‘Feudal democracy preventing use of Urdu as official language’

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said on Saturday that the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the Supreme Court’s decision to enforce Urdu as official language is feudal democracy.

He made this remark while speaking to an Urdu Conference organised by the MQM-P in Azizabad. He said that Urdu is a very strong language and it beautifully maintains the chain of communication in different forms.

Siddiqui said that an identity is something with which people recognise each other. He added that the partition of the Indian subcontinent took place on the basis of identity, and Muhajirs brought with them the gift of a civilized and sweet language for this region.

He said that Urdu is the language of the era and struggle. He said every ethnicity living in Pakistan needs Urdu and it can play a key role in uniting all linguistic units into a nation.

The MQM-P said a certain segment of the country seems to be unhappy with Urdu, just as they are with democracy. He said Pakistan of the Quaid-e-Azam can be established only by making Urdu truly prevalent.

He remarked that one of the characteristics of Urdu is that any word of any language that is included in it becomes adorned with civilization. He said that it is the only language that has remained the only asset of the Muslims of the subcontinent. He stressed that the field of literature still needs Urdu.

The conference was attended by newly elected MPAs belonging to the party, as well as by caretaker Sindh minister Ahmed Shah and poet Sehar Ansari and other literary figures associated with Urdu literature.

Other speakers shed light on the need to formulate a strategy to deal with the challenges facing the Urdu language in the current situation of Pakistan, from its evolutionary stages to the present, and to make efforts to promote and propagate it and give Urdu a central position.