NEW DELHI: The central government is planning to rope in A-lister Bollywood actors for the promotion of Urdu language.
The decision by The National Council For The Promotion Of The Urdu Language to use Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif to promote the language has triggered off a wave of outrage.
“The council has been tasked with the job of promoting Urdu as a language but all that we have been doing so far is producing literature in the language. We want to now focus more on promoting the language and not just the literature. We are going to approach Bollywood actors, prominent names like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and make them say a few lines in Urdu, we will then use these videos in our events,” Aquil Ahmed, director, NCPUL, told ThePrint.
Social media has rightly ridiculed the decision of roping in Salman and Katrina, pointing at Javed Akhtar being among the people most qualified to promote the language as he can both read and write Urdu fluently (which Shabana Azmi cannot).
Katrina Kaif promoting Urdu! This has to be the biggest joke of 2019 https://t.co/xVLO9S2oFa
— Iqbal Singh Grewal (@IqbalGrewal1) March 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/Anti_31Percent/status/1107199802671013889
Modi govt should really watch some of Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif’s work before choosing them. Salman’s father would however be a very good choice along with Javed Akhtar and Amitabh Bhattacharya. https://t.co/kT029Qmg27
— Mohit Raj (@_MohitRaj) March 17, 2019
Before asking katrina to promote urdu please make sure she can speak hindi properly
— Dr. zaffar iqbal (@zaffarmedico) March 17, 2019
Katrina Kaif to promote #Urdu language 😂 This shows how competent and thoughtful this Govt is.
— Hiboo✨ (@HibaYazdani) March 18, 2019
Definitely. I do want to learn about Urdu language from Katrina Kaif.
— I Love Mithunda (@ilovemithunda) March 18, 2019
When contacted Javed Saab refrained from comment as this matter involves his former creative partner Salim Khan’s son Salman, who it must be mentioned, can’t speak or write Urdu and pronounces ‘Khan’ as ‘Caan’. Shah Rukh speaks Urdu but cannot write it. Katrina can’t speak two lines of Hindi at one go.
If you ask me, this is the lowest kind of communal appeasement and the worst sort of reflex action. Those who decided that the three stars must promote Urdu just checked their surnames and their box office ratings. The level of presumption in the selection is alarming.
Why should you presume that Shah Rukh, Salman and Katrina can even speak or write Urdu on the basis of their religion? You are presuming that every Muslim reads and writes Urdu and that Urdu is restricted to Muslims only. But a language is not about religion. It’s about region. Gulzar Saab is not a Muslim but he can read and write Urdu fluently. Dharmendra writes his poetry in fluent Urdu. Manoj Kumar is also fluent in Urdu. Why shouldn’t these distinguished cinema personalities be promoting Urdu?
It seems like nothing but a pathetic attempt to divide the country on the basis of language.
It happened in East Pakistan, when they tried to make everyone speak in Urdu. But a large chunk of the population chose to speak Bangla. Rather than bow to the uniform code of language, they fought for their freedom. And Bangladesh was born. If you try to restrict Urdu to the Muslim community you are playing the worst kind of divisive politics.
Coming back to Javed Akhtar, who better qualified than he to promote the Urdu language? He is secular in the truest sense of the word. He can write songs in virile Urdu as well in fluent Hindi. This is the same poet par excellence who wrote the Holi song “Radha kaise na jale in” Braj bhasha and the Urdu ghazal “Shahr Ke Dukan-Daro Karobar-E-Ulfat Men Suud Kya Ziyan Kya Hai Tum Na Jaan Paoge” without ever letting the language come in the way of his thought process.
[source_without_link]With IANS inputs[/source_without_link]