NEW DELHI: In a sudden outpouring of concern for the Urdu language, Lok Sabha members, cutting across party lines, on Thursday spoke in one voice about making a concerted bid to promote the language through academies, scholarships and advertisements in Urdu newspapers.

Though nearly every member peppered their speech in Urdu, politics clearly topped the agenda as senior Cabinet ministers, including Mamta Banerjee, Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad, jumped on the bandwagon.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav raised the issue in the Zero Hour, demanding that the language is in dire need of a greater push for promotion and protection.

BJP deputy leader Gopinath Munde made a common cause with Yadav. Ditto for RJD's Lalu Prasad and BSP's Dara Singh Chauhan.

Azad singled out Munde for praise for taking up Urdu's cause. NC's Abdullah eulogised actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha for the contribution of the Indian film industry in keeping the language alive.

CPI and CPM, too, were all praise for the language, while the Left's archrival Banerjee played to the gallery by reciting several Urdu couplets, delineating her "love" for the language.

Azad recounted his meeting with some editors of Urdu newspapers last week. They briefed the minister about the sorry plight of the Urdu media, which has been facing severe advertisement cruch for long. "Though Urdu newspapers are being brought out from across the country, including the southern states, unfortunately the language cannot claim any state as its own," Azad explained.

Speaker Meira Kumar urged the government to pay heed to the overwhelming sentiments of the members about the pitiable condition of the language and its media.

Responding to the discussion, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee noted that PM Manmohan Singh had already instructed I&B ministry to ensure that Urdu media "get due share of government-funded advertisements" through DAVP.

"Urdu is an integral part of our rich national heritage, and the government will take all steps to strengthen it. I can assure you all appropriate steps will be taken," he added.

Three prestigious Pakistani universities have started outsourcing evaluation of dissertations on Urdu literature to Indian experts. The exercise underpins the unusual ways in which the two countries -often tethering on the edge of war -continue to connect.

India is where Pakistan's official language -Urdu -was born and many of its men of letters had migrated to Pakistan after the Partition, such as Saadat Hassan Manto.

The Karachi University, Qaide-Azam University, Islamabad, and the Alama Iqbal National Open University, Karachi, have tied up with Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-e-Hind (Organisation for Progress of Urdu in India), a 110-year-old Delhi-based institution, to have it examine, guide and assess Pakistani students pursuing M.Phils and PhDs.

Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-eHind has historical linkages with its Pakistani counterpart, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-ePakistan. The outsourcing is notable, since Pakistan continues to be a chief Urdu-speaking nation, though many ethnic languages abound.

Indian scholars appear so taken in that they wanted to keep the original manuscripts as trophies. Almost taking the cue, the Pakistan universities let them do so.

A section on these dissertations, Gosha-e-Ibne Insha, inside Tarraqui's Shibli Memorial Library is to be launched by Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi Shahid Malik, on August 6.

The research areas often focus on politics, history, afsana (a fiction genre) and personalities. “The manuscripts give me a unique view of current Pakistani politics and life,“ said Khaliq Anjum, an 80-year-old Indian Urdu expert, who heads Tarraqui Urdu.

Indian scholars in demand include S.R. Kidwai and Aslam Parvez. “I think the collaboration shows Pakistani academia's trust of competency and objectivity of Indian Urdu expertise,“ Shibli Memorial Library's librarian Shahid Khan said.

The news that girls have scored over boys in madrasa exams in Uttar Pradesh shows that change does not always have to be dramatic to be useful. Rather, it is more important that change is sustainable and long-lasting if it is to be effective. There are several feel-good cliches about the importance of the education of women which share the same underlying thought process — when you give the power of knowledge and free thought hitherto denied to any group of people, you empower them and that betters us all.

Uttar Pradesh is home to not only India’s poorest and backward people, it also contains most of India’s poorest Muslims. This madrasa news is, therefore, heartening on two counts. It shows that education is bringing light not just to Muslim homes but also to the girl child, who is traditionally neglected and denied by most communities in India.
Girls — from a total of over 1.34 lakh students who sat for the UP

Madrasa Board’s exams — have scored an overall pass percentage of 90% compared to 86% for boys. Moreover, more girls have secured first division compared to boys. The number of girls who sat for the exam has gone up from about 28,000 last year to 35,000 this year. Many of these girls are from small towns and villages and this means that they have defeated several odds to achieve so much.

Muslims in India suffer not just from social discrimination, which affects many minority groups in our society, but also from a widespread insularity and backwardness within the Muslim community itself. Girls, therefore, have to fight a double prejudice — from within and without — and have to show great courage and determination if they want to break free.

But this is how change comes. Education breaks barriers as it blows away the cobwebs of fear, false beliefs, ignorance, prejudice, misplaced conservatism, shibboleths of stifling tradition and everything else which holds us back as humans. By giving children a taste of the spirit of adventure and enquiry, it is as if new life is being breathed into them.

Muslims in India have long been pawns in a number of political games, played by both the right and the left. As a result, religious leaders have had a field day in asserting their authority over the Muslim masses. The madrasa results are a pointer that people are quietly willing to strike out on their own. 

By ALBERT AJI and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY (AP)

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria has forbidden the country's students and teachers from wearing the niqab — the full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman's eyes — taking aim at a garment many see as political.

