Urdu/Hindi. “Urdu is not a lashkari zaban”

The phrase Urdu-e-mu’alla which ‘The Exalted Court/City’ became shortened to Urdu as we have seen, about the same time the new linguistic phenomenon was coming into existence. Mir Amman in his Bagh-o-Bahar declares that he has written

His story in Urdu ki zaban spoken by all without regard to sex, caste, creed or race. But Mir Amman refrained from naming the language. A new language called ‘Hindi’ was being born before his every eyes. It was therefore expedient for him not to take that name and just say Urdu

And let the linguists and historians and lexicographers do their best to create further confusion by inventing the presence of Muslim armies at a time when the only foreign army on Indian soil was the English, the Firangee army.

The fact seems to have occured to none of us that taking away the name Hindi from our language and letting a new name Urdu develop in its place was the first major step towards creating a linguistic-communal divide.

In addition, our language, that is Hindi, was awarded an evil reputation that ut was the product of army action in India. Urdu has a hard time living this evil reputation down, but with partial success. Total success can only come when Urdu scholars themselves assert and declare

That neither the name nor the language Urdu has anything to do with the army, foreign or local and that Urdu is not a lashkari zaban.

From “How not to write the history of Urdu Literature” by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.

(Using twitter as my notes app. Saving this thread for myself)