THE HINDI-URDU CONTROVERSY OF THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH

AND COMMUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Author(s): Christopher King
Source: Journal of South Asian Literature , FALL-WINTER-SPRING-SUMMER 1977-1978,
Vol. 13, No. 1/4, MISCELLANY (FALL-WINTER-SPRING-SUMMER 1977-1978), pp. 111-120
Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40873494

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Christopher King

THE HINDI-URDU CONTROVERSY OF THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES

AND OUDH AND COMMUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Language as tools for communal

politics

Hindu-Muslim communalism forms one of the great themes of modern Indian history.
It appeared in a wide variety of intermeshing forms - political, economic, social,
religious, and linguistic - which not only expressed but also intensified it. While
many studies have focused on the political aspects of communalism, fewer have focused
on its other aspects, particularly the linguistic. This study seeks to redress the
balance to a small extent by describing and analyzing some of the major features of
the Hindi-Urdu controversy and its role in the development of communal consciousness in
the nineteenth-century North-Western Provinces and Oudh.

In any communal movement, opposing groups seize upon a wide variety of symbols
to emphasize their differences. In many cases symbols formerly accepted by all the
groups concerned become the focus of intense controversy. What was once unquestioningly
accepted becomes vociferously challenged on the one hand, or tenaciously defended on
the other. Symbols in communal movements differ in one important way from ordinary
symbols. The latter need not bear any essential relationship to whatever they represent.
Such symbols as musical notes or letters, for example, show little resemblance to the
concrete realities they represent. Communal symbols, on the other hand, do not come
from conscious, rational decisions for theoretical purposes, but rather grow organically
out of historical situations, and form part of the very things they stand fpr.

In the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Urdu and the Urdu script, and Hindi and
the Nagari script, became such communal symbols in the second half of the nineteenth
century and remained as such up to independence and beyond. Nowhere else in British
India did the linguistic aspect of communalism reach such intensity during the nineteenth
century. In Bihar and the Central Provinces, the Nagari script (or its variant, Kaithi)
became established as the official vernacular script in the 1880 f s with minor opposition.
In the Punjab, Urdu remained un threatened all through our period. Raj putaña saw little
linguistic controversy until the 1900 fs. The Hindi-Urdu controversy began on the pro-
vincial level in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, and expanded to the national
level in the twentieth century.

Before proceeding further, let us briefly review some of the salient facts about
the languages and scripts concerned. Hindi and Urdu shared (and share) a common grammar
based on the regional Hindi dialect, Khari Boli, of the western North-Western Provinces
and Oudh. Only insignificant differences, such as the use of Arabic plurals in formal
Urdu or the use of Sanskrit suffixes in Hindi, separated the two on this level. Greater
differences appeared in their respective vocabularies. Here several styles fell along
a spectrum ranging from a highly Sanskritized Hindi at one end to a highly Persianized
and Arabicized Urdu at the other. Somewhere between the two extremes lay a style which
came to be known as Hindustani. The greatest and most irreconcilable difference between
the two manifested itself in their scripts. It would be difficult to imagine two more

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diverse writing systems. Each makes its own unique visual impact. The Nagari
script marches across the page from left to right in chunky blocks accompanied by
a nearly continuous horizontal line above each word. The Urdu script, a modified
version of the Persian script, itself a modified version of the Arabic, flows
across the page from right to left in a series of graceful loops and curves
accentuated by long connecting lines. Moreover, the basic principles underlying
each script contrast markedly; the Nagari gives nearly equal importance to both
vowel and consonant, the Urdu primary importance to the consonant. Finally, each
script is associated with the sacred languages of separate religions, the Nagari
with Sanskrit, the language of Hindu scriptures, the Urdu with Arabic, the language
of the Koran.

