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Scroll.in
16-07-2025
- General
- Scroll.in
How Hindi emerged as the lingua franca of the ‘Hindi Heartland' at the cost of other languages
Ironically, Hindi, the language that gives the region its name, is its least unifying factor. After all, it was not the first, and certainly not the only language, of the people who are colloquially referred to as Hindi-bhashi or Hindi-speakers. Sadanand Shahi, who taught Hindi literature at the Banaras Hindu University, minces no words in describing this unique linguistic phenomenon: 'Hindi is nobody's mother tongue. We gave up our own languages to create a national language.' Adds Apoorvanand, who teaches Hindi literature at the University of Delhi, 'Once the British linked Hindi with employment, people surrendered their languages.' Hence, just as the evolution of Hindi as the main language of this region was a political movement, the people's identification with it as their principal language is also a political statement, as we shall see. But first, let's look at the languages of the Hindi belt. In Rajasthan, the traditional languages used to be Marwari and Rajasthani, both of which had a rich oral tradition. The well-known Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha, recipient of the Padma Shri and the Sahitya Akademi Award, insisted that even though his script may have been Devanagari, in which present-day Hindi is written (more on this later), his language was Rajasthani. Weighing in on this, Manvendra Singh says, 'The classical name for the Rajasthani language was Dingal, and within this, there were several dialects, spoken in different parts of the state.' According to him, Dingal, like Marwari, used to be written in the Mahajani script (not Devanagari), though writing was not so widespread. Madhya Pradesh also had several languages spread across its expanse, from Bundelkhandi to Gondi, with Bagheli, Malvi, Katli, and so on. In Uttar Pradesh, the spoken languages ranged from Braj, Awadhi, Banarasi, Khari Boli, and Bhojpuri to Bundelkhandi, Garhwali, and Kumaoni. Further east, in Bihar, Bhojpuri was complemented by Magadhi, Magahi, Maithili, Kuduk, and Santhali. Yet, to an outsider, they all sounded rather alike. Travelling from Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in 1869, Syed Ahmad Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University, observed, 'All the way from Allahabad to Bombay, in villages and marketplaces and trains, with government officials and peons of all departments and coolies everywhere, I conversed in Urdu – and everywhere people understood and replied in Urdu itself. With some words there was a need to explain the meaning or sometimes to state one's meaning more simply. But there is no doubt that everywhere in Hindustan the Urdu language is understood and spoken…' A similar observation was made by British linguist GA Grierson after a 30-year survey of the Indian languages, which was published in 1928. He wrote, 'It is thus commonly said, and believed, that throughout the Gangetic Valley, between Bengal and Punjab, there is one and only one language – Hindi, with its numerous dialects.' In 1937, author Rahul Sankrityayan added a nuance to what he referred to as a common language which, he wrote, 'incorporates all the languages which emerged after the eighth century AD in 'Suba Hindustan'' – the region that is bounded by the Himalayas, and by all the regions associated with the Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Oriya and Bangla languages. Its older form is called Magahi, Maithili, Braj Bhasha, etc. Its modern form may be considered under two aspects: a widely disseminated form called Khari Boli (which when written in Persian characters and with an excess of Arabic and Persian words is called Urdu), and the various local languages which are spoken in different places: Magahi, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Banarasi, Avadhi, Kannauji, Brajmandali, etc… Hence, the emergence of Hindi was the consequence of three factors. One, a desire to find unity in diversity, and a historic uninterrupted tradition of a 'national' language which could be a worthy alternative to English. Therefore, nationalist Indians converged on Hindi as a mother language with multiple 'dialects'. After all, Grierson had also validated this position. Two, a broad intelligibility among all north Indian languages, as seen above; and three, the growing Hindu–Muslim divide after 1857, which led to religious ownership of the language – Hindi for Hindus and Urdu for Muslims. These perspectives were partly correct, only because by the time these people experienced the commonality of the language, there existed linguistic syncretism in the Hindi heartland. But this was a consequence of several centuries of coexisting and collaborating. Says Apoorvanand, 'All languages spoken in the wider region of the Indo-Gangetic plains have a degree of intelligibility, but to say that they are sub-languages, or subsects of Hindi is wrong. All these languages had their own vocabulary and grammar.' In fact, 'Some of these languages – Maithili, Avadhi, Braj Bhasha and Khari Boli – have literary traditions of several centuries while others – Bhojpuri and Magahi – have rich oral folk literatures… Villagers use these to talk with merchants in nearby trading centres and with villagers from other areas. Small town residents use them as their mother tongue, while both educated and uneducated city dwellers use them at home or among friends,' writes Christopher R King. The intelligibility among the languages was the consequence of two factors. One, they all belonged