India’s Supreme Court backs Urdu signage, calls it part of Hindustani culture

“Language is not religion.” That’s what the Supreme Court said while rejecting a plea to remove Urdu from a signboard in Maharashtra.

Transcript

00:00That's Javed Akhtar and his words echo what the Supreme Court just said.

00:13Language is not religion.

00:15On 15th April 2025, the Supreme Court rejected a petition from Pattur, a small town in Maharashtra

00:21that opposed the use of Urdu alongside Marathi on a municipal sign vote.

00:25The petitioner, former councillor Varshatai Bagare, argued that official work should be done

00:29only in Marathi and that even displaying Urdu was impermissible.

00:33The Bombay High Court disagreed and the Supreme Court upheld that ruling, calling Urdu one

00:37of the finest specimens of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb, our shared Hindustani culture.

00:42The court reminded us that the Hindi we speak, the songs we hum and the Bollywood we love

00:47are full of Urdu, even if we don't realise it.

00:49The misconception that Urdu is alien is simply wrong, the judges said.

00:54Like Hindi or Marathi, Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language.

00:57So where did Urdu come from?

00:58It emerged in the 12th century in the military camps of the Delhi Sultanate, where Turks,

01:03Persians, Arabs, Afghans and locals needed a common tongue.

01:06The mix of Khari Boli, Brijbhasa, Hindawi and Persian gave rise to what was once called

01:11Zabaan-e-Urdu or language of the camp.

01:14Under the Mughals, it flourished the language of poetry, code and culture in Delhi, Agra,

01:18Lucknow and Hyderabad.

01:19Then in 1837, the British made Urdu in Persian script, the official language of North-Western

01:25India.

01:26But by the late 1800s, the Hindu-Urdu divide began as Hindi in Devanagari script was pushed

01:31as a nationalist alternative.

01:33And that's how Urdu, born in India, shaped in India, got unfairly boxed in as Muslim.

01:38But as the Supreme Court said, let us make friends with Urdu and with every language.

01:43–2014 – 2018 – The World House of Chloe

02:03Year