The literary history of Hindi and Urdu also showed considerable divergence.
Both prose and poetry in Urdu existed decades before corresponding developments in
Hindi, and if one includes Dakkhini as a form of Urdu, then centuries before. Prose
literature in Dakkhini can be traced to as early as the fourteenth century, and poetic
literature to the sixteenth.-'- In Urdu itself, both prose and poetry began to
into their own around the start of the eighteenth century. 2 Even the most
historians of Hindi literature, however, can adduce no more than a handful of prose
creations before 1800. In the first half of the nineteenth century, prose in Hindi
received considerable stimulus from the activities of Fort William College, the
translations of missionaries, and the efforts of educational societies. It did not
develop rapidly, however, until the second half of the century. Poetic literature
in Hindi did not appear until the 1880fs, and did not achieve full literary recognition
until the Chhayavad or "Symbolist" movement of the 1920 fs.3

Just as Urdu preceeded Hindi in the literary world, so it antedated it in the

administrative world. During the 1830 f s the East India Company replaced Persian, until
then the official language, with English on the higher levels of administration and
local vernaculars on the lower. ^ In the North-Western Provinces and elsewhere
India, this meant that Urdu took the place of Persian. 5 The change, as cont
records make clear, produced little dislocation, for the script remained nearly
identical. As for vocabulary and style, they too remained "little distinguished from
Persian," as one British official wrote, "excepting in the use of Hindee verbs, particles,
and inflections."^ Except for a few areas (such as the hill districts of the
Western Provinces) the Nagari script failed to achieve official recognition in govern-
ment courts and offices.

Prior to the I8601 s , linguistic symbols played no role in either expressing or

creating communal consciousness. A striking confirmation of this appeared in an 1847
report by Dr. J. R. Ballantyne, then Principal of the English Department of Benares
College. He had decided to improve the style of Hindi written by students of the
Sanskrit Department. When his repeated efforts met with little success, he lost his
patience and directed the students to write an essay on the question: "Why do you
despise the culture of the language which your mothers and sisters understand?"
Ballantyne1 s impassioned plea produced a puzzled response. One of the most intelligent
students startled his teacher by replying that he and his fellow students did not
clearly understand what Ballantyne meant by Hindi. There were hundreds of dialects,
he noted, all equally entitled to the name of Hindi. Unlike Sanskrit, no generally
accepted standard existed. Moreover, what Ballantyne called Hindi woul
merge into Urdu, nor could he and his companions see any great cause of regret in this.
In view of the fact that Benares later became one of the major centers for the propaga-
tion of Hindi and the Nagari script, the students1 views seem ironic indeed!

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Two decades later, however, linguistic symbols had come into being. In 1868,
for example, Babu Shiva Prasad of Benares, a prominent official in the Department
of Public Instruction, published a memorandum dealing with the question of the proper
script for government courts. 10 Herein he asserted that the Hindi language an
had been in general use when the Muslims had taken control of India. They had not
taken the trouble to learn Indian languages, but had instead forced many Hindus to
learn Persian. Outside the courts and the cities, however, the masses had still
carried on their business in Hindi, and those Hindus "who did not . . . seek to gain
the favour of the Muhammadans by becoming . . . half Muhammadanized,11 wrote S
Prasad, "still valued Hindi works." Many Persian words had found their way into
Hindi, giving rise to a new mixture of languages known as Urdu, or "semi -Persian."
The study of Persian and Urdu threatened Hindu nationality, and only the substitution
of Hindi for Urdu in the courts could undo the evil already done.H

For the rest of the century the controversy between the supporters of Hindi and
Urdu flared up and died down only to flare up again. It reached a peak during the visit
of the Hunter Commission in 1882, but no changes in British language policy resulted.
It reached a greater peak in the very last years of the century, culminating in a
decision by the Government of Sir Antony MacDonnell in 1900 to grant the Nagari script
an official status equal to that of the Urdu in certain respects. 13 Throughout this
period, a great deal of polemical literature appeared in both the English and the
vernacular press; in petitions and memorials addressed to the provincial government,
the Government of India, and the Hunter Commission; and in pamphlets, plays, journals,
and monographs in Hindi, Urdu, and English.

