Ladakh Flash Point

Kestrel07 said:

Technically India has more native speakers of pakistan's national language than pakistan itself .

India has approx 100m native Urdu speakers and is a common language in north India and one for the national languages of india . Urdu and hindi are very similar and are dialects of the original language hindustani.
However , they start differing in the written format with Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic script (right to left), while Hindi is written in the Devanagari script.

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Dated information and untrue:
Urdu speakers in India are afraid to declare their mother tongue in the National Registry of Citizens ( part of the Census 2020). If they do they are likely to be identified as Non-Citizens and confined in the hundreds of concentration camps being now set up. Speaking Urdu in public in India is fraught with danger.
At one time the shortwave radio allowed Urdu listeners to a host of foreign broadcasts such as BBC, Radio Tashkent, Radio DW, VOA, Radio Beijing. India hated these radio stations but there was not much it could do apart from sporadic attempts at jamming. India tried countering with its own All India Radio Urdu service but was ineffective.,When the shortwave stations shut down the listeners in India particularly in Kashmir and UP secretly listen to BBC Urdu ( digital audio) as well as streaming podcasts from VOA, Radio Japan, Radio DW. The VOA Urdu podcasts are especially popular. The Urdu podcasts challenge the narrative of the establishment and the only way to counter them is for India to shut down the internet which it does from time to time with an obviously undesirable side effect of affecting most communications.
Urdu was widely adopted in street theatre and revolutionary poetry by left wing political parties including the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party Marxist. There is no other language that quite fits role of revolutionary motivation. Which is why the right wing establishment in India has made every effort to stamp out the language.
Quite recently Urdu in India had a brief period of media attention in India in the fall of 2019 and January 2020. During the nation wide protests by the opposition to the Citizens Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens ( which effectively turns India's minorities into non-citizens) left wing protesters chanted the famous Urdu poem in Urdu written by Faiz a communist poet from Pakistan. which was titled ( We shall see ...) . A brutal state orchestrated program effectively ended the movement.
Reciting Faiz's poem today can get you a long term in jail under the national security act.

Bright Sword said:

Dated information and untrue:
Urdu speakers in India are afraid to declare their mother tongue in the National Registry of Citizens ( part of the Census 2020). If they do they are likely to be identified as Non-Citizens and confined in the hundreds of concentration camps being now set up. Speaking Urdu in public in India is fraught with danger.
At one time the shortwave radio allowed Urdu listeners to a host of foreign broadcasts such as BBC, Radio Tashkent, Radio DW, VOA, Radio Beijing. India hated these radio stations but there was not much it could do apart from sporadic attempts at jamming. India tried countering with its own All India Radio Urdu service but was ineffective.,When the shortwave stations shut down the listeners in India particularly in Kashmir and UP secretly listen to BBC Urdu ( digital audio) as well as streaming podcasts from VOA, Radio Japan, Radio DW. The VOA Urdu podcasts are especially popular. The Urdu podcasts challenge the narrative of the establishment and the only way to counter them is for India to shut down the internet which it does from time to time with an obviously undesirable side effect of affecting most communications.
Urdu was widely adopted in street theatre and revolutionary poetry by left wing political parties including the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party Marxist. There is no other language that quite fits role of revolutionary motivation. Which is why the right wing establishment in India has made every effort to stamp out the language.
Quite recently Urdu in India had a brief period of media attention in India in the fall of 2019 and January 2020. During the nation wide protests by the opposition to the Citizens Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens ( which effectively turns India's minorities into non-citizens) left wing protesters chanted the famous Urdu poem in Urdu written by Faiz a communist poet from Pakistan. which was titled ( We shall see ...) . A brutal state orchestrated program effectively ended the movement.
Reciting Faiz's poem today can get you a long term in jail under the national security act.

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It this age of simple google to verify facts . One shouldn't stick to ignorance is bliss . Regarding the poem,Hum dekhenge was picked up as anthem for the protests and lot of universities including my alma mater students sang it freely .

