-34. -. A Nineteenth Century Controversy on the Teaching of
Hindustani'.
Journal of Indian History, XLII (April 1964), 77-87. Clark, T. W. 'The
Languages of Calcutta, 1760-1840'. London University,
School of Oriental and African Studies, Bulletin, XVIII (1956), 453-74.
Cronin, Richard P. 'Language and Nationalism in Late Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Century India: The Substitution of Hindi for Uriya as the Court
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in Modern India. Columbia, Missouri: South Asia Books, 1981. Dayal
Dass, 'Language Controversy a Century Ago'. Indian Historical Records
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Deutsch, Karl. 'Social Mobilization and Political Development'. The American
Political Science Review, LV, 3 (September 1961), 493-514. Dittmer,
Kerrin. 'Urdu University and Maulvi Abdul Haq'. Interdiscipline, VI,
4 (Winter 1969), 275-86. Ganguli, Syamacharan. 'Hindi, Hindustani and the
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The Calcutta Review,
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363-77.
-. 'In Self-Defence'. The Calcutta Review, LXXV (1882), 256-63.
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Stratification in a North
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'Language Problems in the Rural Development of North India' .Journal
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214 One Language, Two Scripts

-. 'Some remarks on Regional and Social Language Differences in India',

in Introduction to the Civilization of India. Chicago: 1957. Gumperz, John
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'Images of Virtue and Vice: The Hindi-Urdu Controversy in Two
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 Bibliography 215

Zakaria, Rafiq A. 'Foreword', in N. S. Gorekar, Glimpses of Urdu Literature.

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Works of Literature
Chandra, Babu Ratna. Hindi Urdu ka Natak: Hindee versus Urdu. Prayag:
1890.
Das, Shri Radha Krishna. 'Hindi-Urdu'. Saraswati, III, 11 (November, 1902),
359.
Datta, Pandit Gauri. Nagari aur Urdu ka Svang arthat Nagari aur Urdu ka ek
Natak. Meerut: n.d.
Harishchandra, Bharatendu. Bharatendu Granthavali: Pahala Khand [The
Collected Works of Bharatendu: Part One]. Varanasi: Nagari Pracharini
Sabha, 1970.
Prasad, Sohan. Hindi aur Urdu ki Larai. Gorakhpur: 1886.

Newspapers and journals

Bharat Jivan. Banaras. 1884-1927. The Calcutta
Gazette. 1880, 1884. The Hindi Review. Varanasi.
1956-1960. Hindustan Review. Allahabad. 1903-
1951. Kayastha Samachar. Allahabad. 1901-1902.
Nagari Pracharini Patrika. Banaras. 1896-1971.
Pioneer. Allahabad. 1860-1865. Saraswatt.
Allahabad. 1900-1903.

Unpublished Doctoral Dissertations

Leonard, Karen B. The Kayasths of Hyderabad City. University of Wisconsin,
1969. King, Christopher R. The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the
Promotion of
the Nagari Script and Language) of Benares 1893-1914: A Study in the Social
and Political History of the Hindi Language. University of Wisconsin,
1974. Perrill, Jeffrey Price. Punjab Orientalism: The Anjuman-i-Punjab and
Punjab
University, 1865-1888. University of Missouri, 1976.

Interviews
Bajpeyi, Shri Shambhu Nath. Banaras, 30 March and 3 April 1972.
Das, Shri Ray Krishna. Banaras, 6,8,12, 25 and 28 April 1972; 12 May 1972; 1
July 1972. Dwivedi, Dr. Hazari Prasad. Banaras, 5, 10, and 12 April 1972.
Khatri, Shri Durga Prasad (son of Devki Nandan Khatri). Banaras, 29 October
1971. Krishna, Shri Ram. Banaras. 3, 4, 5, and 6 April 1972.
Upadhyaya, Pandit Baldev. Banaras, 11 and 18 April 1972.
Vakil, Shri Devi Narayan. Banaras, 16 March 1972.
 Index

1873 Memorial, 130,131-2 Assamese, 4

1900 Resolution, 13, 18-19, 126-8, 136, Assimilation, 2, 3, 78, 79, 89, 116, 176,
162, 173, 185, 186; government 176-82, 190, 201; rejection of, re
process leading to, 153-6; aftermath Muslim culture, 15,59, 78, 185, 189;
of, 156-61 linguistic, 23, 24, 37, 47, 101, 118; to
joint culture, 74, 78, 129, 160; see also
A Defence of the Urdu Language, 160- Differentiation, Social Mobilization
1, 195; see also Court Character and Aurangabad, 164
Primary Education Avadhi.8,9,25,33, 103, 142, 151, 197,
Act XII of 1881, re Hindi and Urdu in 200; and early 19C literature, 27, 28;
court documents, 148 Sohan Prasad's drama in, 136; as part
Act XIX of 1875, re Hindi and Urdu in of'Hindi',25,48, 151, 195, 197
court documents, 148
Act XXIX of 1837, replacing Persian, MghoBahar, 28
54,57 Bahraich, 162
Agarwals, in NPS, 144 Ballantyne, Dr J. R„ 176, 179, 188;
Agra, 28, 31, 112; style of Hindi in, 30; support of Hindi by, 90-91; and
publications in, 42, 44; district, McLeod, 119n. 20 Banaras, 10, 67, 71,
Nagari in village schools in c. 1847, 93, 105, 109, 135,
65; district, indigenous schools in c.
1845,94-97
Agra College, 31,97
Ahmad, Nazir, 32
Aitchison, Sir Charles, 93
Aligarh, 93, 134, 139, 159; publications
in, 42,44; Urdu support in, and
MacDonnell response, 157—8
Aligarh Bhasha (Hindi) Improvement
Society, 139
Allahabad, 10, 63, 67, 68, 89,93, 102,
103,109,128-9,133,136,153,154, 180;
HSS of, 13, 36, 127, 146, 163;
publications in, 42, 43; Hindu Samaj
of, 140-1; Makviya and, 149-50;
Urdu Defence Association of, 156,
195; Hindustani Academy of, 187
Allahabad Institute, 128, 129, 166 n. 39
Allahabad Literary Institute, 103-4
Amman, Mir, 28
AmritRai, 12, 175, 176
Andhra Pradesh, 5, 6
Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (ATU), 185,
187, 195, 197; origins and early
history, 127-8, 158, parallels with NPS,
163-4, 184
Anjuman-i-Punjab, 92, 128
Anti-Hindi agitation, 1,6
Arabic schools, in Agra district c. 1845,
97
Arabic, 24, 30, 74, 132, 140, 174;
influence on Urdu, 8, 9, 12, 23, 27,
103, 131, 178, 183, 199, 201; at Fort
William College, 25; in early 19C
literature, 28, 29, 30, 31; in later 19C
literature, 32; publications, 37-38, 41,
42, 43, 180; in official documents,
59, 63, 64, 131; British attitudes
towards, 75; Hindu attitudes towards,
90, 134; and vernaculars, 91,92,175;
in schools, 94, 97, 98; in textbooks,
104-5; and NPS legal dictionary, 163;
and purification, 181, 182, 187, 190;
and Hindustani, 195, 198
Arabic script, 8,9, 197, 199, 200,201
Arya Samaj, 15, 143, 144; and Hindi
movement, 141; and Sohan Prasad,
167 n. 46
218 Index Brahman (s), 28,35, 66, 67, 136, 149,
182; Kashmiri, 10,145,176,177; and
Nagari, 66,67,132; in indigenous
142, 149, 153, 157, 158; and schools, 94-7; in Middle Class
Harischandra, 11,63, 111; and the Exams, 112-13, 116; in NPS, 116,
NPS, 13,89,114,116,126,139,140, 143-5
141,143-5,146, 162,163,173,194; Brahmo Samaj, 141
and Hindi, 30, 68,91, 142, 145,180; Braj Bhasha, 8, 69, 107-«, 130, 151,
and Raja Shiva Prasad, 31; and Devki 197,200; and Hindi; 9,12, 13,18,
Nandan Khatri, 32; and the HSS, 36, 19,24,25,48,127,151,177,195, 197-S;
163; and publications, 42,43, 145, and poetry, 23,25, 33-7,48, 144, 177;
180; and Hinduism, 101,102,142 in Fort William, 27,28; vs. Khari
Banaras Hindu University, 93, 143,150, Boli, 33-7, 188-9; in Banaras, 142;
and NPS 144,147; and census, 193
164,174 Banaras (Benares) Sanskrit
College, 90, Brass, Paul, 2,3, 4, 7,13, 16, 18, 19,
47,118,179,185
97, 142, 179; see also Queen's
British Indian Association, petition for
Collegiate School Banerji, Ambica
vernacular in higher education, 92,
Charan, 71 Bangladesh, 1 Baniyas, 116;
128
language study, 95-7, 132;
Browning, Colin, 65, 66
in Middle Class Exams, 113; in NPS,
Budaun, 109
144 Bareilly College, 97, 100 note
Buetal Pucheesee, 28
Bateson, Gregory, 189 Bayly, S. C, 64
Begam Urdu, character in Hindi drama,
65; see also 136-8 Benares (Banaras)
Akhbar, 31 Benares (Banaras) Institute,
128 Bengal, 6,9,58-9, 62,67,68,72,74,
75,76,88,108,133,148,187,188;
Muslim government service in,
109-10; and Banaras, 142 Bengal,
Presidency of, 54,55,62 Bengali,
6,55,70, 88,129,131; and
FortWilliam,25,27;and
Harishchandra, 33; early opposition
to, 58-9, 188; in Persian script, 76;
and Sanskritization, 107,182; in
Banaras, 142; and Hindi, 144,147;
Persianized, 107,182,187; and
Maithili, 199 Bengali script, 76, 88;
early opposition
to, 58-9,188 Bengalis, relationship to
Hindi, 6,70,
72,74,128,173,182 Bhagalpur, 72, 73
Bhagavata Purana, 27 Bhaka (Hindi), at
Fort William, 27 Bharatendu
Harishchandra, see
Harishchandra, Bharatendu