What took place between the 1840 f s and I8601 s to rouse such extended controversy?
The answer lies in several closely related processes. First, the rapid expansion of
the government educational system on the primary and secondary levels, beginning in
1850' s , brought into being a class of thousands of Indians educated in either Hind
Urdu who looked to government service for their livelihood. The usual emphasis of
historians on the influence of English education can easily lead one to overlook the
great importance of vernacular education. By the late 1880?s, for example, the annual
Middle Class Vernacular and Anglo-Vernacular Examinations, first prescribed as necessary
qualifications for public appointments in 1877, had come to be the most important
educational events for large numbers of candidates with a vernacular rather than an
English education. 1^

At the same time, the demand for school texts began to mushroom, and writing and
publishing them began to become a profitable business. For example, in 1868 nearly an
eighth of all published works reported appeared in the form of a Hindi primer issued
in 100,000 copies. I5 Hindu and Muslim scholars produced school texts of widely
differing styles, the former leaning to highly Sanskrit ized Hindi, the latter to highly
Persianized Urdu. This bifurcation of styles soon came to be a perennial thorn in the
side of the provincial government, which repeatedly and vainly attempted to effect a
compromise.

Finally, all through the nineteenth century, Persian-and-Urdu-educated Muslims

and Kayasths held government positions far out of proportion to their numbers in the
population. Between them, these two groups held a virtual monopoly of public service
largely unchallenged until the latter decades of the century.!7 The rapid expansion o
the government educational system, its bifurcation into two vernaculars, Hindi and U
and the favored position of Urdu in administration, made it inevitable that the
competition for government service would come to express itself in linguistic and
communal terms .

Evidence exists which indicates that Hindus from those castes traditionally
associated with Hindi and Sanskrit education in indigenous vernacular schools took the
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lead in agitating for a change in government language policy. In the 1840 f s the
provincial government ordered a survey of indigenous educational institution in the
districts under its control. The results, imperfect as they were, showed great
differences in the caste composition of the students attending the two major types
of schools, the Persian and the Hindi. In the district of Agra, for example, only
a tiny minority (5%) of Muslim students studied in Hindi schools, while the vast
majority (95%) attended Persian schools. More than three quarters (77%) of the
Kayasth students also attended Persian schools. The vast majority of Brahmans (92%)
and Baniyas (93%), on the other hand, went to Hindi schools, as did four fifths of
the Rajputs (80%) and of the remaining Hindu castes (81%). !*

When the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, the first major Hindi organization of the North-
Western Provinces and Oudh, was founded in Benares in 1893, the caste affiliations of
its membership showed a remarkable similarity to those of the indigenous Hindi schools
fifty years earlier. In other words, Brahmans, Baniyas, and Rajputs formed a
substantial proportion of the Sabha1 s membership, while Kayasths were few, and Muslim
members nonexistent. 19 This strongly suggests that one motive for the Sabha' s founding
was the promotion of the interests of the increasing numbers of Hindus who had received
a mainly Hindi education on the primary and secondary levels, and who looked to Govern-
ment service for their careers.

Whatever economic motives these supporters of Hindi and the Nagari script may have
had, they frequently expressed themselves in cultural and religious terms. A typical
example of this appeared in a Hindi poetic drama written sometime during the last two
decades of the century. Its author was a Brahman, and the founder of a Hindi organiza-
tion, the Devanagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of Devanagari) of
Meerut.20 The entire action of the drama took place in the court of Maharaja Dharm
(one of the names of Yama, the Hindu lord of the dead, and also of Yuddhisthira, the
eldest of the five Pandavas). The author set the stage by briefly describing the golden
age which had existed prior to the advent of Persian and Urdu. In that age such a happy
state of affairs prevailed, that not even the names for bribery, fraud, deceit,
ingratitude, and other evil deeds existed. Rulers and subjects alike lived happily,
and the sounds of rejoicing rose continuously on all sides. The rule of Queen
Devanagari had brought about this glorious era. She held sway over all works of wisdom
and virtue, and had charge of all letters, papers, account books, bonds, notes, and
other official documents. The entire business of the country passed through her hands.

