Politicians wax eloquent on Urdu
What began as a lament on Urdu newspapers not getting government advertisements by SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav in the Lok Sabha on Thursday turned into a full-fledged discussion on the plight of the Urdu language.
So much so that even Union ministers Mamata Banerjee, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Farooq Abdullah decided to jump into the discussion and speak about the beauty of Urdu and the need to preserve and promote the language.
None will dispute the need to give the language its due. And yet, the politics of votebank too appeared to come into play as speaker after speaker waxed eloquent on the importance of Urdu in what seemed like an attempt to reach out to the country’s largest minority group, the Muslims. With so many MPs expressing concern over Urdu newspapers no longer getting government advertisements, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who replied to the 45-minute long discussion told the House that the PM had instructed the information and broadcasting ministry to give them their due share of ads. He also said that Urdu is an integral part of the country’s heritage.
While Mulayam Singh alleged that there was a “conspiracy” to wipe off all traces of the language, the BJP’s deputy leader in the LS, Gopinath Munde said that Urdu was a language of the country and to stop ads to Urdu newspapers was wrong. In a speech laced with no less than two Urdu couplets, Mamata Banerjee described Urdu as a “very sweet language” and seized the opportunity to say that several areas of West Bengal are Urdu-speaking. She even raised the issue of reservation for the minorities stating that “we need to think of it”.
Earlier, Basudeb Acharia who belongs to the CPI-M, bitter rivals of Ms Banerjee’s party, too had demanded that Urdu be given more help. The CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta too said that the language needs to be promoted. Mr Azad pointed out that even the BJP’s deputy leader in the House had expressed support for the language and said that for implementing any government policy, the states too need to cooperate.
BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha said that Urdu belongs to all religions and in fact to humanity. He also said that the film world had contributed to the promotion and protection of Urdu.
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