Bhasha (Hindi), 129, 139

Bhatta, Pandit Badrinath, 36
Bhojpuri, 8,142,151,195,197,200; and
Harishchandra, 33
Bhumihars, in NPS, 144
Bias, of author, 13-15; of sources, 13-
<15,193-5
Bihar, 2,5,7,8,13,17,28,30,33,57„
58,75,79,130,142,150,173,188; Hindi
and Nagari in, 13, 17,53, 64,
76,77,88,117,133,159,187; Kaithi
script in, 16,24,48,65,67-8,72-5,
77,88, 117,133,177, 198; Persian in,
58; MacDonnell language policy in,
74-5,148,156; Bhojpuri in, 87 n.
132,197,200; Maithili in, 87 n. 132,
199,200; Magahi in, 87 n. 132, 200
Bihari (language), 28,50 n. 20
Bihari(poet), 147
Bijapur, 24
Board of Revenue of the NWP&O,
language policy, 148; views on Hindi
and Urdu, 153-5
Bombay, Presidency of, 54,108
 Index 219

Calcutta, 25, 68, 74, 75, 92, 93, 108, 150 Das, Jagannath 'Ratnakar', 36, 144
Calcutta Review, 78, 87 n. 132 Das, Radha Krishna, 139, 144, 149, 173
Campbell, Sir George, 72 Das, Shyam Sundar, 137, 149, 152, 164,
Cann, T. B, 66 177,194; NPS founder, 142-5; re
Canning College, 98, 100, 101 note Hindustani, 147-8 Das Gupta,
Caste (s), 10, 160, 182; and language, 88, Jyotirindra, 12 Dastan, 32, 197 Datta,
180; language study in indigenous Pandit Gauri, Hindi author and
schools, 94—7; competition for supporter, 135-7, 140 de Tassy,
government service, 111-16; in Middle Garcin, 128 Deccan, 24 Delhi, 24, 28,
Class Exams, 111-14; and NPS 29, 130, 143; Hindi style
membership, 144-5; use of scripts, 198, in, 30,32 Delhi College, 97 Delhi
199, 200 Sultanate, 9 Deutsch, Karl, 1-3,13, 19
Census, 4, 8, 173, 195-6; inaccuracies of, Devanagari Gazette, 136 Devanagari
193^4 Pathshala, 140 Devanagari Pracharini
Central Hindu College, 93 Sabha (Meerut),
Central Hindu School, 143 136, 140, 149 Devanagari script, see
Central Provinces, 7, 72, 112, 130, 141, Nagari script Dialects, 1,55,56,58, 69,
150, 157, 162, 173,201; Hindi and 90, 104, 130,
Nagari in, 13, 17, 53,63, 69-71, 75,
76,77,88,117,181,187, 188; Muslims in
government service in, 110; see also
Saugor and Nerbudda Territories
Chandra, Babu Ratna, author of Hindi
play, 136-8
Chandrakanta, 32
ChandrakantaSantati, 32
Channulal, Dr, 143
Chayavad, symbolist or romantic
movement in Hindi poetry, 24, 36
Chunar, 28
Classical languages, 23,25, 27, 47, 76, 92;
vis-a-vis vernaculars, 23,27, 41, 88,91,
174, 175, 185; at Fort William, 25; and
publications, 37,38, 39,40-41,42-4
Committee on Primary Education, 105
Common language, between Hindi and
Urdu, government promotion of, 104-
6,118
Community, 2,3, 18, 19,29,47,54,91, 130,
133, 185, 201, 202; see also Ethnic
Group, Nationality
Contradictions in government policy,
17,19,54,77,89,102,116-18, 118-
20,174,185,186
Contradictions, in symbol of Hindi, 25,
152
Contradictions, in writings of Raja Shiva
Prasad, 31-2, 178-9
Couper, Sir George, 133
Court Character and Primary Education,
149-52, 160, 194; see also A Defence of
the Urdu Language
Court language or script, 13, 18,55,
56,58,59,66,67,68,91,95, 110,
114,116,130-2,133^1,140,149, 153,
157, 180, 182, 186, 194; in Saugor and
Nerbudda Territories, 60-3; Arabic and
Persian influence on, 63-4, 95; in
Central Provinces, 69-71, 131, 181; in
Bihar, 72-5; in vernacular literature,
135-9; in Malaviya book, 150-2, 194;
1900 government deliberations on,
153-6; in Urdu Defence Association
book, 159-61, 194-5; see also Official
Language
Cow Protection, 11, 15
Cow slaughter, 138-9
Croft, A. W., 73, 79

Dacca, 58, 74
Dakani, 9, 24, 164
220 Index vernaculars,
185 Equations, 15, 31, 48, 74, 79, 89,
90,
142, 151, 197; local dialects, 7, 117, 97,114,127,134,137,145,152,159,
151, 195; literary dialects, 15, 18, 127,
160, 164, 177, 187; see also
147, 188, 195, 197; dialect basis of
Multi-Symbol Congruence Ethnic
Khari Boli, 24; use of by Bharatendu,
group, 2,3,4,11,18,29.48,54,
33; relation to census, 193, 194
91, 118,141,201,202; see also
Dictionaries, 61; Hindi, 26, 136;
Community, Nationality Europe,
Hindustani, 26; scientific, 147, 163;
linguistic comparison with
legal, 163 Differentiation, 2, 4, 10, 15,
India, 4 Examinations, Middle Class
18, 23-48
Anglo-Vernacular, 110, 111, 127,143,
passim, 54, 59, 68, 74, 77, 78, 79, 89,
144,176 Examinations, Middle Class
90, 102, 103, 106, 118, 129, 132, 141,
Vernacular,
148, 160, 164, 173, 176-82, 185-90,
110, 111,127,143,144,176
201; see also Assimilation, Social
Examinations, School Final, 111
Mobilization
Examinations, University Entrance,<93,
Dittmer, Kerrin, 11 Divide and rule, 185
111 Exclusive use of Nagari script vs.
Dravidian language family, 4 Dwivedi,
permissive use, 62, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74,
Mahavir Prasad, 35-6, 37; Marathi
influence on, 35 156, 159, 187

