By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ranchi: Urdu is the second state official language of Jharkhand. But if you happened to be at the Ranchi book fair that ended on Tuesday, you would say I am trying to befool you. The reason: you would not have found a single book of Urdu literature in Urdu script despite being its official importance.
Though, it was not a book fair like Delhi’s book fairs but there were around more than two dozen book stalls. And needless to say, there was no special stall of Urdu literature. Even the stall of National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) was missing. What was the most surprising, even the Jnanpith Academy publication, whose one of the main objectives is to promote Indian languages, did not have any Urdu books at their stall. Moreover, there was not a single work of Shaharyar, a renowned Urdu poet and literary figure who won the prestigious Jnanpith Award for the year of 2008 last month, at the stall. In the name of Urdu literature, publishers had books of Urdu poetry and prose in devnagiri script. Is that going to help Urdu in Jharkhand, which took 8 years of constant struggle to make it second official language of the state, one might wonder?