Urdu’s Largest Organisation Faces Existential Crisis ‘Mohan Bhagwat is the most popular leader of the world’

Ever since the BJP took control of the Union government, the minority-related bodies have been undermined or neglected. Latest in this series is the National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), which is the largest and an autonomous central organisation for promotion of the Urdu language in the country.

Written by

Abdul Bari Masoud

Published on

May 29, 2023

Ever since the BJP took control of the Union government, the minority-related bodies have been undermined or neglected. Latest in this series is the National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), which is the largest and an autonomous central organisation for promotion of the Urdu language in the country.

Despite letters sent to the Prime Minister and the Union Education Minister, the governing council of NCPUL was not constituted since December 4, 2021.The council comes under the Education Ministry.Its numerous activities, including the release of new titles, come to a halt in the absence of a governing body. To top it all, due to this, NCPUL does not completely utilise the budget allocated to it.

Because of this situation, the Council has not been able to provide even a single grant during the current fiscal year to support the initiatives related to its primary goals. The council was forced to put up a notice on its website stating: “New applications for financial assistance for bulk purchase of manuscripts, projects, books/periodicals/journals, etc. under various schemes will not be entertained between 1st May to 31st May 2023”.

The last sentence of the notice states that this is being done ‘for unavoidable reasons’.

NCPUL Director,Dr. Shaikh Aquil Ahmad’s signature appears on this notice which was issued on April 30.

Naturally, this has given discomfort to the Urdu community and writers. They worry that the current administration is attempting to shut down this organisation.

When Radiance contacted the Director, Dr Aquil admitted:“Yes, the Council did not ask for new applications as last year’s applications are still waiting because a governing body could not be constituted; however, I am only an employee here, so I have no control over that.”

Set up to promote, develop and propagate the Urdu language, the Council started its operation in Delhi on April 1, 1996. The Council was earlier known as the Taraqqi Urdu Bureau established in 1973 following recommendations of the Inder Kumar Gujral Committee report on the Urdu language status in the country.

In its capacity as the National Nodal Agency for the promotion of the Urdu language, NCPUL is the principal coordinating and monitoring authority for promotion of the Urdu language and Urdu education.

In the absence of the Governing Council, Dr Aquil said neither the Finance Committee nor the Executive Council could be formed.

Grants and aid, new centres of learning for Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Computer and Calligraphy among other things need to be approved by the Finance Committee and Executive Council. Even the executive council delegates power to the Director of NCPUL for three years, after which the Director can execute all activities.

In the absence of a governing board, the Director is not permitted to start any new projects, schemes, or centres.He can only manage the old centres and carry out daily tasks. Additionally, he is not permitted to give grants or other financial assistance to organisations or institutions that plan to host seminars or other activities to promote Urdu. Additionally, he lacks the right to make bulk book purchases and cannot release funding for new projects or grants for the publication of manuscripts, for example.

In his defence, Dr Aquil said only the Education Minister has the authority to form the Governing Council.

“I can request the Education Ministerby writing a letter, but I cannot put any kind of pressure on him because it is not up to any Director to put pressure on the Minister. Some people think that the Director is as powerful as the Education Minister, he can do whatever he wants, but that is not the case at all. The Director works only in the Ministry of Education like Joint Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary and is empowered to do as much as he is asked to do by the Ministry of Education. Some people also think that the Director is the supreme boss, which is completely wrong. The Supreme Boss is only the Education Minister. Each Director is limited in scope,” he added.

In November last year,a letter was sent to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, requesting him to reconstitute the governing body but there was no response from the ministry.Speaking with Radiance, Dr. Syed Ahmad Khan, national president of the Urdu Development Organisation, said he sent a letter to the Prime Minister, asking for his intervention in forming the governing council.In the letter, he stated that in the absence of the Governing Council, the NCPUL activities have been affected badly, he said.Earlier a letter was sent to the Union’s education minister.At least the Prime Minister’s Office acknowledged our letter but that Education Ministry didn’t, Dr Khan said.

But till now no action has been taken by the ministry in this regard. NCPUL provides financial help in publishing drafts of books of Urdu language scholars, writers, litterateurs, poets, etc.

Apart from this, it also provides financial support to non-governmental organisations for organising seminars, symposiums, mushairas, etc. for the development and upliftment of the Urdu language. Due to the absence of the Governing Council for the last one year, all this work has come to a standstill.

According to the council’s website, “It encourages writing of valuable books by bonafide Author/Editor/Translator etc. of Urdu language. A maximum number of 150-300 copies of a book/ journal may be purchased in one year subject to a maximum of Rs. 30,000/- for creative writing and Rs. 45,000/- for the rest of the books and Rs.45, 000/- for periodicals/journals. In addition to it, if the price of the book is upto or less than Rs. 100/- then quantity of the book may be purchased upto 300 copies.

“NCPUL provides financial assistance on request to authors/experts, commission academic projects, linguistic survey and field studies upto monthly limits Rs. 105000/- under the following heads: i) Rs. 75,000/- as an honorarium for projects; ii) Rs. 15,000/- for travel; iii) Rs. 15,000/- for contingency including stationery, postage, photocopy, etc. and books purchased for the project; iv) Subject to minimum 250 to 300 pages.”

Many analysts believe that the Modi government’s alleged disinterest is at the root of the issue because it has been taking its time to reconstitute the Council’s main body. Currently, the 37-member NCPUL only has four permanent members, including the Minister of Education (who serves as chair), a Director, and two other ministry employees. Even the Principal Publishing Officer’s post has been lying vacant for a long time.

The RSS’s rising sway over this top Urdu organisation is a problem. The Council released RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s book “Mustaqbil ka Bharat” last year in breach of its own policies and procedures. Director Aquil translated Bhagwat’s book to appease the RSS hierarchy.

At the time of the book’s publishing, a group of Urdu writers and academics had harshly denounced NCPUL’s decision to print and promote the book, claiming that it promoted the ideologies of a divisive organisation like the RSS and was an attempt to topple a significant institution in the country.

When this correspondent confronted the Director on the issue, Dr Aquil said,“Mohan Bhagwat is the most popular leader of the world and he wanted the Urdu community to know what is the ideology of RSS and views of Bhagwatji.”

When questioned, who made the decision to publish the book in the absence of the governing council?he said that a committee had made the decision. Despite further prodding, he failed to provide the names of the members of the purported committee and its chairperson.

The entire situation, according to Abu Bakr Abbad, a professor of Urdu at Delhi University and a former Principal Publication Officer for NCPUL, is despicable.

It’s a real question as to how effective a body that is significantly underpowered can be. However, a former top official of the NCPUL asserts that the deliberate politics being carried out in the name of Urdu, rather than the organisation’s insufficient membership base, is what prevents funding from being released. Many in the Urdu community have questioned the intentions of the Modi government in light of the fact that NCPUL’s operations have all but ceased this fiscal year.

Theformer vice chairman of theNCPUL governing body and poet, Chandrabhan Khayal, saidthe current condition of affairs demonstrates that both the government and the director of NCPUL have been found wanting.

Khayal, who is currentlythe convenor of the Urdu Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi, said it is Urdu that stands to suffer in the end,though he is unable to say whether this affair is a sign of a conspiracy against Urdu.