to the Indo-Aryan group of languages with some commonality of vocabulary and grammar, points out author and linguist Peggy Mohan. The only exceptions here were the few tribal languages such as Gondi, Santhali, and Kuduk which were preserved by the itinerant tribes, though they did not belong to this region. Most of them traced their origin to the Dravidian lingual traditions. For instance, Neetisha Khalko, who belongs to the Kudukhar sub-tribe within the Oraon family, says her language Kuduk belongs to the Dravidian tradition. She says, 'Kuduk is similar to the language spoken in parts of the central Konkan region.' Two, as Mrinal Pande points out, 'The Hindi belt has been India's most mobile and colonised area with countless horizontal layers of linguistic cultures that the latest migrants/invaders brought. [Hence], there has been much linguistic give and take mostly through oral sources, among adjacent states.' Talking about the evolution of languages, she says, 'Language normally doesn't flood large areas it flows through. Like a slow-moving river, it keeps depositing new sediments over the old constantly along its path.' Getting into the nuances of the traditional north Indian languages, Mohan says that contrary to popular belief, the modern (regional) languages are 'not like Sanskrit and the Prakrits, though they adopted words from local Prakrits.' Consequently, she writes, 'Is it a step down for our language to be a mixed language, not really different from a creole? Shouldn't highly evolved people like us be speaking a language that is … pure?' Creole languages emerge over time by the assimilation of two or more languages. Answering her own question, Mohan further writes, 'Languages are living things, and they live in ecosystems; they are highly responsive to signals from the environment… Languages that refuse to adapt, languages that hide from the light, tend to go extinct… Finding these mixed languages blooming around us, then, is a cause for celebration.'
The Print
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Indian Muslims must face the truth—Muslim countries don't care about them
However, so long as India was under Muslim rule, it didn't really matter whether the caliph was recognised or not. But with the termination of the titular Mughal sovereignty in 1857, the Muslim ruling class found itself stranded. In order to find an ideological mooring for their adrift theo-politics, they anchored themselves in the theocratic institution of the Ottoman caliphate. The Muslim ruling class had so maintained its foreign character that this transfer of allegiance to a new overlord outside India seemed normal and caused no consternation. Rather, this instinctive reaction was understood as a default action. Since the establishment of the Mughal rule in 1526, Muslim rulers of India stopped swearing allegiance to any foreign entity, as was the practice during the Sultanate period (the reason why that period came to be known by this name), when the Sultan tacitly recognised the suzerainty of the Abbasid caliphate, which, after the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongol army led by Halagu Khan in 1258, moved to Cairo where it resided until 1527. Later, the caliphate was transferred to the Ottoman rulers of Turkey. In the political lexicon of Islam, Sultan means an autonomous governor of the caliph. The Mughals didn't recognise the new Ottoman caliphate in Turkey, and called themselves Padshah (king) instead of Sultan. West Asia has ever been on the boil, and its tumultuous events perturb Indian Muslims no end. Their attitude toward international affairs, particularly events in Muslim countries, is determined more by their religious identity and extraterritorial loyalty than by their national identity and the country's interests. The first stirrings of the newly incubated pro-Turkish sympathies became visible during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Unsurprisingly, the newly established Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College in Aligarh, the precursor to Aligarh Muslim University, chose the Turkish dress, with the distinctive Fez — the red hat with black tassel — as its uniform. This trend of associating with the Ottoman caliphate matured during the Khilafat Movement, which, in the Muslim mind, forever subordinated Indian nationalism to pan–Islamism, and also to a great extent made the Indian foreign policy sensitive to the extraterritorial loyalty of the Muslims. Indian nationalism vs pan-Islamism India's Muslim ruling class had cultivated a sense of identity that made it easier for them to associate with their foreign co-religionists than the native compatriots. Therefore, it was inevitable that Muslims diverged into pan-Islamism when the national movement emerged in India. It's true that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had been wary of the pan-Islamist ideas, and opposed its propagation by the peripatetic preacher, Jamaluddin Afghani (1838-1897). But his opposition was because of pan-Islamism's anti-British edge — and Sir Syed was a British loyalist — rather than any thought for Indian nationalism, which he had contested. What's known as global Islam or Ummah today was, in the late 19th and early 20th century, termed pan-Islamism. Contrary to what the terminology conveys — an ideology encompassing and shared by the entire Islamic world — it actually denoted the political attitude of Indian Muslims who, though domiciled in India, sought the meaning of their existence in belonging to the global Muslim community. India was incidental to their worldview. They were born here, but belonged elsewhere. What affected