(Following is a reproduction of the article written by Raghupati Sahay Firaq Gorakhpuri published in the Hindustan Times on 15 March 1964)

Some years ago my article “Urdu Without Prejudice,” which appeared in the columns of the Hindustan Times, touched off an angry controversy. There was gnashing of teeth and shaking of fists in many quarters. After a silence of about four years I again conscientiously committed the indiscretion of getting published in these columns two articles on the cultural crisis in the Hindi region.

We have been hearing of the teacher-politician whom all of us rightly regard not as a harmless but as an extremely dangerous nuisance in the vital sphere of education. Another equally obnoxious nuisance which has appeared on the literary, social and political scenes during recent years is the language-politician. The sacred cause of Hindi had already grievously suffered at the hands of pampered and inflated modern Hindi writers who knew little khari-boli and less Hindi and whose rise in our cultural life has been the rise of vulgarity. To their support have come a number of equally semi-literate language-politicians whose one maddening slogan seems to be “Hindi, right or wrong.”

The theme and matter of my discussion concerned exclusively the delicate matter of refined taste in the handling of the khari-boli diction. I am not a language-politician. My aim of life has for more than half a century been the study of language and literature which has, so far as Hindi is concerned, resulted in unmixed admiration of and reverence for the immortal beauty of the work of Kabir, Surdas, Tulsidas, Mirabai, Rahim, Ras Khan and all the other recognized old Hindu and Muslim masters of Hindi.

What am I to do? The canons of beautiful writing taught to me by these masters and by the luminaries of world literature and the aesthetic sensitiveness resulting therefrom are violated, hurt and insulted by nearly every writer of khari-boli Hindi prose and poetry. I find myself utterly unable, while liking, loving and admiring the work of the great non-khari-boli Hindi writers, to like, love and admire at the same time the work of Pant, Nirala, Prasad, Mahadevi and Maithili Sharan Gupt and their numerous literary progeny.

Masters

Khari-boli was made rich and beautiful by such masters of Urdu as Mir, Ghalib, Anis, Chakbast, Iqbal and countless devoted writers of Urdu prose and poetry. Literary insanity and imbecility and an incurable rusticity boosted by propaganda mislead many of our unfortunate countrymen to believe that the fame, the popularity and the success of these and other Urdu writers were due to importing uncongenial Arabo-Persian words and un-Indian elements into the Urdu compositions and literary contributions.

It was forgotten that in the entire Urdu literature the most effective, the most honoured and the most senior partner was Hindi. Such a tremendous mass appeal as Urdu has had for two centuries could only be due to its brilliant use of purely and almost exclu-sively Hindi words and phrases. The all-conquering Urdu language and literature has used more Hindi words, idioms and expressions characterized by richness, pointedness and variety and colour than the other forms of Hindi and twenty times more so than the entire work of the VIPs of modern Hindi writers.

I challenge the staunchest advocate of khari-boli Hindi to say whether purely Hindi words and phrases, idioms and terms of expression are the senior partner and the most honoured, the most important, the most powerful partner in modern so-called khari-boli Hindi or Sanskrit words are being desperately sought to occupy the position of honour and power and seniority in modern so-called khari-boli Hindi! Is any attempt made to create beauty and power by the use of exclusively Hindi words and phrases in modern Hindi? Is it not a fact that in order to spy to Urdu inappropriate and, in the context, the clumsiest Sanskrit words are given the place of Brahmins in modern Hindi while Hindi words, phrases and clauses are given the place of Harijans and Shudras?

Hindi writers just tolerate Hindi words and phrases and the entire Hindi vocabulary with a bad grace in their writings and speeches. Hindi is afraid of Hindi. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya called modern Hindi tel-hi Hindi (oily), meaning that the water of Hindi words could not be mixed successfully with the oil of Sanskrit words. Pandit Bal Krishna Bhatt had the fearlessness and the fairness to declare that literally thousands of Arabo-Persian words and expressions naturally harmonized and fitted with purely Hindi words and expressions and tatsam Sanskrit words hardly ever did so. There is more structural harmony between Arabo-Persian words and Hindi words than between Sanskrit words and Hindi words. Why single me out as an enemy of modern Hindi? Were Pandit Malaviya and Pandit B. K. Bhatt also guilty of anti- Hindiism?