East India Company, 9, 25, 28,53,54, Fink, C. C, 94,95,97,102,106,180

Foreign vs. indigenous re Hindi and
142
Urdu, 174, 175, 176, 183, 184, 190 Fort
Eastern vs. western U. P., 180-1
William College, 23, 176,179;
Economic motives, re language
preference 16, 18, 47, 62, 64, 137,
179, 182
Economic rivalry, Hindu-Muslim, 12,
16, 64, 108
Eden, Sir Ashley, 67, 73-75
Educated Hindus and Muslims, 18, 109,
128, 132, 133, 177, 178; language
attitudes, 47, 70, 78, 90, 91, 93, 94,
102, 104, 108, 177,' 180; and
government employment, 64, 88-89,
97. 108-109, 110-16,187
Educational Department, 98, 148, 161,
163; Hindi-educated employment in,
111,116
Educational policy, see Government
policy
Educational system, 11, 13, 16,54, 188;
British, 13, 16, 89, 97-102; bifurcated,
16, 54, 88, 89, 180, 186; re
employment, 19, 78, 88-118 passim;
social origins of students, 19, 94-102,
111-14; and textbooks, 41, 102-8, 180;
regional patterns, 48, 98-102, 180;
relation to official script

and language, 62, 66, 67, 70, 132,

149-52, 159-61, 194-5; and
vernaculars, 92-3; indigenous, 94—7,
140 Educational reports, annual, 194
Educational statistics, 98-101
Elementary schools, see Schools,
elementary Elite(s), 3, 4, 6, 10, 16,
25,59, 69, 118,
130, 133, 141, 164, 178,202; see also
Vernacular elite Employment, see
Government
employment English, 6, 7, 25, 26, 27,
28,30,31,33,
53, 74,88, 92, 190, 201; sources, 14,
193-5; publications, 39, 40, 44; post
office use, 46-47; replacement of
Persian by, 54-56, 70, 188; in
education, 88, 98-101; vis-a-vis
vernaculars, 88, 91-4, 126, 174, 175,
185 English language model, for
 Index 221

production of vernacular works by, 25-8 197-8; as national language, 5-7,

Fyzabad, 162 175-6; high Hindi, 8, 195; in relation
to Urdu, 8-9, 12-13, 16, 18, 23, 26-
Gandhi, Mahatma, 6, 128, 146, 163, 7,28-33, 78, 79, 107, 128, 129; Hindi
178, 189, 195,198 vs. Braj, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19,25, 33-37,
Ganguli, Syamcharan Babu, 6, 78, 87 n, 127, 188-9; and multi-symbol
132 congruence, 10, 15, 31, 48, 130, 139,
Gilchrist, John Borthwick, 26, 27, 28, 152, 164, 173, 177, 178, 182, 187;
102, 178 publications, 13,37-15, 127, 139-40,
Golconda, 24 147; sources in, 14, 193-5; and
education, 16,54,57, 89, 90, 92^4,
Goldsmith, Oliver, 33
94-7, 97-107, 110-16; myths of, 16,
Gorakhpur, 136, 144, 153, 154, 179
25, 127, 130, 151-2; and journalism,
Goswami, Radha Charan, 34—36
17, 42, 45-6; organizations, 16, 17,
Government employment/ positions/
18, 89, 127, 128, 136, 139-18; and
service, 6, 19,57, 61,62, 64, 69, 74,
Kaithi, 18, 65-9; in Fort William, 26-7;
77, 78, 88, 93, 95, 108-12, 113, 114,
and differentiation, 23-4, 29, 37,47-
116-18,132, 133, 143, 145, 151, 156,
8,77, 118, 132, 164, 172, 175-82, 186-
157, 161, 177-9, 186, 187; Judicial
7; post office use, 46-47; and official
Department/Services, 109, 110, 116;
vernacular, 53-9, 62-4, 69-71, 72-5, 88,
Police Department, 109, 116;
116-18, 126, 128-35, 148-53,155-9,
Department of Public Instruction,
162-3;
109; Revenue Department/Services,
98, 109, 116
Government of Bengal, language policy
of, 59, 68, 75, 133
Government of India, 5, 6, 9,59, 62,
70,71,73-5,92,108,126, 133, 140,
157, 185; involvement in 1900
resolution, 153-6
Government of the North-Western
Provinces (NWP), 59, 63, 65;
common language policy, 104
Government of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh (NWP&O), 91,
109, 110, 140, 146-8; involvement in
1900 resolution, 153-6
Government policy, 3, 1/4, 185, 194;
language, 6-7, 11-13, 17, 19,53,54,
56, (in S&N Territories) 60-63, (re
Persianization) 63—4, (re Kaithi) 65-
69, (in Central Provinces) 69-71, (in
Bihar), 72-75, 76-78, 93, 102, 104-6,
114, 116-18, 130, 131, 132-3, 150-1,
157, 185-8, 194; education, 88,89,
102, 103, 104-6, 116-88, 186;
administration, 89, 109, 123 n.
73, 116-18, 186; re census, 194; see
also Contradictions Grierson, Sir
George, 30, 87 n. 132,
144, 149, 178, 186, 193, 195 Griffith,
Ralph, 66 Growse, F. S., on British
language
attitudes, 75-76
Gujarat, 148, 187
Gujarati, 4, 27, 131, 142, 159, 182, 187
Gumperz, John, 7 Gupta, Babu Maithili
Sharan, 36 Gurmukhi, 77, 165 n. 29

Halkabant/f schools, 98
[Link] Abdul, 163, 164
Hardoi Union Club, 134
Harishchandra, Bharatendu, 11, 32, 32-
4, 50, 63, 111, 133, 139, 142, 143,
144, 173
Harishchandra High School, 143
Haryana, 5
Hill districts of the NWP&O, use of
Nagariin,56,57, 110, 117, 131, 150
Himachal Pradesh, 5
Hindavi, 12, 23, 176
Hindi, 1, 4, 6, 7-8, 15, 107, 191 n. 8,
222 Index 15, 18, 23, 29, 31, }2, 48,59, 62, 72,
74,78,79,89,127,130, 132, 134, 135,
137,152,159,160, 173,178, 187; and
identification with Nagari, 57, 75, 107, Hindi, 10, 16, 18-19,23,
132; British dislike of", 75-6, 116-18, 31,47,64,69,72,78,79,89, (Banaras
132-3; Muslim dislike of, 78, 134, 159- students) 90-91, 102-3, 112-14, 116,
61; eastern UP stronghold, 89; in 117, 118, 127, 129, 132, 133, 135,
Banaras Sanskrit College, 90-91; and 147, 148, 157, 173, 175, 177, 178,
Sanskrit, 90-92, 182-3; purification of, 180, 185, 187; and Urdu-Persian, 10,
174-5, 181-2, 189; moral qualities of, 15, 16, 18, 23, 25, 31, 47, 48,
183-5; see also Educational system, 55,58,59, 62, 64, 72, 74, 78,79, 112-
Equations, Government policy, Hindu 14,117, 118, 127,128, 130, 131,
literature, Hindi movement, Hindi-Urdu 132,137-8, 157, 175, 176-7, 178, 179,
controversy, Kaithi, Khari Boli, Multi- 180; and Muslims, 11, 12,
symbol congruence, Nagari, Publishing 17.23,28,29,47,54,58,59, 64, 74, 75,
and publications 78, 79, 89, 102-3, 105, 107-8, 108-10,
Hindi aurVrdukiLaral, 136-139; attacks 116, 126, 128, 131, 141, 157, 160,
on Islam in, 136, 138 164, 173, 176-8, 180, 185, 187, 188-
Hindi character (script), 71-3, 130, 132, 9, 194; and early 19C literature, 28-9;
154, 159; see also Nagari script and Hindu-heritage languages, 37-
Hindi imperialism, 173, 174, 188 41,98-101; identification with Nagari
Hindi literature, 9, 11, 16, 17,25,76, 117, script, 67, 132, 159, 178; and
118; as expression of communalism, language study, 95-101, 111-14; in
16, 17; 'antiquity'of, 25, 151, 183; vernacular
missionary contributions to, 26, 29;
styles of, 30-31; Khari Boli vs. Braj,
33, 35, 36; and NPS, 127, 146, 147-8;
expression of Hindi movement in,
135-9; and HSS, 163; see also Poetry,
Hindi; Prose literature
Hindi-Nagari campaign, see
Hindi/Hindi-Nagari movement
Hindi/Hindi-Nagari movement, 1, 7, 10,
11, 13-19, 2i, 54,56, 70, 89, 107,
117,118, 188, 189; previous
discussions, 2, 11—13; social origins
of, 10-11, 16, 18, 62. 89, 94-102, 116;
anti-Muslim implications, 16, 138.
182; and publications, 40-46; before
1860s. 91; overview, 126-8; in 1860s
and 1870s, 128-33; in 1880s, 133-5; in
vernacular literature, 135-9; and
voluntary organizations, 139-41, 184-
5; and NPS, 141-8; in the 1890s, 148-
53; culmination in 1900, 153-6; after
1900, 156-64; re differentiation and
assimilation, 176-82; written sources
for, 193—6

Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (HSS), 13, 89,

185, 198; origins and early history,
36, 163; vis-a-vis the NPS, 127,146
Hindi-Sanskrit/Sanskrit-Hindi, 37, 39,
40,42,44,132, 174, 180
Hindi schools, 94-7, 114, 116
Hindi-speaking elite, 54, 59, 65, 69,
118,127,133,141,147,164,180, 188;
see also Vernacular elite
Hindi-Urdu, as stratum or spectrum, 8,
54,57,78,79, 175, 198; in newspapers,
46
Hindi-Urdu Controversy, 11,17, 23, 40,
128-33, 134, 161, 173, 178, 183, 195,
198; and Hindi imperialism, 173-4;
and census, 193-4; see also
Hindi/Hindi-Nagari movement
Hindi Urdii ka Natak, 136-8
Hindu(s),2, 11, 12, 15, 17,18,25,31,
35,47,75,105,136,139, 141,142,
148,149,157,173,180,182,189, 194,
198, 199,200; nationalism, 1, 11,
15,18,19,36,108,131, 187-8;
identification with Hindi, 6, 10, 11,
 Index 221

dramas, 136-9; and NPS, 144-5, 146; see 84 n. 65; association with Urdu, 67; in
also Equations, Multi-symbol Bihar, 67-8, 72-5, 83 n. 64, 84 n.
congruence, Hinduism 65,133, 198; andpa/warn, 67, 83 n.
Hindu-heritage languages, 37, 39, 40, 98- 64,84 n. 65, 198; NPS attitude toward,
101 67, 181-2; in indigenous schools, 83 n.
Hindu majority vs. Muslim minority, 64,95; in NWP&O, 148-9, 155
129, 180 Kaithi writers, 155, 181
Hindu nationalism, see Nationalism Kalicharan High School, 143
Hindu Samaj, 140, 149, 167 n. 46 Kannada, 4, 25
Hinduism: and Nagari script, 9, 67; and Kannauj, 130
Banaras, 89, 101, 142; and Hindi, 134, Kanpur, 42, 44, 67
138-9, 140, 189; in Sohan Prasad Kashmir, 143
drama, 138-9 Kayasth(a) Conference, 112, 153
Hindustani, in sense of Urdu, 9, 25-8, Kayasths: Urdu-Persian tradition among,
29,53,55, 57, 60, 67, 69, 71, 73, 103, 10, 64,117, 127, 130, 137-8, 145, 176,
105, 154, 161, 195, 198; in sense of 177, 179; and government service, 10,
joint language, 6, 30, 189, 195, 198; in 62, 64, 112-14, 117, 'l32, writers, 28,
Fort William, 25—8; as successor to 37, 177; in indigenous schools, 95-97;
Persian, 53,57; in S&N Territories, 60- and Middle Class Exams, 112-14; and
63; excessive Persianization of, 63^1; the NPS, 127, 144-5, 153; in vernacular
association with Kaithi, 67, 182; in literature, 137-8, 177, 179; and
Bihar, 73; criticism of, 147-8; and Hindustani Academy, 198
census, 193^4; name for linguistic
continuum, 175
Hindustani Academy (Allahabad), 187,
189, 198
Hirdu, name for linguistic continuum,
175 Hitkarini Sabha (Jabalpur), 69—
71 Hoshangabad, 71 Hunter (Indian
Education) Commission,
63,68,71,76,103, 111, 133,134,
136, 140,141, 149, 198
Husain, Syed Akbar, 145
Hyderabad, 11,163

Inclusion vs. exclusion of foreign words

re Hindi, 190
India, 1,2,4,5,6, 7,9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 23,
25, 26, 36, 38, 40, 56, 74, 75, 78, 91,
93, 108, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 139,
140, 142, 148,151, 158, 161, 163, 173,
174, 175, 185, 188, 189,
190, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201
Indian National Congress, 5, 6, 140,
146, 149, 150, 156 Indigenous schools,
see Schools, indigenous
Indigenous vs. foreign, sec Foreign vs.
indigenous Indo-European language
family, 4 Internal value creation, see
Myths Islamic-heritage languages, 37,
38,40-2,
98-101

Jabalpur, 69-71
Jafar, Saiyid Abu, 105
Jawan, Kazim Ali, 28
Journalism, 17, 23, 31, 34, 42, 46, 48,
128,129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 141, 152,
153, 159, 160, 162, 163, 180; Hindi,
17, 42, 44, 46; Urdu, 42, 44, 46
Journals, scholarly, 147, 163-4, 173, 184

Kabir, 141
Kaithi script, 56, 83 n. 62, 88, 117, 130,
185,188, 198; as rival of Nagari, 12,
13,16, 18, 19,24,48, 59, 69, 177;
popularity of, 24, 48, 68, 151, 177;
prejudice against, 55, 65, 66-7, 68-9,
151,155, 181-2; in NWP, 65, 83 n.
64,84 n. 65; in Oudh, 65-6, 83 n. 64,
224 Index Leitner, Dr G. W. 92
Linguistic Provinces Commission, 5
Linguistic states 1, 5
Keatinge, Colonel R. H, 70, 72
Linguistic Survey ofIndia, 30, 144, 194,
Kedarnath, Pandit, 157 195
Khan, Asghar Ali, 105 Linguistics, in relation to study of Indian
Khan, Hamid All, 156 languages, 196
Khan, Insha Allah, 28, 29 Literary dialects, 8-10,15,16,18; see also
Khan, Kunvar Ali, 158 Avadhi, Braj Bhasha, Khari Boli,
Khan, Mahar Ali, 28 Maithili
Khan, Sir Syed Ahmed, 91, 93, 128, Lucknow, 36, 98,105, 112, 142, 143, 149,
133, 138,156, 157, 187; debate re 153, 164, 180; Urdu in, 24,30, 32, 180;
Hindi with Sandel, 129 publications in, 42-43; ami-1900
Khari Boli: shared basis of Hindi and resolution agitation in, 156-9
Urdu, 8, 23,24, 26, 28, 29, 30-31, Lucknow University, 36
103,128, 130, 154, 173,175-6,177, [Link], 11
186, 198, 199; as regional standard, 8, Lyall,C.J.,71,154
15,23,47,130,151,193,195,197,
199,200; as rival of Braj, 23,24, 33-
MacDonnell, Sir Antony, Lieutenant
7,48, 177,188-9; prose styles in, 30- Governor of the NWP&O, 65, 74-75,
31,48, 104-7; Hindustani style of, 32,
77, 117, 148-9, 150, 152, 177, 185,
104, 147-8, 177, 181, 195, 198;
186, 195; and 1900 resolution, 153-6;
Sanskritization of, 59, 73-4, 89-90, policy on Hindu-Muslim balance in
103, 107, 152, 154, 177,180, 189
government service, 123 n. 73;
Khari Boli Hindi, 13, 16, 18, 24,48,59, investigation of Hindi and Urdu in
73,100,107,130,142,151-2,154, 187- offices, 157; response to anti-resolution
8, 195, 198, 199; literature in, 9, agitation, 157-8
25,26,27-9,32,33-7,144
Khari Boli Urdu, 23,24,25, 26,28, 29,
30,33,34,59,76,103,176,187,199, 201
Khatri, Ayodhya Prasad, 30,33, 34
[Link], 104,144,147, 177,
181; novels of, 32
Khatris, 10, 136; in NPS, 143, 144
KishtTKasbTNatak, 135
Knox, Justice, 186
Koran, attack by Sohan Prasad on, 138
Kumaun, use of Nagari in, 57, 61, 110,
188,199