them the most, at the deep emotional and psychological level, were the affairs of the Muslim world. Their politics was decided not so much by what was happening in India, but by what happened in Turkey and the Arab world. It's telling that one of the strongest mobilisations of Indian Muslim opposition to British rule emerged not over Swaraj, but the fate of the Ottoman caliphate in Turkey. More on that later. Pan-Islamism began as a sentiment and a political attitude, and acquired the strappings of a well–expounded ideology through the writings of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who went on to become one of the foremost nationalist leaders. The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and the setbacks suffered by the Ottoman Empire caused a great deal of despondency among Indian Muslims. Azad started an Urdu weekly, Al Hilal (the Crescent), in 1912 to rouse Muslims against the British, who were accused of being complicit in the defeat of Turkey. The government forced it shut in 1914, and Azad started another weekly, Al Balagh, in 1915, which, too, was shut before long. These two journals crystallised Indian Muslims' pan-Islamism as an ideology and a political movement, which touched the apogee with the Khilafat Movement, which, in turn, so institutionalised separatism as a religious creed as to make the Partition inevitable. Also read: Indian Muslims are hiding their dowry practice in a Sharia loophole Fallacy of Ummah The Khilafat Movement, the strongest pan-Islamist venture of Indian Muslims, was a strange phenomenon whose weird legacy has never ceased to haunt Indian politics. It was strange because even though Indian Muslims wanted to save the Ottoman caliphate of Turkey, the Turks themselves were not in favour of its continuance, and abolished it in 1924. Indian Muslims wanted the Arabian peninsula, which contains Islam's holiest sites, to remain under Turkish control. But the Arabs wanted independence from them, which they eventually achieved after a successful revolt during the First World War. Indian Muslims were in a world of their own. They did not know what the Turks or the Arabs wanted. And when they belatedly came face to face with the facts, they were more shocked at the 'un-Islamic' behaviour of them both than embarrassed at their own quixotic pursuit. They begged the Turks not to abolish the caliphate, and the Arabs not to secede from the Ottoman Empire, but they couldn't admit that they had been chasing the chimera of Islamic unity. One wonders why they wouldn't see their own folly, the flawed understanding, and the faulty assessment, which led themselves up the garden path, despite being so manifestly wrong. Was it because, in their mind, they made no mistake in pursuing an ideal? Or, deep in heart they knew that the Khilafat Movement wasn't so much in support for the Turks as for asserting the Muslim power in India? MK Gandhi failed to understand this nuance of collective psychology when he adopted the Khilafat issue in order to win over Muslims. Delusion of dual identity Elucidating how Indian Muslims had two separate identities — one as Indian and another as Muslim — which were neither coterminous nor overlapping, and only had a minor intersection at the margin, Mohammad Ali (1878-1931), the iconic leader of Khilafat Movement, said this while attending the first Round Table Conference in London in 1930: 'I belong to two circles of equal size, but which are not concentric. One is India, and the other is the Muslim world… We as Indian Muslims belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 millions, and we can leave neither.' It's surprising that in Mohammad Ali's conceptualisation, the Muslim circle existed outside the Indian circle. Why couldn't the Muslim exist within the Indian, and be concentric with it? Don't other communities, even non-Hindu ones, exist within the Indian circle? Don't they find full scope of their spiritual and material growth here, without seeking to belong to another circle of their foreign co-religionists? Does any other religious community anywhere in the world identify itself with their foreign co-religionists more than their native compatriots? In Mohammad Ali's conception, it was the Muslim circle that expanded into India and made this country a part of the Islamic dominion. Therefore, Indian Muslims represented the global Ummah in India rather than being primarily Indian. But, as I said earlier, pan-Islamism was less about the idealistic association of Indian Muslims with the Muslims of the world, and more about dissociation from fellow Indians. It was just a fancy word for communal separatism. In both concept and operation, pan-Islamism amounted to anti-nationalism. The most emblematic shift from Indian nationalism to pan-Islamism could be seen in how poet Allama Iqbal overwrote the immortal lines of the poem, Tarana-e Hindi (Anthem of India), Saare jahan se achha Hindustan hamara, Hum Bulbulein hain iski, yeh Gulsitan hamara, with Cheen-o Arab hamara Hindustan hamara; Muslim hain hum watan hai, sara jahan hamara in a later poem, Tarana-e Milli (Anthem of Muslim community). Foreign policy as politics of appeasement If Indian Muslims related to the global Ummah not merely as Muslims but very much as Indians, the national interest should have remained paramount in their discourse. However, their Ummah fixation made India subserve interests of others without a care for its own. What began as a movement to save the caliphate set the template for India's foreign policy for the next hundred years. The pro-Ummah stance became our default mode wherever a Muslim country was involved. What was ostensibly