Unfortunately, continued the author, monarchs from the west seized control of the
country. With them came a certain Begam Persian, who soon received the rights that had
been Queen Devanagari' s . After a while, Begam Persian gave birth to a daughter, Begam
Urdu, and when the English began to rule, the daughter took the place of the mother.
Justice demanded that Queen Devanagari should have received this place, and from that
time on a quarrel began between her and Begam Urdu. Feelings eventually grew so intense
that the matter came to the attention of the Government. Many supported Queen
Devanagari, while others backed Begam Urdu. The government, however, made a bad decision
(referring to the Hunter Commission) , so Queen Devanagari appealed her case to the court
of Maharaja Dharmaraja.22

In the court scene which followed, witnesses stepped forth to support each of the
rivals. Friends such as Queen Abode-of -Truth, Maharaja Merciful, and Maharaja Light-
of -Knowledge supported Queen Devanagari, and testified to her sterling character, her
many virtues, and the injustice of her fate. Friends of more dubious character, such
as Begam Twenty-Nine Delights, Emperor Ease-Lover, and Begam Wanton-Pleasure, spoke in
favor of Begam Urdu, though their testimony seemed unwittingly calculated to harm
rather than help their favorite. Emperor Ease-Lover, for example, observed how little
enjoyment there had been before the arrival of Begam Urdu, and described the change

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had brought about:

To what delusions and snares Urdu leads!

All leave their study, their worship, their beads.
Nothing but merriment, dancing, and fun, 2o
While disciples their gurus abandon and shun.

This drama expressed strong religious and cultural stereotypes. Personified

cunning, passion, and wantonness, all bearing Muslim names, confronted wisdom, truth,
and morality, all bearing Hindu names. The judge, Maharaja Dharmaraja, upheld the
moral law of Hinduism in his court just as the Hindu rulers of ancient India had upheld
it in theirs. The author described the blissful age before the coming of the Muslims
in terms similar to those used to describe the golden age of Hindu cosmology. While
Queen Devanagari symbolized righteousness, Begam Urdu symbolized moral depravity.
Queen Devanagari was a daughter of the soil, while Begam Urdu was the offspring of a
foreign intruder.

The supporters of Urdu, much like the defenders of a seemingly impregnable

fort watching their foes exhausting their strength against its mighty ramparts, did
not find it necessary to launch attacks on the moral front. Secure in the patronage
of the provincial government, they largely contented themselves with casting aspersions
on the literary or technical merits of Hindi and the Nagari script. One critic
contended that Hindi consisted of so many dialects that the people of one locality
could not understand those of another. Urdu, on the other hand, had shown itself fit
to serve as a medium of communication between people of widely different linguistic
backgrounds.24 Another critic labelled Hindi as "old" and "dead."25 The Muslim
of a monograph defending Urdu asserted that "one can hardly come across a man with a
Hindi education only to whom the epithet of an educated man could in any sense be
applied."26 Yet another critic referred to Hindi as a language intelligible only
the vulgar. 2? Some supporters of Urdu claimed that the introduction of the N
script in government courts and offices would lead to the degeneration and debasement
of Urdu. Nagari, they argued, could not correctly represent the sounds and spellings
of Arabic and Persian words. 2&

To the protagonists of Urdu, then, Hindi and the Nagari script symbolized a rude
and inferior culture. Shyam Sundar Das, one of the founders of the Nagari Pracharini
Sabha of Benares, testified to this attitude when he wrote of the situation in the
early 1890fs:

Hindi's condition was very bad at this time. That it had

even survived was a cause for surprise. ... To even utter
the name of Hindi was considered to be a crime. . . . Hindi
speakers were considered to be yokels. 2^

Those supporters of Hindi who had created the Sabha responded to this situation in
inconsistent ways. On the one hand, they stressed the antiquity and splendor of
Hindi literature. To do so, however, they had to invoke the literary heritage of
sister languages like Braj Bhasha and Avadhi, whose grammar and traditions differed
substantially from Khari Boli Hindi.30 On the other hand, they tacitly admitted the
correctness of their opponents1 accusations by making strenuous efforts to create
Hindi books of high quality on a wide variety of subjects. 31

Hindi supporters made great efforts in the political, as well as in the literary
arena. After a lengthy campaign in the closing years of the century, they received
their reward in the form of a resolution of the Government of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh dated April 18, 1900, which purported to give the Nagari script a

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32
place equal to that of the Urdu. Many educated Muslims reacted with shock and
dismay. Typical of the highly emotional statements which poured forth was the
following in the May 26, 1900 Indian Daily Telegraph of Lucknow:

