By Mohd Ismail Khan, Twocircles.net,
Hyderabad: Honourable Vice-president of India Mr. Mohammad Hamid Ansari inaugurated the much awaited world Urdu editors’ conference in Hyderabad. In his speech VP noted that, with the country’s partition the Urdu language too suffered a partition; since then there has been a serious decline in the number of Urdu language readers. Taking this factor in to consideration, he urged the Urdu media to attract younger generation towards the language because they were the ones lucky to get away from the pain of the partition, and he hoped this would be the key for the survival of Urdu language.
He urged the Urdu editors to keep their personal bias aside while reporting and asked journalists and editors not to have political affiliations as it could hamper their credibility.
Vice-president during his speech quoted a very inspiring shaheri, which enthralled the audience. Thanking the organizers of the conference for the invitation, he said that Hyderabad and its culture have played an important role in the welfare and promotion of Urdu language.
Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan made a fair attempt to deliver a speech in Urdu, he started his speech by a famous sheir of Urdu Poet Dagh, “sare jahan mein dhum hamre zaban ki hai”, which was welcomed by the audience with applauds. In his short speech he urged the Urdu editors to work for the peace and harmony of the society and not to indulge in partisan reporting. He added that Urdu media have a big and important responsibility of bridging the gap between the communities.
The first day of the conference was divided into two sessions. The first session included exhibition of old vintage Urdu news papers from the early 20th century, and the exhibition of Khattati art work in Urdu by artists from Hyderabad. By around the end of the first session, a face to face programme with Urdu editors and the audience took place.
The vintage old news papers exhibition was the main attraction to most, the vintage and historic Urdu news papers put on exhibition includes newspapers like ‘Dehli’ 1851, ‘Asafi’ 1887, ‘Azad’ 1900, ‘Dabdaba-e- Sikandari’ 1901, ‘Al –Hilal’ 1931, ‘Hamdard’ 1922, ‘Rehbar-e- Deccan’ 1922, ‘Hakheekhat’ 1923 and ‘Subah Deccan’ 1938. The Khattati exhibition was also crowded by the visitors as they were witnessing different style of Hyderabadi Khattati writings in different languages like Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and even Hindi.
The face to face programme with the Urdu editors was attended by many who were curious to know the opinion and experience of Urdu editors from different parts of the world. A rich tribute was paid to Maulavi Mohammed Baqer, the first journalist assassinated in the freedom struggle by the British, being tied down to the canon and blown up.
The first Urdu editor to speak was Vijay Kumar Chopra, editor of ‘Punjab Kesari. He said that before the partition Urdu was the main language of Punjab irrespective of the religion but soon after the partition the Urdu lost its prominence in the state. He later shared his own struggles to keep the prices of his news paper low, despite his readership decreasing from 100,000 to 30,000 recently. He added that Urdu is the sweetest language on the earth and so expressed his optimism that the language will survive and for that he said we will have to attract the new generation.
The second personality to speak on the occasion was Mehmood Shaan, a renowned Urdu journalist, poet and writer from Pakistan. He had a career span of around 50 years in Urdu journalism. He worked in many news papers like Jung, Express, and the dawn; besides he is the chairman of AB publishing group. He said acknowledging India’s efforts in promoting Urdu language, that “India has surpassed Pakistan in promoting Urdu language”.
He said “in our country govt have promised to allot 27 lakh rupees annually for the promotion of Urdu language, but till now it is able to sanction only 5 lakh rupees annually. In India govt allots five crore rupees annually for the promotion of Urdu language”. He pointed out the role of Urdu as one uniting factor, he says Pakistan is still an integrated state despite its volatile federalism, is only because of Urdu and Urdu can play a major rule in building bridges between India Pakistan in a similar way.
Then the chairman of the conference organizing committee and editor of Siasat Urdu daily Zahid Ali Khan expressed his views as the editor of an Urdu daily, he said before our independence Urdu journalism started as a movement against the British Raj, but soon after the independence it turned out to become a mere business. He urged young Urdu enthusiasts, writers and poets to change the face of the society by their writings; he hoped they will soon be a social tool for change.
He said Urdu is a language with lots of diversities, Urdu news papers are printed from 19 states within the country; till Urdu is not regarded as a national language and this is because Urdu as a movement has lost its way and the revival of the language is completely dependent on the revival of the Urdu movement.
The first session ended by around 1:00pm, and then there was a break for the lunch and Friday prayers. The second session was a bit delayed because the Vice-president’s flight was not on time, and it started by 3:30pm when the vice-president Mohammad Hamid Ansari along with governor of Andhra Pradesh ESL Narasimhan and the Minister of civil supplies Sridhar Babu arrived at the jubilee hall.
Second session started with Mr. Amir Ali khan’s [News editor of Siasat] welcome address to all the dignitaries on the stage. Mehmood Shaan was the first to deliver speech on the second session. He started his speech by wishing Salaam, from the part of Pakistanis to all in Hyderabad; he acknowledged the role played by Hyderabad in promoting Urdu language and culture. He pointed out that Osmania university of Hyderabad was the first Jamia of Urdu in the world.
He said Urdu could have been the most popular language in the world but the fact is that it is the most oppressed by all other languages. He said in his country there are 60 Urdu news channels and many Urdu news papers, the owners of this Urdu media are getting richer day by day but the language is getting poorer every day. He said he is happy to see that the enthusiasm for the Urdu among the youth is increasing.
The next to speak was the editor of Siasat, Zahid Ali khan; he started his speech by criticizing the Indian state for having a prejudice attitutde towards Urdu. He said Urdu might well be the national language of Pakistan but Urdu has its speakers and readers mostly from India. He stressed that Urdu should not be communalised as it is not a language of a particular religion and gave examples of leaders and writers like, Kushwant Singh, Premchand Munshi, IK Gujral, VP Singh, and Dr Manmohan Singh, who are masters in Urdu language. He told the audience that last time when he meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he told him that he owned a few letters written by his mother in Urdu language. He then urged the government of India and especially govt of AP to provide adequate funds to the Urdu academies.
The Vice-president and the Governor after their speech left the conference to inaugurate a seminar on the Islamic art and culture in Moulana Azad National Urdu University. Today evening the conference is going to be concluded and the chief guest will be the former chief minister of AP, N Chandra Babu Naidu.