A language war brews
Jammu and Kashmir was amongst the first states and Union Territories to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, but had been immune from the furore against the policy's three-language formula and the suspicion that it signified an 'imposition of Hindi'. But it couldn't stave off a political standoff over language for long—a recruitment notification for 75 Naib-Tehsildar posts on June 9, requiring a mandatory 50-mark Urdu test has spawned a controversy. A knowledge of Urdu is deemed essential for J&K revenue department jobs—it had been the only official language of Kashmir, and the region's centuries-old revenue, land and administrative records are in Urdu. However, the change in J&K's status from state to Union territory in 2019 also brought key changes to its domicile and land laws—in 2020, the official language list was expanded to five, with Kashmiri, Hindi, Dogri and English becoming part of it. This is the basis on which the opposition BJP is pillorying the Omar Abdullah government over the mandatory Urdu exam. Predictably, it has likened it to the sidelining of Jammu, where a majority speak Dogri, Pahari and Hindi. 'We have five languages; this looks like the prioritisation of one region over the other,' says Sat Sharma, president of the J&K BJP.
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