Javed Akhtar addresses the notion of Urdu being a Muslim language; says 'This was done by the Britishers to create a cultural difference'
Lyricists Javed Akhtar talks about Urdu being a Muslim language and Hindi being a Hindu language. He shares how languages cannot be divided.
Writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar is quite open about his thoughts. He always gives his opinions on important topics. Now, he has once again spoken about Hindi and Urdu being the language of Hindus and Muslims respectively. He has slammed such thinking and said that there is nothing like one being a Hindu language and the other being a Muslim language. He said that languages come from region and not from religions and that it is wrong to say that Urdu is not an Indian language. The lyricist was there at the India International Centre where he spoke about the same. He added that one cannot blame governments over the years for the erasure of the Urdu script because the people who consider themselves to be the custodians of their culture have not done a good job in giving the right knowledge.
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Javed Akhtar says the Britishers created the cultural differences
He further shared that 200 years ago, Hindi and Urdu were equal but due to political reasons they got separated. One would not be able to differentiate if a poem was written by a Hindi poet or an Urdu poet. He shared, "This was done by the Britishers to create a cultural difference in north India."
He further said that if Urdu is a Muslim language then about the 10 crore Bengalis in the East Pakistan. He shared that Malayalam writers like Muhammad Basheer used to write in Urdu. He also said that in the Middle East, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan people do not speak Urdu but it is being spoken in the Indian subcontinent.
Javed Akhtar believes languages cannot belong to any religion
He also said added that before India and Pakistan split it was all Hindustan only. He said that similar to this, Hindi is not just the Hindu language. "All this is nonsense. Languages cannot belong to a religion. They belong to regions, "he added.
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He explained that land can be divided but language cannot be divided. The lyricist went on to say that many of the words that are used now were adopted because there was no logical substitute for them. He concluded, "Why am I writing in Hindustani? Because I am writing for Hindustan. I'm not writing for Urdu speakers or Hindi speakers."