Modern Hindi’s claim is “I am the queen of the Hindi region.” Urdu answers, “I am the people of the Hindi region.” The language of the entire population of the Hindi region is made up of the entire vocabulary of Hindi (minus Sanskrit) and of two to three thousand Arabo-Persian words. And this is Urdu. The entire population of the Hindi region uses hardly a hundred or two hundred Sanskrit words in their speech, in their correspondence, in their day-to-day life. The Brij Bhasha form of Hindi could justly claim that literally tens of thousands of lines of Brij Bhasha poetry are on the tongues of and find an echo in the ears and hearts of millions of people. The same claim could be made by Awadhi, by Bhojpuri, by Baiswari, by Punjabi and by Urdu. Can anything like such a claim be made by the so-called poetry of Maithili Sharan Gupt, Pant, Nirala, Prasad or by any so-called khari-boli Hindi poet? A thousand times No. Their so-called compositions cannot be learnt by heart. They do not sting, they do not stick, they do not carry.

Bharatendu Harish Chandra once attempted to compose some lines of poetry in modern Hindi. When he had done so he was so shocked at the result that he declared that khari-boli Hindi was inherently unfit and incapable of being used as a medium or vehicle of poetry. Was Bharatendu guilty of anti- Hindiism? If so, I am in very good company. Take them all in all; the claims of Hindi are not as axiomatically true as is sought to be made out. Dr Suniti Kumar Chaterji, a philologist and linguist of repute who has worked all his life for the spread of simple, easy universally workable Hindi, considers the  nagri script as clumsy, cumbersome and unworkable. Lecturing at Allahabad University he said that the Hindi language taught through the Roman script could be learnt and practised more quickly and efficiently than when it was taught and learnt through the nagri script. He quoted facts and figures. Subhas Chandra Bose, in his Congress presidential address at Tripuri, pleaded for an easy, simple Hindi written in the Roman script. Can we call them anti-Hindi? 

Matter printed in the smallest Hindi type takes at least twice as much space and costs twice as much time, money and labour as the same matter printed in English.

Octopus-like

It has been my experience at Allahabad University that while students could write in English about 2,000 words as class notes in a given time, they could write only half this number of words within the same time in the nagri script and their wrists and fingers and their minds were more tired and exhausted after writing in Hindi than after writing in English. The octopus-like movement of letters in the nagri script is a fatal defect. Our Constitution-makers rejected the Hindi numerals for all-India use and adopted the English numerals in the teeth of opposition by Hindi fanatics. Was the Constituent Assembly guilty of anti-Hindiism?

In teaching our children the birth, the growth and development or evolution of the khari-boli language and literatures is it honest to keep them ignorant of the fact that a rich and powerful literature in khari-boli had grown before Lalloo Lal and his commandeered colleagues and before Bharatendu Harish Chandra had been even born and also before the Hindi movement and the Hindi language politicians had started working? This literature was in the progressively evolving khari-boli language, namely, in Urdu. To fight shy of, to be afraid of and to remain ignorant of the actual and historically important fact of khari-boli literature in the Urdu form growing and flourishing for more than two centuries is fatal to the cause of knowledge and learning.

Our crime

Of all fear complexes, the history fear complex (of which I accuse every Hindi fanatic) is the most harmful to education. In teaching our children khari-boli Hindi, in – adopting khari-boli Hindi as Rashtra Bhasha we have been guilty of the crime of not teaching millions and millions of our boys and girls the beauty and power of khari-boli as used by Mir, Ghalib, Nazir Akbarabadi, Anis and by an impressively large number of the masters of khari-boli prose and poetry, namely, by the Urdu writers of khari-boli. Your khari- boli Hindi writers in the use of khari-boli itself are not a patch on the Urdu writers. We are teaching our children not knowledge but ignorance, we are keeping them deprived of the knowledge of the best uses of khari-boli, of the history and growth of khari-boli, of the very life of khari-boli. We are teaching them the poorest and ugliest compositions of khari-boli acting on the Shakespearian adage, “A poor thing but my own.”