a principled position in solidarity with the developing countries was actually a concession to the sentiments of Indian Muslims. Its most glaring example is Gandhi's stand on the Arab-Jewish problem in Palestine. He refused to see the Jewish point of view despite persistent pleadings of his Jewish 'soulmate', Hermann Kallenbach (1871-1945), who had earlier donated 1,100 acres of land to him in South Africa where he established the Tolstoy Farm. In the 26 November 1938 issue of Harijan, Gandhi published an article on this subject that not only set India's stand on Palestine in stone, but also decided forever the contours of our foreign policy with regard to Muslim countries. Though he explained his position in moral terms, it was a strategic choice by which he wanted to win Muslims over to the cause of the national movement. His hopes remained unfulfilled. Also read: A new Indian Islam must rise—and it must start by questioning the Muslimness of terrorists Unrequited love While India always took a pro-Arab and pro-Muslim stand in almost all international conflicts, these countries seldom ever sided with us in our ongoing problems with Pakistan; and, on the issue of Kashmir, they speak the same language as Pakistan. In fact, they speak of Palestine and Kashmir in the same breath, thus identifying India as their enemy much like Israel. Since India has been conducting pro-Muslim diplomacy in order to appease its own Muslim minority, it was for Indian Muslims to feel indignant at the anti-India behaviour of Muslim countries. But, no. They see nothing amiss in this arrangement where India sides with them without any expectation of reciprocation. They take it as their entitlement as an appeased minority that India should remain in the service of Islam. Arab disdain for Indian Muslims What's interesting is that Muslim countries don't even care for Indian Muslims. They don't even regard them as Muslim proper; and don't have the mind to indulge in the semantic quibble of Hindi and Hindu; and, more often than not, don't differentiate between the two. As if that wasn't enough indifference, they haven't even offered India a seat on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-country strong body. India is home to over 20 crore Muslims, the third-largest Muslim population, and 11 per cent of the total Muslims in the world. Without India, the OIC's claim to be 'the collective voice of the Muslim world' that works to 'safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony' will remain hollow. Two circles or one? One in every ten Muslim is an Indian, and yet they don't have a seat on the OIC. Strangely enough, this disregard and denial of representation on the Islamic world's most representative body doesn't even rankle with Indian Muslims, as it should, particularly because they regard themselves primarily as part of the global Ummah. The situation acquires added piquancy when we recall Indian Muslims' loud accusation of discrimination against the Indian political system for not facilitating their representation in Parliament and Assemblies in proportion to their population. So, how could they be so unconcerned about the denial of representation in one of the two circles to which they claim to belong? Surely, there is something amiss, and they need to revisit their pet concepts about circles of belonging. There is only one way for Indian Muslims to be respected in the Muslim world: be Indian above all, and situate your Muslimness within Indianness. You belong to one circle, not two; and you have no other destiny besides Indian. Ibn Khaldun Bharati is a student of Islam, and looks at Islamic history from an Indian perspective. He tweets @IbnKhaldunIndic. Views are personal. Editor's note: We know the writer well and only allow pseudonyms when we do so. (Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
Time of India
04-07-2025
- Science
- Time of India
India's rare-earth doping breakthrough hints at future of energy storage
New Delhi: Indian scientists have engineered a new energy storage material that demonstrated 118 per cent energy retention and 100 per cent coulombic efficiency , marking a major development in supercapacitor performance. The breakthrough has been achieved by researchers at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bengaluru, in collaboration with Aligarh Muslim University. The research team, led by Dr Kavita Pandey at CeNS — an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology — used silver niobate (AgNbO₃), a lead-free material, as the base and introduced lanthanum doping to improve performance. According to the findings, the addition of lanthanum, a rare-earth element, improved the electronic conductivity of the material and reduced particle size, increasing surface area available for energy storage. The doped material retained 118 per cent of its initial capacity after repeated use and achieved 100 per cent coulombic efficiency, with no loss of energy during charge-discharge cycles. A prototype asymmetric supercapacitor developed using the new material was able to power an LCD display. The research has been published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds. 'This research demonstrates the potential of lanthanum doping as a method to tailor silver niobate for high-performance supercapacitors,' the research paper stated. The study highlights the role of rare-earth doping in improving the properties of silver niobate nanoparticles for electrochemical energy storage. The team said future research would explore doping strategies in other perovskite materials and focus on scaling up lanthanum-doped silver niobate for commercial use.