Lahore Government College, 92

Lai, Dr Sundat, 105, 106
Lai, Lallu, 27,28
Language and religion, see Religion and
language
Language attitudes, 7, 16, 68, 72,78, 94,
174, 175, 178, 182,188, 190,193, 194;
of British, 27, 53, 54,58, 59,62, 64,
66, 67,68,69,72, 73, 75-6; of

Indians, 47,53, 57, 60, 61, 63, 64, 70,

78, 90,91,93, 94, 102,104, 108,134,
161,177,180,195; towards Kaithi,
55,65,66-67,68-69, 151, 155, 181-2; of
NPS, 67, 147-8,181-2; towards
vernaculars, 90-94, 185
Language organizations, 11, 12,13, 16,
17, 18, 19, 180, 181, 184, 185, 193;
HSS, 13,36,89,127,146,163,185, 198;
NPS, 13,18,67,89,114,126,
127,139,141-8,163^, 183,184-5,
186,194, 199; Hindi, 68,136,
139^1,149,152; ATU, 127-8,158,
163-4, 184, 185,187, 195, 197; Urdu;
127-8,156, 158, 160-61,163-4,183,
184-5, 195, 197; Hindustani
Academy, 187, 189, 198; see also
Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu, Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan, Nagari Pracharini
Sabha
Language policy, see Government
policy
 Index
225

Madhya Pradesh, 5 Madras, Presidency 8,89,90,93,105-7,108-10,116, 128,

of, 54 Magahi, 8, 200 Mahajam, 95, 199, 130-1,134,135,140,150,151, 156,
200 Maharajahs: of Banaras, 142; of 157-8,164,182,185,186-7,
Kashmir, 143; of Rewah, 162 188, 197, 200, 201; and Urdu, 6, 10,
Maharashtra, 5,142,148,187,201 18,23,31,54,59, 64,74,78,79,89,
Maithili, 2,8, 199, 200 Malaviya, Madan 91,102,113-14,127,151,156, 157-8,159-
Mohan, 63, 115 note, 61,176,186; identification with Urdu,
131,140,141,144,149-152,156, 6,10, 15, 18,23,29,31,48,58,64,74,79,89,
160, 161, 163, 186; and Hindu Samaj, 127,134,157-8,159,173,178,187,
140-41; and NPS, 144,150,152; and 189, 201; and Persian, 10,53, 55,58,
Court Character, 149-52,159-61,194, 59,64,130-31, 176; and Hindus, 11,
195 Malayalam, 4 Manuscripts, search 12,17,23,28,29, 47,54,58,59,64,
for by ATU, NPS, 74,75,78,79,89,102-3,105,107-8, 108-
10,116,126,141,128,131,157,
127,146,164,184 Marathi,
160,164,173,176-8,180,185,187, 188-
4,25,27,35,60, 70,108,131,
9,194; and early literature, 24-5, 28-9;
142, 182, 187, 188, 199; in Fort and Islamic-heritage languages, 37-41,
William, 25, 21; influence on 157; and Arabic, 59; and
Dwivedi, 35 Mathura, 130 MaulvTs
vs. Pandits re school textbooks,
see Pandits vs. MaulvTs McLeod,
Donald, 92 Meerut, 134, 135, 154, 156;
Devanagari
Pracharini Sabha of, 136, 140, 149
Meerut Association, 134 Membership, in
voluntary organizations,
\21,128,140,141,144-6,150,177,
180 Memorandum: Court Characters,
130,
131, 194 Memorials and Petitions,
concerning
language and script, 92, 129, 130,
131,133,134,135,136,141,148-50,
153L155,156,158,162,166 n. 39 Men
AtmakahanT, 194 Metcalfe, Sir Charles,
56 Middle Class Anglo-Vernacular
Examinations, see Examinations
Middle Class Vernacular Examinations,
see Examinations Mirzapur, district,
144 Mishra, Lakshmi Shankar, 148
Mishra, Ram Narayan, NPS founder,
142-4 Misra, Rama Shankar, 103
Mishra, Sadal, 28
Mitra, Dr Rajendralal, 68
Mittra, Babu Bireshwar, 134
Mlecch, 138,139
Mohsin-ul-Mulk, support for Urdu, 157,
158
Morality and Immorality, re Hindi vs.
Urdu, 137
Morison, Theodore, 157
Morris, Judge, 56
Mudiya script, 67,199
Mughal/Muslim rule, 9,12,15, 24, 29, 53
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College,
93; Urdu support and MacDonnell
response, 157-8
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental
Educational Conference, 156,158, 197
Muharrir, 162
Muir, Sir William, 131, 132
Multi-symbol congruence 3, 7, 10, 15,
17,31,48,58,69,114,130, 132, 139,
152,159, 164,173,177, 178,182,
187,202; see also Equations
Munda script, 199,200
Murshidabad, 29
Muslim(s) /Muhammadan(s) 2,9-12,
15,23,24,25,27,47,53,58,62,69, 74-
226 Index MacDonnell, 148-9, 152-3, 153-6, 156-
8, 162, 195; personified in vernacular
literature, 136-9; and publications, 181
Hindi, 69, 78, 106,127, 129, 134, 145, Nagari writers, sponsored by NPS, 162-
161, 178, 191 n. 11; and language study, 3,181(
95-101, 113-14; identification with Nagpur, 70, 190
Urdu script, 132, 178; in vernacular National language, 5, 6, 7, 12. 175-6
dramas, 136-9; see also Equations, National Muhammadan Association, 74,
Multi-symbol congruence 108, 109
Muslim minority vs. Hindu majority, Nationalism, 1,2,5; theory of, 1-4;
see Hindu majority Hindu, 1, 11, 15, 108, 131,187-8;
Muslim University of Osmania, 164 studies of, 11-12; and Khari Boli
Muzzafarnagar, 149 Hindi, 35; Muslim, 187-8; see also
Muzaffarpur, 30 Nationality
Myths of internal value creation, 3, 4, Nationality, 1,2,4, 18, 19, 32,48, 130,
16; re language, 16,25, 94, 127,130, m,m, 141,202; see also
137,141,164,151-2,183-5 Community, Ethnic Group
Nehru,JawaharIal,5, 10, 146, 163, 198
Nagari, in sense of Hindi language and Nepal, 131
Nagari script, 22 n. 36,57, 75,132, 142, Nepali, 142
199 Nagariaur Urdu kaSvang, 136
Nagari character (script), 132;
Devanagari (Nagari) script, 8, 95,
126, 128, 129, 130, 132, 149; see also
Urdu script
Nagari PracharimPatrika, journal of
NPS, 164
Nagari Pracharini Sabha (NPS), 13, 18,
89,91,126,127, 139,141-8,152,
155,158, 173,185,186,187,199; role in
1895-1900 campaign, 18,147, 148-9,
152-3; publications of, 41.
127, 147; and Kaithi, 67, 181-2;
membership of, 89, 114, 116, 127,
140-1, 144-5, 180; finances of, 91,
145-6; and Committee on Primary
Education, 105-6; activities of, 127,
146-7; and HSS, 127, 146, 163; and
Kayasths, 127, 144-5, 153; language
attitudes of, 127, 139, 147-8, 173,
181-2, 187; myth of'Hindi' and, 127,
151-2; and Meerut Sabha, 140;
founders of, 142-4; early history of,
142-5; post-1900 efforts, 162-3;
ATU parallels, 163—4; and Nagari,
183; sources re, 194
Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Arrah,
68 Nagari script, 8-9, 16, 27,28,29,32,