This calamity . . . hangs above our head; we are required

thereby to wander amidst the zigzag of the strange and
horrible characters of the Deo-Nagri and to bid farewell
to the language which reminds us [of] the glory of our fore-
fathers and which is now the remnant of the once mighty
sovereigns of India. Is it not the severest suffering for
a man of the slightest sentiment?^

A writer in the July 9, 1900 issue of Al Bashir, an Urdu weekly of Etawah,

proclaimed that all Muslims should consider attendance at an upcoming meeting in
defence of Urdu more important than their traditional religious duty of a pilgrimage
to Mecca. 34 Other writers expressed the fear that even the optional use of th
Nagari script proposed in the resolution would eventually lead to the complete
extinction of Urdu. 35 One alarmist conjectured that the introduction of th
script would not only lead to the extinction of Urdu but would thereby also cause
Muslim boys to become Hindus in thought and expression. 36

The response of the Kayasth community showed more ambiguity. Many Kayasths
took part in the scores of meetings called in support of Urdu after the promulgation
of the government's resolution. 37 Yet a year earlier in 1899, the Kayasth Co
had passed a resolution favoring the introduction of the Nagari script into the
courts and offices of the Nor th-Wes tern Provinces and Oudh, and had also sent a
memorial to the same effect to the lieutenant-governor. 38 it is difficul
for this apparently inconsistent behavior unless one views the Kayasths as a
community caught between their traditions and vested interests in Persian and Urdu
studies on the one hand, and their sense of Hindu identity on the other.

The uproar which followed the April resolution - the numerous meetings, the
hundreds of letters and telegrams to the provincial government and to the Government
of India, the large number of protests in both the Urdu and the English press -
would have led one to believe that a mortal blow had been dealt to Muslim religious,
cultural, and economic interests. It soon became apparent, however, that the
victory for the supporters of Hindi had little substance. Urdu remained entrenched
in courts and offices right up to independence. While Muslims could no longer depend
on the unquestioned support of the Government for their language, the April resolution
amounted to little more than a symbolic victory for Urdu's opponents.

The manner in which the government issued its resolution had much to do with
its ineffectiveness. Previous experience in the Central Provinces and Bihar had
shown that only orders making exclusively Nagari the court script could bring about
any real change. 39 The Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh
in 1900, Sir Antony MacDonnell, had himself aided in the transition from the Urdu to
the Kaithi script in Bihar, and knew well the difficulties involved.40 In the
Western Provinces and Oudh, Muslims were not only more numerous than in either the
Central Provinces or Bihar, but were also far more deeply entrenched in the public
service. 41 Nevertheless, the resolution stipulated only the permissive, rather than
the mandatory use of the Nagari script. Moreover, it provided no effective sanctions
to enforce its new rules.

The resolution brought little change for two other reasons. It contained no
provisions to provide incentives for a new class of Nagari writers to replace the

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old class of Urdu writers attached to courts and offices. This shortcoming was
compounded by the rapid fading of enthusiasm on the part of many Hindi supporters
once they had achieved their victory. These two factors emerge clearly in the
records of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Benares, the organization largely
responsible for the successful outcome of the pro-Hindi campaign.

Soon after the resolution was issued, the Sabha sent one of its agents on
two extensive tours of the province. It hoped to maintain the zeal of Hindi
supporters, which it rightly feared would soon begin to disappear. The agent,
who visited almost every district, met with prominent lawyers, influential citizen,
and Hindi enthusiasts, and urged them to continue to promote Hindi. Arrangements
were made in several places for opening night schools to teach the Nagari script.
Soon after the agent's return, however, the interest of those he had visited began
to diminish rapidly. By the next year, the Sabha found itself financially unable
to send him on another trip. 42

During the next two years, the Sabha failed to arouse any new ardor among
Hindi lovers. By 1903 it had decided on a fresh approach. It would set about
establishing a new class of Nagari writers. Each district in the entire province
was to have two of these officials, one for the civil, the other for the criminal
court. They were to write plaints and other legal documents in the Nagari script
without charge. Since the Sabha found itself incapable of financing so extensive
a scheme, it resolved to start with only the district of Benares, and to gradually
expand to other districts. This plan met with very limited success. Although the
Sabha succeeded in placing four Nagari writers in four different districts by 1905,
a few years later lack of financial support compelled it to cut back to only one
writer in Benares itself. 43

In conclusion, let us consider why the Hindi-Urdu controversy of the nineteenth

century reached its greatest intensity in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh rather
than elsewhere. The answer seems to lie in the combination of a number of circum-
stances. Only in the Hindi-speaking area of North India did two languages sharing a
common grammar but using different scripts and vocabularies develop. Elsewhere this
did not take place; Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, etc. never took on the garb of the
Persian script.

