Those who observe me from a distance sometimes wear a puzzled expression. I write passionately in favour of independence, speak critically of the Pakistani state’s historical machinations, advocate for secularism—and yet, I do not detest the Urdu language. In fact, I often quote from it, sometimes even with affection. For some, this evokes a silent but pointed question: Where does the contradiction lie? Why do I not revile what they see as a linguistic symbol of the “other”? Let me be clear: my contention is not with the Urdu language—it is with what I have come to call the “Urdu Syndrome.”
To hold this view, I believe, is to distinguish between a language and the socio-political baggage that has, over decades, been unfairly lashed to its back. I have no quarrel with Nastaliq script or the lilting cadence of Hindustani. I do not shudder at Rekhta, nor recoil from the literary elegance of Ghalib. I see no danger in the linguistic tapestry of Lucknow’s Dastangoi, nor in the complex echoes of Delhi’s poetic diaspora after the sack of the city by Nadir Shah. Indeed, having even a torn and tattered acquaintance with Urdu allows one to hear the collective sigh of poets migrating from Delhi to Lucknow, their verses laden with pain, protest, and paradox.
The great writers of the Progressive Writers’ Movement introduced a vibrant, secular, and humane ethos through Urdu. Their message was clear: love humanity, transcend religious divisions, embrace friendship and empathy. In this regard, the language served not just as a vehicle of communication, but as a mode of resistance. The Urdu I admire was born of a secular soil—only later was it hijacked by theological gatekeepers and cultural exclusivists.
What I reject is not Urdu the language, but Urdu Syndrome: a toxic cocktail of superiority complex, communal contempt, historical half-truths, and a peculiar disdain for Bengali culture—wrapped in a longing for desert-bedouin aesthetics while sitting on the lush soils of Bengal. It is not a dialect; it is a disposition. It is the performative religiosity that confuses ritual for faith, and culture for creed.
One of our collective weaknesses as ordinary people is that we do not always retain complex definitions. We crave shortcuts. Mujib coats imply Awami League. Safari suits mean BNP. A cap and a beard are taken to signify piety. And regrettably, because the most visible proponents of the Urdu Syndrome often use the Urdu language as their medium, we have come to equate the two—wrongly so. Ironically, many of the so-called “Pakistanis” stranded in Bangladesh, who are culturally tagged with this syndrome, do not even speak or understand proper Urdu.
But tropes are convenient. Easy to wear, easier to discard. And so the demagogues, the touts of identity politics, keep recycling these tropes for mass consumption. And we, the gullible public, keep falling for them.
The poet Sahir Ludhianvi once lamented that the masses cannot grasp the abstraction of faith (imaan), so they reduce it to customs and rituals (rusumaat). Eventually, they sacrifice the very essence of faith at the altar of those rituals. Our civilisation—our tahzeeb—has, time and again, betrayed its own sanctity by confusing the symbol for the substance.
So let us not be misled by the mask. Let us identify the real adversary: not the Urdu language, but the authoritarian mindset that cloaks itself in it. Language, after all, is not guilty. People are. We must learn to love the poem while rejecting the poison. We must distinguish between the melody of a ghazal and the machinations of ideological control.
To those who reduce culture to slogans, let this be a rejoinder: Not every word spoken in Urdu is an act of betrayal. And not every silence in Bengali is a mark of authenticity. The real struggle lies not between Urdu and Bengali, but between those who use language to divide, and those who use it to bridge.