57,59,67,68,76,89,91,104,118, 127-
31,133,134,148,153-6,177,
181,189,194,195,197,198,199; and
Sanskrit, 9, 16, 32,66,67, 107; versus
Kaithi script, 12, 13, 16, 24, 59,65-9,72-
5,154-5,181-2,188; and language
organizations, 13, 18, 67,126-7,135-
6,139-48,162-3, 181-3, 184-5, 198, 199;
in Bihar, 13,17,53,58-9,67-8,72-5,77,
117, 133, 156,187; in Central Provinces,
13, 17,53, 69-71, 77, 110, 117, 181,
187;inNWP&0, 13,53,
59,65,66,77,89,103,104-7, 116-17, 126,
(1900 resolution) 153-6, 186, 188;
versus Urdu script, 16,23, 53,58,68,72-
3,76,89,107, 150-2,175-6,178,179,183-
5,195, 199; in courts and offices, 18,
19,55, 57,58,59,150-1,153-6,160-1;
attitudes towards, 55,56,58,59, 66,
67,69,72,78,116-17,129,134,155, 156-
7,158-9,161,181-2,183-5; in Kumaun,
56,57, 117, 199; in S&N Territories,
56,57, 60-3,70, 155; and Bengalis, 70,
74, 182; in schools, 95; and
 Index 227

Nesfield, J. C, Oudh education official, publications in, 41, 42-5,48;

65-7,68,73,103,111,185 journalism in, 46; Urdu in, 53, 73, 77,
Nizam of Hyderbad, 163 89,98,103,134-5,154, 180; Kaithi in,
North India, 1,2, 3,4,9-11, 13, 15, 19, 65-6,68, 185; language study in,
53,54,56,57,60,75,76,78,88,89, 98,100-101
107,110,116,128,129,130,140, 141,
150, 174,181, 187, 188,200; see also Pakistan, 1, 11, 78, 128, 163, 197, 201
India Pandits vs. Maulvis re Hindi and Urdu,
North-western Provinces (NWP), 20 n. 30, 102, 103, 106
21,31, 199, 200; journalism in, 31, 45- PanjaSalaTartkh, 195
6; publications in, 37^42,43-5, 48; Partition, linguistic and political, 12, 78,
Kumaun, 56,57; Persian replacement 128, 173, 189
in, 57,59; S&N Territories, 57, 60, 62; Pathak, Shridhar, 33-6, 144
and Urdu, 59, 89, 91-2; Persianization Patna, 56, 64, 72,73,75
of Urdu in, 63-64; Kaithi in, 65; Hindi Patwariis), 65, 66,.67, 70, 83 n. 64, 84
and Nagari in, 55, 59, 89, 92; colleges n.65,95, 198,200
and universities in, 91-2, 97-8;
Permissive use of Nagari script vs.
indigenous schools in, 94-7;
exclusive use, see Exclusive use
government schools in, 98-101; Hindi-
Persian, 9, 10, 23,53,54, 65,75-76, 90,
Urdu controversy in, 128-32;
102,116,129,130,131,132,134,
associations in, 128-9; memorials and
140,151,160,163,179,181,182, 183,
petitions in, 129-33; see also North-
190, 197, 198, 199,200,201; influence
Western Provinces and Oudh, Oudh
on Urdu, 8, 9-10, 12, 23, 24,25,27-
North-Western Provinces and Oudh
9,37,63-4,78,102,154,
(NWP&O), 20 n. 21,35,56,67, 74,
75,76,78,89,93,97,116,181,194, 198,
199, 201; Braj versus Khari Boli, 34-
7, 48; publications in, 37-42, 43^15,
68; journalism in, 42, 45-6; post office
statistics, 46-7; Kaithi in, 48, 83 n. 64,
84, n. 65; Persianization in, 71,
MacDonnell, 75, 77, 148-9, 152-3,
156-8, 162, 195; Hindi-Nagari
movement in, 77,89, 118, 126, 128,
129, 133^1, 140-1, 148-53; NPS in,
89, 141-8, 152,163-4; and Hindi, 53,
91, 117; Hindu-Muslim competition
in, 108-10, education in, 98, 102,
110—16; common language policy,
104-7; vernacular dramas in, 135-9;
1900 resolution, 153-6, 156-61, 162;
ATU in, 163^1; see also North-
Western Provinces, Oudh

Objective characteristics, 2, 3, 4, 15, 17,

54,57,59,202 Official language, 30,55,
56, 62, 63, 64,
70, 88, 108, 129, 132, 150, 151, 152,
160-1; of India, 5, 6, 7; Persian, 9, 53,55,
70; Hindi, 18, 64, 70, 73, 117, 126, 140,
149, 152,182; Urdu, 18,
54,57,64,69,70,77,88,89,105, 110,126,
149, 152,201; Marathi, 70; Oriya, 70;
Telugu, 70; Bengali, 88; of the UN, 190;
see also Court language
Official Languages Act, 6
Official Languages (Amendment) Act, 6,
7
Official script, 62, 108; Nagari, 18,56,
60,61,65,67,75,117,147,149,150, 152,
156; Urdu-Persian, 18,53, 57, 70,
88,89, 152,201; Kaithi, 65, 67, 155,
198; Bengali, 88; see also Official
Language
Official vernacular, see Official language
Orientalism, in the Punjab, 92-3
Orissa, 57, 62
Oriya, 4, 70
Oudh, 9, 29, 74,76,98, 109, 111, 130,
131,134-5,141,153,154,157,158,
162,185, 197,198,199,200;
228 Index 43—4; in Hindi-Sanskrit or Sanskrit-
Hindi, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43-4; in Hindu-
heritage languages, 37, 39, 40; in
160, 175, 176, 178, 181, 195; Islamic-heritage languages, 37, 38,
replacement of, 9, 53, 54-7,58-9, 60-63, 40, 41, 42; in Persian, 37, 38, 41, 43-
67, 70, 70-71, 72-5, 129, 188; Hindu 1; in Sanskrit, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43-4;
users of, 10, 16, 18, 112, 132, 144-5; in geographical pattern of, 41-2, 48,89,
Fort William, 25-7; influence on Khari 101, 145, 180-1; of textbooks, 41; of
Boli literature, 27-32; publications, 38, NPS, 41, 127, 147, 153,184,194; of
41-44, 180; in indigenous schools, 94-7; ATU, 184
in government schools, 98-101; status re Punjab, 2, 7, 10, 15, 24, 74, 77,92-93,
vernaculars, 91,92,98, 132-3, 174-5; in 110,128,130,131,133, 141, 143, 157,
textbooks, 104-5; and public service 161, 173, 198; Urdu in, 13, 17,
requirements, 110-11; and Prasad 53,77,88,92-3, 110, 131; Hindi in,
memorandum, 130-31; in vernacular 92, 102, 141
literature, 135-7 Punjab University, 92, 93
Persian schools, 94-97, 176 Punjab University College, 92, 93
Persian script, 8, 10,53, 55-60, 66, 67, Punjabi, 2, 4, 77, 92, 133, 142
69, 76, 89, 103, 105, 106, 107, 116- Punjabi Suba, 1
18, 131,135,148, 150, 155,156, 157, Purity and impurity, re Hindi vs. Urdu,
159-61, 178, 187, 188, 199, 200, 201; 59, 67, 74,90, 134, 174, 175, 181-2,
vs. Nagari in S&N Territories, 60-63; 183, 184, 187,189
in CP, 70-71; in Bihar, 72-5; Persian
character (script), 132, 148, 154, 155
Queen Devanagari, character in Hindi
Persianization, of Urdu, 10, 23, 24,29,
drama, 65; see also 136-8
30, 31, 32, 63-1, 70-1, 75-76, 78, 102,
154, 175-7, 179, 181, 183, 187
Petitions, see Memorials and Petitions
Piggott.T. C, 105
Poetry, Hindi, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36;
Braj Bhasha, 23, 25, 33, 48, 144, 147,
177; Khari Boli, 23,25, 30, 33, 47,
144; Avadhi, 25, 28, 33, 141-2, 197;
Sanskrit, 31; Braj Bhasha vs. Khari
Boli, 33-37, 48, 177, 188-9; Marathi
influence on, 35; polemical, 135-9;
see also Hindi literature
Poetry, Urdu, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 33;
Dakani, 24; see also Urdu literature
Post office, 46-7, 109, 122 n. 62
Prakrit, 34, 39 note, 182
Prasad, Babu/Raja Shiva, 31,32, 91-2,
94, 133, 142, 178-9, 194;
Memorandum: Court Characters,
130-1
Prasad, Rajendra, 146, 163, 198
Prasad, Sohan, 136-8
Pratapgarh, 156
PremChand, 37, 177

