India’s top court throws a lifeline to Urdu

Sign of the times: SC defends the language’s right to be seen

THE WORLDVIEW

April 19, 2025

THE Supreme Court of India has come to the defence of Urdu — a language often disparaged by proponents of Hindutva — by upholding its use on signboards of a municipal council in Maharashtra. The court asserted that Urdu and Marathi share equal constitutional status.

A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran dismissed the claim that only Marathi should appear on such signboards.

According to a report by Bar and Bench, the court observed that although Urdu has Indian roots, it came to be erroneously associated solely with Muslims — a perception it deemed historically inaccurate. The judges also criticised colonial powers for having entrenched this divide by linking Hindi with Hindus and Urdu with Muslims.

“This is not an occasion to delve deeply into the rise and fall of Urdu, but it is sufficient to note that the fusion of Hindi and Urdu encountered resistance from linguistic puritans on both sides. Consequently, Hindi became more Sanskritised while Urdu leaned increasingly towards Persian,” the court remarked, while rejecting a petition filed by Varshatai Sanjay Bagade, a former councillor from Patur, who had challenged the use of Urdu on municipal signboards.

“A schism exploited by colonial authorities, dividing the two languages along religious lines. Hindi was henceforth perceived as the language of Hindus, and Urdu of Muslims — a regrettable deviation from the truth, from the ethos of unity in diversity, and from the ideal of universal brotherhood,” the bench stated.

The judges further held that Urdu is intrinsically Indian and not confined to any one religion. “Prejudice against Urdu arises from the mistaken belief that the language is foreign to India. This notion, we fear, is flawed. Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language — a tongue born on Indian soil,” they said.

The court added that Urdu developed and flourished in India out of a need for cross-cultural communication, evolving over time into a sophisticated literary language favoured by many celebrated poets.