This fact reflects another, namely, Muslim rule in India was usually centered
in the Hindi-speaking area, close to the Khari Boli region. Moreover, during the
first half of the nineteenth century, the most important Muslim power of North India
was the kingdom of Oudh, later amalgamated with the North-Western Provinces. Its
capital, Lucknow, became a major center of Urdu literature in the eighteenth century,
and remained so throughout the nineteenth. In addition, its Muslims succeeded in
retaining a far greater proportion of positions in government service than their
fellows elsewhere in British India.

Side by side with these circumstances bolstering the development of Urdu, were
others supporting the development of Hindi. The North-Western Provinces and Oudh boaste
a long tradition of Sanskrit learning, particularly in the eastern portion of the
province centering around Benares. The emergence of large-scale publishing in the
second half of the nineteenth century, largely stimulated by the rapid expansion of the
government educational system on the primary and secondary levels, made it possibl
this tradition to express itself through the "Sanskritization" of the already widely-
spread Urdu, resulting in a new literary language - Hindi. The rapid growth of a
new class of Hindus educated in this new language who looked to government service as
their preferred occupation, brought about conflict with the older class of those,
especially Muslims, educated in the Persian-Urdu tradition. Nowhere else in nineteenth

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 - 118 -

century India did all these conditions obtain, and hence nowhere else did
linguistic symbols come to express communal differences with such intensity.

FOOTNOTES

1. Muhammad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (London: 1964), pp. 45-52; S. K.

Chatterji, Indo-Aryan and Hindi 3 2nd ed. (Calcutta: 1960), pp. 204-207.

2. Ram Babu Saksena, A History of Urdu Literature (Allahabad: 1940), pp. 5-6,
240-241; Chatterji, Indo-Aryan, 207-208; Sadiq, Urdu Literature, 53-65.

3. R. A. Dwivedi, A Critical Survey of Hindi Literature (Delhi: 1966), pp. 136,

570-572; Rama Candra Sukla, Hindi sahitya ka itihasa (Kasi: 1968), 387-98;
Shardadevi Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose Literature in the Early
Nineteenth Century (1800-1856 A.D.) (Allahabad: 1969), pp. 36-37, 64-68, 72-75,
77-121, 128-135; Sitikantha Misra, Kharlboll ka ando Ian (Kasi: 1956), 158,
175-182, 208-209, 213-229. "Hindi" here is understood to mean Khari Boli
Hindi.

4. Ramesh Chandra Srivastava, Development of Judicial System in India under the

East India Company 1833-1858 (Lucknow: 1971), pp. 107-108.

5. North-Western Provinces Lieutenant-Governor's Proceedings in the Sudder Board

of Revenue Department, 19 July to 2 August 1836, Range 221, 77, No. 52; J. K.
Majumdar, "The Abolition of Persian as Court Language in British India,"
Bombay University, Journal, XVI (September 1947), 136; Srivastava, Development
of Judicial System, 120-123.

6. Madan Mohan Malaviya, Court Character and Primary Education in N.-W. P. and Oudh
(Allahabad: 1897), Appendix, 52, quoting letter from the secretary of the govern-
ment of the NWP to the Registrar, Sadar Dewani and Nizamat Adalat, NWP, 5 January
1854.

7. Report on the State of Popular Education in the North Western Provinces y 1846-47,
p. 32.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Shiva Prasad, Memorandum: Court Characters, in the Upper Provinces of India
(Benares: 1868).

11. Ibid, y 3-7.

12. See Report of the Indian Education Commission (Calcutta: 1883).

13. Proceedings of the Government of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh in the General
Administration Department, October 1900, 93-120, esp. pp. 101-102.

