Urdu language has remained a loving language, adopted by our poets and writers replacing Persian. It gained immense importance when it was ordered to be used as the official language of Mughal courts in the sub-continent in Muslim era. Sir Syed took a stance against Hindus by empowering the Muslims through education, when Urdu was removed from offices in British era in the sub-continent.
This Urdu-Hindi controversy proved to be the stepping stone for the Pakistan Movement. After inception of Pakistan, our beloved Quaid-i-Azam strictly advocated Urdu as the official language of Pakistan, which proved his love and affection for his own language. But it is a bitter experience that in our educational setup, it has never been given the importance it deserves. We are moving away from our own identity, our language.
Faisalabad is badly debasing Urdu language through its educational culture. No university offered M. Phil and Ph. D programs in Urdu, now a single university (GC University) has started its M. Phil and Ph. D programs in Urdu but the fee per semester is Rs 50,000, and the program is spread over four semesters. This makes it out of the reach of the middle class students; even the children of a government or private employee cannot afford this fee.
The high fee has assured that no one from middle class can have a M. Phil or Ph. D in Urdu, thus depriving a nation from achieving higher education in its own mother tongue. This may cause the death of our language. Government should take measures in expansion of Urdu by starting M. Phil program at college level where a number of doctors, in the relevant subject are present and willing to teach. Otherwise, we have to prepare ourselves for even worse consequences because when a living nation ignores its national language it is walking towards disaster.
M. KHURRAM YASIN,
Faisalabad, December 18.