Blog Archives

Language and the Legacies of Jinnah and Nehru-by Shahzaman Haque Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Source:Dailynews Nearly 70 years ago, shortly after the Subcontinent’s Partition, a politician stood before his party and delivered an impassioned speech in praise of Urdu. It “is our language,” he said, “nurtured in our country, adding to the cultural richness of our people.” But which country was that politician in, and who was he? If you answered Pakistan, where Urdu has been the national language since the country’s foundation, you would be wrong. The answer is India. And if you had assumed that the speaker was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Founder of Pakistan, that is also incorrect. In fact, the man speaking was no less a giant of Indian political history than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first post-independence Prime Minister. But despite Nehru’s advocacy for Urdu, the language’s situation in India has ...