14. Report on the Progress of Education in the North Western Provinces and Oudh>
1887-88, Orders of Government, 4.

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15. Statement of Particulars Regarding Books and Periodicals Published in the

North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Registered under Act XXV of 1867 , 1868,
passim.

16. Report of the Committee on Primary Education, United Provinces, 1913

(Allahabad: 1913), passim; Proceedings of the Government of the United
Provinces in the Educational Department, May 1903, pp. 30, 41; General
Report on Public Instruction in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh,
1911-12, 106-107; 1915-1916, 102.

17. "Correspondence on the Subject of the Education of the Muhammadan Community

in British India and their Employment in the Public Service Generally,11
Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Home Department,
No. CCV, Home Department Serial No. 2 (Calcutta: 1886), pp. 285-290;
Education Commission: Report by the North-Western Provinces and Oudh
Provincial Committee (Calcutta; 1884), pp. 229-230; Report of the Progress
of Education in the North Western Provinces and Oudh, 1884-85 to 1892-93.
The last-named reports contain statistics on the social and occupational
backgrounds of candidates for the annual Anglo-Vernacular Examination.

18. Report on the State of Popular Education in the North Western Provinces,
1844-45, pp. 9-10; Appendix I, liii-lv, lviii-lix, lxii-lxiii, lxv-lxvii,
lxxi, lxxiii-lxxiv, lxxix.

19. KaêZ-nagarZpracarinZ sabha ka arddhêatabdZ-ititiãsa (Kasi: 19

Interviews, Shri Ray Krishna Das, 8 and 12 April 1972, Benares.

20. Sukla, Hincß sãhitya, 432-433^ Pandita Gauri Datta, NagarZ aur urdù ka
svahga arthãta nagarZ aur urdù ka ek nãtak (Meerut: n.d.).

21. Datta, NagarZ aur urdù, pp. 2-3.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., p. 12.

24. Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Panò a

Western Provinces . . . , 1869, pp. 157-158.

25. Ibid. , 125.

26. M. Rahmat-ullah, A Defence of the Urdu Language and Character (Allahabad:

1900), p. 64.

27. Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers, 1873, 504-505.

28. Hamid Ali Khan, The Vernacular Controversy (N.p.: 1900), pp. 20-21, 42, 52,
53, 64-65, 105, 117, 123; Rahmat-ullah, A Defence of Urdu, 31-34; Selections
from the Vernacular Newspapers, 1899, pp. 172-173.

29. Syamasundaradasa, MerZ ãtmakahãnZ (Prayaga: 1957), pp. 20-21.

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 - 120 -

30. NagarlpracarinZ sabha, kaêZ: varshika vivarana, 1894, pp. 1

31. Ibid. , pp. 7-10.

32. Proceedings of the Government of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh in the General
Administration Department, October 1900, pp. 101-102.

33. Quoted in Khan, Vernacular Controversy, p. 52.

34. Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers , 1900, p. 361.

35. Ibid, y pp. 294-295; Rafiq A. Zakaria, "Foreward," in N. S. Gorekar, Glimpses of

Urdu Literature (Bombay: 1961), xxxi-xxxii; Khan, Vernacular Controversy , p. 1
Rahmat-ullah, A Defence of Urdu, pp. 34-35.

36. Khan, Vernacular Controversy, p. 79, quoting the Punjab Observer of 30 June 1900.

37. Ibid., pp. 29, 44, 73, 86-120 passim.

38. Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers, 1899, p. 39.

39. The Calcutta Gazette, 16 June 1880, p. 503; Proceedings of the Government of
Bengal in the General Department (Miscellaneous) , March 1881, pp. 7-8.

40. Arddhêatabdï-itihasa, 127-129.

41. "Correspondence on the Subject of the Education of the MuhaLmmadan Community

. . . ," Selections Government India, Home Department, pp. 285-290.

42. Arddhsatabcß-itihasa, p. 136; NagarZpracarinZ sabha, kãêZ: varshika vivarana,

1901, pp. 14-15.

43. Arddhêatabdl-itihasa, pp. 136-137; UagarlpracarinZ sabhã, kaêZ: varshi

vivarana, 1905, p. 12; Ibid., 1907, p. 32.

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