The ban shows a rare point of agreement between Syria's secular, authoritarian government and the democracies of Europe: Both view the niqab as a potentially destabilizing threat.

"We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women from registering," a government official in Damascus told The Associated Press on Monday.

The order affects both public and private universities and aims to protect Syria's secular identity, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. Hundreds of primary school teachers who were wearing the niqab at government-run schools were transferred last month to administrative jobs, he added.

The ban, issued Sunday by the Education Ministry, does not affect the hijab, or headscarf, which is far more common in Syria than the niqab's billowing black robes.

Syria is the latest in a string of nations from Europe to the Middle East to weigh in on the veil, perhaps the most visible symbol of conservative Islam. Veils have spread in other secular-leaning Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, with Jordan's government trying to discourage them by playing up reports of robbers who wear veils as masks.

Turkey bans Muslim headscarves in universities, with many saying attempts to allow them in schools amount to an attack on modern Turkey's secular laws.

The issue has been debated across Europe, where France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands are considering banning the niqab on the grounds it is degrading to women.

Last week, France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a ban on both the niqab and the burqa, which covers even a woman's eyes, in an effort to define and protect French values — a move that angered many in the country's large Muslim community.

The measure goes before the Senate in September; its biggest hurdle could come when France's constitutional watchdog scrutinizes it later. A controversial 2004 law in France earlier prohibited Muslim headscarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in the classrooms of French primary and secondary public schools.

Opponents say such bans violate freedom of religion and personal choice, and will stigmatize all Muslims.

In Damascus, a 19-year-old university student who would give only her first name, Duaa, said she hopes to continue wearing her niqab to classes when the next term begins in the fall, despite the ban.

Otherwise, she said, she will not be able to study.

"The niqab is a religious obligation," said the woman, who would not give her surname because she was uncomfortable speaking out against the ban. "I cannot go without it."

Nadia, a 44-year-old science teacher in Damascus who was reassigned last month because of her veil, said: "Wearing my niqab is a personal decision."

"It reflects my freedom," she said, also declining to give her full name.

In European countries, particularly France, the debate has turned on questions of how to integrate immigrants and balance a minority's rights with secular opinion that the garb is an affront to women.

But in the Middle East — particularly Syria and Egypt, where there have been efforts to ban the niqab in the dorms of public universities — experts say the issue underscores the gulf between the secular elite and largely impoverished lower classes who find solace in religion.

Some observers say the bans also stem in part from fear of dissent.

The niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common in recent years, a development that has not gone unnoticed by the authoritarian government.

"We are witnessing a rapid income gap growing in Syria — there is a wealthy ostentatious class of people who are making money and wearing European clothes," said Joshua Landis, an American professor and Syria expert who runs a blog called Syria Comment.

The lower classes are feeling the squeeze, he said.

"It's almost inevitable that there's going to be backlash. The worry is that it's going to find its expression in greater Islamic radicalism," Landis said.

Four decades of secular rule under the Baath Party have largely muted sectarian differences in Syria, although the state is quick to quash any dissent. In the 1980s, Syria crushed a bloody campaign by Sunni militants to topple the regime of then-President Hafez Assad.

The veil is linked to Salafism, a movement that models itself on early Islam with a doctrine that is similar to Saudi Arabia's. In the broad spectrum of Islamic thought, Salafism is on the extreme conservative end.

In Gaza, radical Muslim groups encourage women to cover their faces and even conceal the shape of their shoulders by using layers of drapes.

It's a mistake to view the niqab as a "personal freedom," Bassam Qadhi, a Syrian women's rights activist, told local media recently.

"It is rather a declaration of extremism," Qadhi said.

Sunday Mid Day spoke with the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid on the Islamic tradition of wearing the veil that dates back to 300 BC, after the lower house of parliament in France approved a ban on sporting the burqa in public, on Tuesday

Syed Ahmed Bukhari

How would you justify the presence of the burqa in modern society?
In modern society, Muslims women are involved in all sorts of work despite wearing the burqa. What is the problem then? Why is wearing a veil being restricted?  For over 1,400 years, Muslims around the world have been following their tradition by wearing the burqa. I can't understand the aim behind the ban. Why put a pabandi (restriction)?

People who want to follow Islam will observe purdah one way or the other. They will not desist from following their religion just because someone is pressurising them. Islam talwar ke zor par nahin hataa hai aur na kabhi hatega (Islam has never bowed to the sword and never will). For those who don't want to follow the custom, all I'll say is, it's their problem.

The burqa is seen as a symbol of subservience.
It is important for a woman to cover herself properly in front of unknown men. Men inevitably look at women who wear shorts or mini skirts. Covering yourself has always been important in Islam, dusro ki nazron se bachne ke liye.

A woman wearing a veil stands in a street of Lyon, eastern France.  Pic/AFP photo

According to a survey, 5 million Muslims in France want the burqa banned. Are a large chunk of global Muslims  against the burqa?
Do all Muslims wear the burqa even in India? Those who cover up, do it out of their own free will. Drinking was also haram for 1,400 years. But there are a lot of Muslims who drink. What can you do? But haram toh haram hai.

In the UK, Tory leader Philip Holloborne has tabled a private members' bill that wants to make covering faces in public places illegal. The UK Independence Party also supports it.

You can't justify things like these. But the entire world wants the same thing.