By Tarique Anwar, TwoCircles.net,
Patna (Bihar): The exclusion of Urdu language from the proposed syllabus for higher secondary schools in the state has earned the Nitish Kumar government criticism from the community with MLC Tanveer Hasan raising the issue in Bihar Legislative Council on 25th July.
Raising the issue in the upper house Tanveer Hasan said the move exposes a conspiracy of the government against Urdu. In an encounter with TwoCircles.net he said that on one hand the government constitutes Urdu Advisory Committee to promote Urdu language in the state and on the other hand it is trying to root out it excluding it from basic education — Matriculation and Intermediate.
Chairman of Bihar School Examination Board, Dr AKP Yadav, has sent a proposal of new syllabus as per Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to the government for consideration. In the proposed syllabus Urdu has been excluded from language and literature. Previously students of intermediate (10+2) had the choice to opt any one of the compulsory language and literature paper which includes Urdu, Hindi, English, Bengali and Matheli. But the board has revised the syllabus and tried to adopt CBSE syllabus which is bi-lingual.
Several attempts by TwoCircles.net to talk to Yadav on the issue failed.
Govt Urdu Library in Patna
The question arising here is: what will be the need of Urdu Academy, Anjuman Taraqui Urdu Bihar, and Urdu Advisory Committee when our new generation will not know the language, Hasan said. He lambasted the Bihar Minority Commission for being a mute spectator on the issue.
With this move, the government wants to end posts of Urdu teachers in secondary and higher secondary schools, Hasan said.
If the government did not take any notice on this issue he said he would launch a massive agitation to get the language included in the syllabus as before.
It should be noted that Urdu is the second official language of the state.
TwoCircles.net also talked to Prof. Abuzar Kamaluddin, former vice chairman of Bihar Intermediate Education Council, and presently Principal of MS College in Motihari. As far as teaching of Urdu is concerned, he said, a systematic education system is needed. Only the constitution of higher committees in the name of the development of Urdu is fruitless when the language will not taught at primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. Sign boards and bill boards in Urdu will not make any change.
The remarkable thing here is that the proposal for the removal of Urdu from the syllabi ironically coincides with the formation of Urdu Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of noted Urdu scholar Dr Kalim Ajiz.
Prof. Kamaluddin is not in favour of merger of Bihar Intermediate Council into Bihar School Examination Board. The matter should first be tabled in the state Assembly and should be implemented after getting passed from the house, he said.
On the proposed syllabus for higher secondary he said that the Board has prepared a capsule of 16 subjects including science, arts and commerce and the students have been directed to choose any three subjects. As per proposed syllabus a student of science major can select history or other paper. This is very impractical approach, he told TwoCircles.net.
On education system in Bihar he said Urdu has not been taught at primary, secondary and higher secondary levels in the state, but it is taught in college. How a student can take this paper if he or she does not know to read or write the language, he asked.
He advised Muslim representatives and concerned organization to raise this issue.