Here the discussion is not about cab which a lot of indians are against . It's about Urdu and how common it is . Go to any city in north India and Urdu is common language there .
I know for a pakistani it's tough to accept . however, staying ignorant is not a better choice.

Kestrel07 said:

It this age of simple google to verify facts . One shouldn't stick to ignorance is bliss . Regarding the poem,Hum dekhenge was picked up as anthem for the protests and lot of universities including my alma mater students sang it freely .

Here the discussion is not about cab which a lot of indians are against . It's about Urdu and how common it is . Go to any city in north India and Urdu is common language there .
I know for a pakistani it's tough to accept . however, staying ignorant is not a better choice.

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Please do google:
1. The discussion is not about India's citizenship act, and it is well known that the secular nationalist intelligentsia in India has beern against it. The reference was to Urdu being used as a language of resistance to bigotry and towards revolutionary change which obviously is not liked by the Indian establishment. However this is not the first time Urdu ( and other languages such as Telugu and Bengali ) has been used as a motivating force for resistance. It was extensively used in the then united India against British colonial rule. The British hated Urdu for its popularity in the anti-colonial resistance with slogans such as "Revolution forever ". Urdu writers, poets, journalists and were arrested and jailed by the British. The author of a famous poem (To be executed is our hearts desire...) went underground One reason why they were interested in creating a language divide. the very word "forever" in Urdu has transcended time and geography being used as far south as Hyderbad.

2.On your assertion of Urdu in use in Northern India:
It survives only in a watered down spoken form. The provincial and federal governments in those regions have removed Urdu from the school curriculum, removed all Urdu signs and documents, closed down Urdu libraries and University facilities.
The final blows to finish off Urdu is being hammered when Urdu names of cities are being changed. Quite recently the name of Allahabad wss changed to Prayagraj much to the dismay of the local population. But the bigotry in the administration ensured that the protests were crushed with an iron hand.
Urdu in Pakistan:
As was mentioned earlier only 18% of Pakistanis claim Urdu as their mother tongue. Urdu is not an indigenous Pakistani language but has now found roots here after being persecuted in its own land. But the remarkable triumph of this language is that it has successfully been accepted as a link and communications language.
Here is the final proof since you rely on google and youtube.:
Video footage of the Pakistani senate proceedings do not show anyone wearing interpreters headphones. No one needs it as the proceedings are in Urdu.
In India almost a third of the law makers and cabinet ministers wear translator headphones, The sankritized Hindi is not yet acceptable as a link or communications language. There is no country in the world that has translators in its own Parliament.

For a country to function effectively a lingua franca is needed. Pakistan and China have achieved that goal.

Advantage to China:
The demise of Urdu in India and the growing linguistic cultural divide between India and Pakistan is extremely beneficial in the long term strategic environment and the Pakistan China relationship.
Under different administrations in India, the left wing secular Indian nationalists had always projected the India Pakistan linguistic and cultural links as a "one people " soft power stance ; basically telling China that it could never replace India in the cultural mindset of the Pakistanis. According to the left wing secular nationalists in India, China was the "outsider " and India will eventually co-opt Pakistan which they viewed as a rebel province that seceded from the mother country under foreign colonial manipulation. Vaguely similar to the way China views Taiwan. Given the residual cultural linguistic similarities Pakistan would eventually relapse into an Indian federation or at least as a protectorate,
Why this will never happen has already been discussed. But left wing India watches with dismay as Pakistan pivots to China and Central Asia and the Chinese language is being learned in Pakistan at the school level. Apart from foreign ministry translators and some Archeologists and historians no one is studying Hindi in the Devnagri script in Pakistan. Even the Sikh temple in Pakistan recently connected via the Kartarpur corridor has no signs in Hindi though it is intended for pilgrims from India.

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A delightful video from China that causes much heartache to secular Indian nationalists; there will never be a similar India Pakistan video.


Was expecting a feedback from others on my post above.
Is there a thread on this forum that deals with the growing Sino-Pakistan cultural links and the growing number of Pakistanis getting familiar with Mandarin as a medium of communication.

