In some cases this tendency leads the writer* (who perhaps...

In some cases this tendency leads the writer* (who perhaps to prove their high erudition) to use per-sianised or Sanskritised and expression, as to make the Urdu or Hindi quite unintelligible to the common masses, However, the Urdu language was a common bond among the people of India, and especially between Hindus and Muslim, It was Urdu that gave India its famous revolutionary slogan, Inqildb zifida bad (Long live the revolution) which was heard from Assam to North-West Frontier, and from Kashmir to Ras KumariL It is still heard in political rallies and processions.

Urdu was not confined to the Muslims; hundreds, even thousands, of its writers and poets were, and are, Hindu. Pandit Rattan Nath Sarshar, Munshi prem chand, Brij Narain Chakbast, Daya Shankar Nasim, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Sahir Lodhyanawi, Rajendra Singh Bedi, Jagannath Azad, Arsh Malsiyani, Tilok Chand Mahroom, Gopi Chand Narang, Molvi Mahesh Parshad are just a few names that have come to mind at random.

We may also say that the Urdu language, or more correctly the Islamic literature, was saved, preserved and put in the hands of the public by a famous Hindu publisher, Munshi Nawal Kishore of Lucknow. This great son of India opened his eyes during the reign of the East India Company, and lived to see India being ruled by Queen Victoria.

He started a printing press, and unearthed rare books of Hindu and Islamic philosophies, religions and literatures in Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Sanskrit, and got them printed. This Hindu was held in such a great esteem that when the Muslim King of Afghanistan visited India, he made special request to the viceroy of India to make arrangements so that he could meet Munshi Nawal Kishore. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime Minister of India spoke Urdu. Dr.

Rajendraprasad, the first President of India, has written in his auto-biography that his education began not with "Shri Canesh" (i. e.. the Hindu formula) but with " Bis-nultahi 'r- Rahmdni 'r-Rahim' (i. e . the Muslim formula). He took Hindi as a subject in his B. A. class. It was Urdu which was chosen when the first attempt was made by Indians during the British Raj to use an Indian language as the medium of instruction at the university level.

When Mir 'Usman ' Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam and last ruler of Hyderabad state, established the Osrnania University with this object in view, there were misgivings in many circles. But the attempt proved tremendously successful.