PremSagar,21,2S
Price, Captain, 27
Prose literature, Dakani, 24; prose styles,
23,30; and Fort William, 25, 26-7,28-
9; Khari Boli Hindi, 25, 28-9, 33, 47,
89; Urdu, 28-9, 197; Bhojpuri, 33;
language of prose vs. language of
poetry, 33-36; see also Hindi
literature, Urdu literature
Provincial Text-Book Committee, 104,
148
Public Service, see Government
employment
Publications and Publishing, 23, 40, 48,
78,89, 101, 181; in Hindi, 11, 12, 13,
30,36,37,39,40,41,42,43—4,45,
48,89,91,136,139-40,142,145, 163,
179, 180; in Urdu, 11, 12, 13,
37,38,40,41,42,43-4,45,89,160, 179,
180, 195; in Fort William, 25-9;
missionary role in, 26, 29; in
Hindustani, 32; in Arabic, 37,39,41,
 Index 229

Queen's Collegiate School, 142, 143; see Dwivedi, 35; of Khari Boli, 37, 107,
also Banaras Sanskrit College Quli 177, 180, 182; of Urdu, 59,177, 181;
Qutub Shah, Sultan Muhammad, 24 anti-Sanskritized Hindi attitudes, 73^1,
76; Sanskritization of school texts, 102-
Ragbuvasa, 31 3, 104, 107, 186; and NPS, 147, 152; of
Raghuvira, Dr, 174 Bengali, 107, 182; Sanskritization as
Rai, Lala Lajpat, 141 emulation of Sanskrit, 107, 152, 181,
182, 187, 188; in eastern UP, 180-1; of
Rajah of Bhinga, 162
Gujarati, 182, 187; of Marathi, 182, 188;
Rajasthan, 5, 146 see also Persianization, Purity and
Rajasthani, 142 impurity Sarafiscript, 200 Saraswat
Rajputana, 130, 131 Brahmans, 136, 143 Saraswalf, journal,
Rajputs, 132; language study, 95-7; in 35, 36, 139, 173 Saraswati, Swami
Middle Class Exams, 112-13, 116; Dayananda, 141 Sarshar, Pandit Ratan
inNPS, 143,144 Nath, 32 Sarvadhikari, Professor Raj
Ramayana, 142 Kumar, 134 Satya Dharmavolambini
Ramcharitmanas, 142, 144 Sabha, 134, 139 Saugor and Nerbudda
Ramcharitra, 28 Territories, 57, 70, 155, 185, 188,201;
Ramnagar, 142 use of Nagari script in, 56, 60-63, 70;
Rani KetkT kt KahanT, 29 see also Central Provinces
Ray, Navin Chandra, 128
Regional standards, 7-9, 16, 23, 25, 28,
33,36,47,100,103,104,107, 117, 151,
177, 193, 195, 197-200; see also
Avadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Khari
Boli, Maithili, Magahi
Religion, 41, 110; in Middle Class Exams
statistics, 112-13
Religion and language, 1, 2, 3,4, 7, 9, 11,
15, 17,18,58,68,132,134-5,
137,159,173,175,177,178,180, 188; see
also Equations, Multi-symbol
congruence
Ripon, Lord, 74
Roberts, D. T., 154-5, 162
Rohilkhand, 154
Roman script, 55, 56,57, 175, 178
Roorkee College, 97
Rural Education Committee, 105, 106

Sadar Board of Revenue of the NWP,

re language policy, 60-65 Sadar Court
of Bengal, re language
policy, 55,58-59 Sadar Court of the
NWP, re language
policy, 55 Sadasukhlal, Munshi, 28
Sandel, Saroda Prasad, debate re Hindi
with Khan, 129
Sanskrit, 1, 10, 23, 29, 43,59, 66, 73, 90,
131, 181, 197; and Hindi, 8, 9, 12,23,26-
7,28,31,35,72,90,91, 92, 134, 137, 151,
160, 175, 178, 199; and Nagari, 9, 67,
107, 199; study of, 16,92-3,94,97,98-
100,132,141, 142, 149, 179; and Dakani,
24; in Fort William, 27; translation from,
27,28,29,31,32-3,91,141, 142; influence
on style of, 30,31-3, 35, 73, 132, 140, 148,
179; publications in, 37,39, 41, 42, 43-4,
180; and textbooks, 73, 103-5; and
Bengalis, 74; anti-Sanskrit attitudes, 74-5,
76; Sanskrit as model, 182; and
Hindustani, 195, 198 Sanskrit College, see
Banaras Sanskrit
College Sanskrit-Hindi/Hindi-Sanskrit,
see
Hindi-Sanskrit/Sanskrit-Hindi Sanskrit
schools, in Agra district c.
1845,97 Sanskritization, 32, 64, 73, 76,
78, 89, 100,108,117,151,152,175, 177,
179, 181, 182, 183, 187, 195, 198; in early
literature, 26-7, 28-31, 48, 178; and
230 Index 'Should Nagari be Introduced in the
Courts?', NPS publication, 153
Shuddh, Shuddhta, see Purity and
Schismogenesis, 189
impurity
School Final Examinations, see
Sikhs, 2; and Gurmukhi script, 77
Examinations
Singh, Babu Gadadhar, 144.
School textbooks, see Textbooks
Singh, Raja Lakshman, 31
Schools, 36, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74,
89, 106-107, 110, 114-16, 136, 148, Singh, Raja Rampal, 141, 144, 150
188, 194; language study in, 89, 98- Singh, Shiv Kumar, NPS founder, 142-4
101, 126, 176, 194; language of Singhasun Butteesee, 28
textbooks in, 102-7, 186, 187; and Social communication, 1, 2, 201, 202;
government employment, 111, 186; see also Social mobilization
and NPS membership, 127, 143-5, Social mobilization, 2, 37,41,78, 89,
164; other, 136, 140; in Malaviya's 101, 116,118; 180, 188, 201, 202; see
book and UDA reply, 150-1, 160-1; also Assimilation, Differentiation
see also Educational system, South Asia, 1,2
Examinations, Textbooks South India, 1,4, 142,201
Schools, elementary or primary, 65, 66, Soviet Union, 4, 190
68,77,98,106, 110, 150-1,160-1, 181, States Reorganization Commission, 5
186, 188 Statistics: journalism, 42, 45, 46;
Schools, indigenous, 16, 65, 66, 68, 94- publications, 42-5; post office, 46-7;
7,98, 102, 111, 114, 176, 194 indigenous schools, 94-7; government
Schools, secondary, 66,98, 110, 151, schools, 98-101; Middle Class Exams,
160, 181, 186, 188 111-15; NPS membership, 144-5
Script(s), 8, 10, 16, 19, 30-2, 47, 54-8, Stein, Dr M. Aurel, 93
62, 75-7, 88-9, 104, 108, 116, 128,
132,150-1, 153-6, 158-9,174-5, 178,
181, 185, 188, 193; Nagari, 8-9, 12,
19,24,28-9,31-2,47,53-6, 57-9, 61-3,
65-7, 76-7, 89, 91,95, 105-7, 116-18,
127-9,131-2, 134, 139,147,149,152-
6,162,175,177, 181-3, 186-7, 194-5,
197-9; Arabic, 8, 9, 197, 199-201;
Urdu-Persian, 8-10,
13,16,17,19,27,29,31,33, 53,55-
62,66-7,69-71,73-6,89, 103, 105-7,
116-18, 129-31, 135, 150,152,155-
6,160, 163,175,178, 181-3, 187, 189,
195, 198-201; Nagari and Sanskrit, 9;
Kaithi, 12-13, 16-17,24,48,53-
6,69,65-7,69,95, 147,151,155,177,
181, 185,188, 198; Nagari in Bihar,
13, 17, 67-68, 72, 77, 88, 133; Nagari
in Central Provinces, 13, 17, 69-71,
77,88, 110; Nagari in NWP&O, 13,
17, 19, 73, 75, 103, 126, 153-6, 156-
8; Gujarati, 27; Shiva Prasad and
Nagari, 31-2, 178-9; Bengali, 55, 58,
76, 88; Roman, 55-7, 175, 178;
Marathi, 60;