New Indian Express
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
The restored adaa of Umrao Jaan
It's part of cinema's lore that she charged you R1 for the film. It's a big gesture. I don't think she has done that for any other film. These are matters of the heart. She had set her heart on the role and she didn't want to put a price to it. What was the kind of preparation you had to do for a Bollywood detox when she was doing Umrao Jaan? She did have her trademark maroon lipstick on in many frames. All I had done and I did, was to get her absorbed into the character, and the layers that needed to go under the character. It's like entering into an ocean, and when the ocean is ready for you, and every little wave is there to receive you, then you find it very difficult to come out of it. So, Rekha got into it through poetry. I think poetry was her biggest embrace, and it was something that I had worked on for at least a year before anything else. The poetry was the intangible screenplay of the film. And the poetry took its own sweet time to bloom—it didn't happen suddenly, you know. So, I was living here in Juhu. Khayaam saab (Umrao Jaan's music director) was also in Juhu (Mumbai). Shahryar saab (head of the Urdu department at Aligarh Muslim University), who did the lyrics for both Umrao Jaan and Gaman, used to come and stay with me here in this house. So, that way we were a trio trying to create a world within a world and nobody knew what was going on in our heads. It's only when you come out of the recording studio that you realise a child is born, and how beautiful and perfect that child is.
India.com
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
Happy Birthday Shivam Dube: Inside The CSK Star's Love Story With Model Wife Anjum Khan
photoDetails english 2922216 Indian cricketer Shivam Dube, known for his explosive performances with Chennai Super Kings and Team India, is also admired for his heartwarming love story with wife Anjum Khan. A model, actress, and voice-over artist with a fine arts degree from Aligarh Muslim University, Anjum married Shivam in 2021 despite religious differences. Their interfaith wedding celebrated both Hindu and Muslim traditions. The couple has two children—a son, Ayaan, and a daughter, Mehwish. Despite facing social media criticism, their bond remains strong. Anjum maintains a private life, with her net worth estimated at ₹1–2 crores, and continues to inspire with her grace. Updated:Jun 26, 2025, 07:51 AM IST 1. Anjum Khan: A Model, Actor & Voice Artist With Fine Arts Roots 1 / 20 Anjum Khan holds a degree in fine arts from Aligarh Muslim University and has appeared in Hindi TV serials, music videos, and even worked as a Bollywood voice-over artist. 2. Shivam Dube's Wife Is 7 Years Older Than Him 2 / 20 Anjum Khan, born in 1986, is seven years older than her husband Shivam Dube—a rare dynamic in celebrity marriages that fans find both unique and empowering. 3. A Love Story That Defied Religious Boundaries 3 / 20 Despite coming from different religious backgrounds—Hindu and Muslim—the couple's interfaith marriage has become a symbol of love triumphing over societal norms and online criticism. 4. They Had a Dual-Culture Wedding in 2021 4 / 20 Shivam and Anjum tied the knot in a private ceremony on July 16, 2021, incorporating both Hindu and Muslim rituals—celebrating unity in diversity, just like India's spirit. 5. Anjum Khan's Net Worth Is Estimated at ₹1–2 Crores 5 / 20 According to reports, Anjum's current net worth falls between ₹1 to ₹2 crores, thanks to her work in modeling, acting, and voiceover artistry in the entertainment industry. 6. The Couple Has Two Children—A Son & A Daughter 6 / 20 Shivam and Anjum welcomed their first child, Ayaan, in 2022, and their daughter Mehwish in January 2025—completing their picture-perfect family of four. 7. They Met Through a Mutual Friend 7 / 20 Their relationship began like many modern romances—through a mutual connection—and gradually evolved into a long-term commitment rooted in shared values and deep understanding. 8. Shivam Dube Balances Stardom With Fatherhood 8 / 20 While Dube continues his stellar run in the IPL and for Team India, he remains a hands-on father and husband—often sharing glimpses of his family life on Instagram. 9. Anjum Chooses Privacy Over Public Glamour 9 / 20 Unlike most celebrity wives, Anjum Khan keeps a low profile, rarely making media appearances despite her entertainment career—reflecting a conscious choice to stay grounded. 10. Their Story Is Sparking Viral Searches Across India 10 / 20 With rising searches for 'Shivam Dube marriage photos', 'Anjum Khan age', and 'Shivam Dube wife background', their journey continues to captivate fans and trend on Google. 11 / 20 12 / 20 13 / 20 14 / 20 15 / 20 16 / 20 17 / 20 18 / 20 19 / 20 20 / 20