What shall we say of a history book claiming to be a complete up-to-date history of India if it keeps its readers ignorant of the Muslim period and the British period? Let me tell it to all concerned that the great Muslim Kings, administrators, thinkers, saints and divines, artists and writers like Sher Shah, Akbar. Abul F’azl, Khusro, Mir and Ghalib, to name only a few out of hundreds, are as vital parts of Indian history as the greatest Hindu and Buddhist kings.

I would repeat that no teaching and learning of Urdu bluntly means no reliable knowledge of khari-boli. Is it anti-Hindiism to mention these inescapable facts?

Let me cut short a long story and end on a quieter note. I state below:

1. The salvation of Hindi and the progressive realization of its destiny lie in a complete merger of Urdu and Hindi. But there is such a thing as the art of merging. If merging is to be fruitful it has to be delicately balanced. To begin with, make compulsory the learning of the nagri script by every student in the Hindi region regardless of race, religion, caste or creed. While preparing the Hindi – courses 50 per cent matter in the course books should be Urdu prose and poetry correctly printed in the nagri script along with Hindi prose and poetry. Hindi must annex the entire Urdu literature through the nagri script. But while such Hindi courses should become compulsory for all, Urdu language and literature in the Persian script should be taught as an optional subject.
2. Let the medium of instruction be extremely beautiful and extremely easy Hindi in the nagri script. The technical terms may be derived from Sanskrit. But we should take liberties with grammar in order to supply and simplify these terms.
3. Let us encourage at least 10 percent of the students to offer Urdu in the Persian script as an optional subject without creating other difficulties or disadvantages for such students.
4. Stop outright the process of packing or crowding Hindi to breaking point with too many Sanskrit words. Sanskrit is good but the combination of goodness with indiscrimination is equal to something which is dangerously bad. Let Hindi be an ideal balance – that of language without an overdose of fat or metallic chemicals. You think Sanskritized Hindi, if made a compulsory subject of study, will ipso-facto become the current coin of speech. It cannot. You think what is forced as Sanskrit words will begin in course of time to play on the tongues and lips of people naturally and effortlessly and copiously. They will not let Hindi be the seniormost and the most dominant and the all-decisive partner of Hindi and not Sanskrit or Arabic or Persian words as at one time short-sighted Urdu fanatics unsuccessfully attempted. Let Hindi be progressively Hindi-ized and made beautiful.
5. Do not banish from pure Hindi nearly 2,000 such Arabo-Persian words as have become indispensable and vital parts of our speech. Do not muddle with the pronunciation of new sounds and sound values of Arabo-Persian words in common use.
6. My whole being and my burning love for Hindi revolts at the language of poetry of Maithil Sharan Gupt, Jai Shankar Prasad, Nirala, Mahadevi and their like. Not because I hate Hindi but because I love the present and future generations of millions of the future hopes of our country. This is not a matter for the language-politician but for the language-specialist and for the educationist who values taste and refinement.
7. It is my overwhelmingly strong conviction that the only hope for Hindi lies in Hindi being written by masters of Urdu who alone have been and can be masters of khari-boli. The other only hope for Hindi is that all its great writers should know English as well, as Mahatma Gandhi knew it or our other English knowing countrymen. Urdu will give the Hindi writers the key to the city of Hindi khari-boli. English will give them the freedom of the city of thought, ideas and knowledge.
8. I am in favour of the knowledge and practice of the nagri script in the “widest commonly spread.” I am also earnestly in favour of a sensitive and sensible selection of Sanskrit words of which Hindi should have a sprinkling. Sumitra Nandan Pant once told me that his own poetry was no part of a living language. He would become a manure (khad) for the Hindi of the future. Very good. But he forgot that an overdose of manure, instead of fertilizing the soil or the crop, resulted in the burning of the crop and the spoiling of the soil.

This is my credo. Call me anti-Hindi if you like and curse my anti-Hindiism to your heart’s content. I am confident that the final verdict will be that Firaq was among the pioneers of Hindi liberalism and Hindi humanism. He was cruel only to be kind.