Kaithi in Bihar, 65, 67-8, 72, 88, 133;

Kaithi in NWP, 65; Kaithi in Oudh, 65-
6; Mundiya, 67; Gurmukhi, 77;
Mahajam, 95, 199; scripts and common
language, 104-7; scripts in vernacular
dramas; see also Arabic script, Bengali
script, Hindi character, Kaithi script,
Mudiya script, Munda script, Nagari
script, Persian script, Roman script,
Sarafiscript, Shikasta script, Urdu script
Secondary schools, see Schools,
secondary
Selections from the Vernacular
Newspapers, 194
Sen, Keshab Chandra, 141
Serampore mission, 26
Sharar, Abdul Halim, 32
Shikasta script, 150, 165 n. 13, 201
Shore, F. J., 57,66,69,70,155,185;
introduction of Nagari script in S&N
Territories by, 60-63
 inaex AiI

Strachey, Sir John, 100, 117, 132 127, 144-5; publications in, 11, 12, 13,
Sufis, contributions to early Dakani 37-8, 40-5; and education, 11,54, 89,
literature, 24 95-7,98-101, 102-7, 110-16, 180;
Surdas, 147 organizations, 12, 127-8, 156, 158, 159-
Symbols, 1, 3, 4, 11, 48, 69, 94, 108, 61, 163^1; sources in, 14, 193, 194-5;
118, 130, 164, 202; Hinduism as and differentiation, 23-4,29, 30, 33, 37,
master symbol, 3, 139; Hindi and 47-8, 68, 74, 77, 78, 89-90, 118, 132,
Nagari as Hindu symbols, 11, 16, 25, 164, 172, 175-82, 186-7; in Fort
29,37,48,59,65,68,94,107, 130, 137, William, 26-8;
141, 152, 182, 183-4, 194; Myths for and Shiva Prasad, 30-1, 130-1, 179;
Hindi, 16,25, 152; Persian and Urdu journalism in, 42, 45-6, 48; post office
as Muslim symbols, 64, 107, 128, use, 46-7; as official vernacular, 53-
137, 183^», 194; Kaithi as 59,60-63,64,69-71,72-5,77, 88-9,91,
unacceptable symbol, 65, 68; Braj as 110, 116-18, 126, 128-33, 133-5,148-
possible symbol, 69, 108; promotion 53, 154-6,156-9; association with
of by organizations, 184-5; see also Kaithi, 67; British preference for, 75-6,
Equations, Multi-symbol congruence 91, 117, 133^4; western UP and Oudh
Synthesis, cultural and linguistic, 23, stronghold, 89; as character in Hindi
177, 178, 180, 189, 190 dramas, 135-9; moral qualities of, 137,
182, 183-5; see also Educational
TahsTlt schools, 98, 99 system,
Tamil, 4, 6,25, 142
Tamil Nadu, 6, 173
Tandon, P. D., 163
Telugu, 4,5, 70, 142; in Fort William, 25
Textbooks, 19, 30, 31, 32, 41, 90, 94,
107, 116, 180, 181, 186; and Fort
William, 26-7; and NPS, 41, 127,
147; in Kaithi, 66, 68; language style
of, 73, 76, 102-7, 148, 181, 187; and
Devanagari Pracharini Sabha
(Meerut), 136; see also Publications
and Publishing
Thomason, James, 98
Thomson, A., 66
Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 15
TulsiDas,28, 141, 144
Turkish, 27

United Provinces (UP) 10, 11, 13, 15, 20

n. 21, 24, 28, 108, 148, 173, 174, 180-
2, 186, 189, 199,200, 201; Hindi
movement in, 7, 11; Kaithi in, 24;
Urdu in, 24; Braj in, 36; publications
in, 38-45, 181; journalism in, 42, 45-
6; education in, 105-7; government
policy in, 185-8, 189;
census in, 193-4; see also Northern-
Western Provinces, Oudh, North-
Western Provinces and Oudh, Uttar
Pradesh United Nations, 190 University
Entrance Examinations, see
Examinations University of
Allahabad, 93, 141 University of
Calcutta, 92, 93, 150 Urdi, name for
linguistic continuum,
175 Urdu, journal of the ATU, 163
Urdu, 2,4,5, 6,8, 17,24-5,26-9,32,
33,35,63-4,65,67, 76-7,92-3, 126,
142,163, 173-4, 187-9,190,197-9, 201;
as national language, 6, 7; high Urdu, 8;
in relation to Hindi, 8-9, 12-13, 16, 18,
23, 26-7, 28-33, 69,
73, 78-9, 107, 128-9, 132, 147-8, 160-1,
175, 190; in relation to Persian, 8-10,
23-5, 29, 30-31, 63^1,
74, 75, 175; association with past
Muslim rule, 9, 12, 15, 24,29, 53, 64;
and multi-symbol congruence, 10, 15,
48, 145, 164, 173, 177, 182, 187; social
background of supporters, 10-11,15-16,
232 Index elite
Vernacular literature, 78, 131,
missionary contributions to, 29;
Equations, Government policy, Hindi- polemical, 135-9, 177, 183-4; see also
Urdu controversy, Multi-symbol Hindi literature, Urdu literature
congruence, Publishing and Vernacular press, see Journalism
publications, Urdu literature
Vernacular publishing, see Publications
Urdu Defence Association(s), 127; of and Publishing
Allahabad, 156, 158, 159-61, 183, 195
Vernaculars, see Hindi, Urdu
Urdu-Hindi, name for linguistic
Village schools, see Schools, indigenous
continuum, 175
Virtue and Vice, re Hindi vs. Urdu, 134,
Urdu literature, 19, 23, 24, 29, 32, 76;
137,183, 184; seeabo Purity and
Dakini, 9, 24, 164; prose, 23,24-5, 26,
impurity, Foreign vs. indigenous
27, 28-9, 30, 32, 197; poetry, 24, 25,
28, 29, 30, 33; Persian influence on, Visnu Purana, 29
25, 64; missionary contributions to, Vocabulary: Hindi and Urdu contrasts 8,
26; styles in, 30-31; see also Poetry, 9,23, 24, 26-7, 28, 29, 30-31, 51, 74,
Urdu; Prose literature 88, 106, 107, 175, 176, 180, 183, 198,
Urdu-Persian tradition, 10, 18, 132 199, 201; scientific and technical, 129
Urdu script, 8,9,29,31, 117, 175, 179, Voluntary language organizations, see
181, 188, 195, 197, 198, 199, 201; in Language organizations
courts and offices, 13, 117, 149, 152,
163, 179; versus Nagari 16, 117, 131, Wali, 24
150, 178, 179, 181, 183, 195 Wellesley, Lord, 25, 26
Urdu-speaking elite, 16, 54, 59, 62, 77, Western vs. eastern U. P. re Hindi and
164; see also Vernacular elite Urdu, 180, 181 West Bengal, see
Uttar Pradesh (UP) 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, Bengal Wordsworth, William, 35 World
126, 197, 199-201 Hindi Convention, First (19/5),
190
Vaishyas, in NPS, 144 Varma, Ganga
Prasad, 105-6 Varma, Ram Krishna, 144 Yugoslavia, 175
Vernacular educational system 16, 18,
88, 110; see also Schools Vernacular Zila (district) schools, 98
elite, 177, 178, 179; see also
Hindi-speaking elite, Urdu-speaking