Ash the rational said:

Hindi and urdu arent same language.
They are totally two different language .
If you even see any indian or even pakistani saying these then they are delusional .
There is not even 1% similarity between indian and pakistan language.

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What language does Imran Khan speak when addressing the Pakistani public? Is it Urdu or Hindi? Going by your comment I, a Hindi speaker, should only be able to understand a very small percentage of his speeches, yet I can understand most of what he says.

Even googling this seems to yield the same answer, that in the spoken form both are mutually intelligible but in the written form they are not.

Bright Sword said:

2.On your assertion of Urdu in use in Northern India:
It survives only in a watered down spoken form. The provincial and federal governments in those regions have removed Urdu from the school curriculum, removed all Urdu signs and documents, closed down Urdu libraries and University facilities.
The final blows to finish off Urdu is being hammered when Urdu names of cities are being changed. Quite recently the name of Allahabad wss changed to Prayagraj much to the dismay of the local population. But the bigotry in the administration ensured that the protests were crushed with an iron hand.

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It never ceases to amaze me how many free passes India gets from the Western media. This month Inner Mongolian schools switched Civic Education and History classes from Mongolian to Mandarin and Western media have already been crying ‘cultural genocide‘ even though other classes are still taught in Mongolian, bilingual signs are legally mandated and there are lots of public-funded Mongolian language TV/radio stations.

Figaro said:

The Indians for some reason believe they have a special bond even though everyone knows Russia is only there for the

View attachment 64042

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This will slowly become more apparent as time moves on, the old India-Russia bond was based on strategic considerations during the Cold War, as bureaucrats and policy makers from that era start to retire and die out, the relationship will be more based on money

OppositeDay said:

It never ceases to amaze me how many free passes India gets from the Western media. This month Inner Mongolian schools switched Civic Education and History classes from Mongolian to Mandarin and Western media have already been crying ‘cultural genocide‘ even though other classes are still taught in Mongolian, bilingual signs are legally mandated and there are lots of public-funded Mongolian language TV/radio stations.

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Urdu is not indigenous to that part of India, it is a dialect of Hindi that was used by Persian/Turkic conquerors to communicate with their subjects, however it did spread.

As for free passes, the Western media has been negatively covering the CAA/NRC even though these two things are nothing but innocuous refugee laws (allowing fast track citizenship for non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh)

[witty username] said:

What language does Imran Khan speak when addressing the Pakistani public? Is it Urdu or Hindi? Going by your comment I, a Hindi speaker, should only be able to understand a very small percentage of his speeches, yet I can understand most of what he says.

Even googling this seems to yield the same answer, that in the spoken form both are mutually intelligible but in the written form they are not.

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There is a "basic" Hindustani which is akin to other "illegitimate " ( won't use the common expletive) languages such as Portunol ( Portuguese Spanish), Creole, Flemish, Yiddish etc. There is also Gulf Khaleeji a funny mix of Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog used by the expat labour community in GCC region.
A true language is more than just communicating for petty business such as grocery shopping which can be done in sign language.
A true language has:
- 1. Script
2. Literature
3. Vocabulary for political
commercial and administrative
usage.
4. A geographical region, or nation
where this language is.
recognized and in use.
as a medium of communication,
and education.
"Urdu " in India does not meet the criteria above. Urdu in Pakistan does.
If as a Hindi speaker you can understand Imran Khan then it goes to your credit, because you have probably picked up some Urdu words and increased your vocabulary with effort. This is similar to an Italian picking up Spanish words and getting a gist of what a person from Spain is saying. That doesn't mean Spanish and Italian are the same language though the grammar structure maybe similar. India's Prime Minister cannot understand his Pakistani counterpart without an interpreter.
If the purpose of this discussion is to project cultural and linguistic similarities between India and Pakistan and thus implying that Pakistan is likely to be closer to India as compared to China then the argument is fallacious. Linguistic similarities do not determine alliances. Austria is German speaking but was neutral in the run-up to World War 2 with Germany and became an unwilling ally only under an enforced merger and semi-occupation. Switzerland has a large German speaking population but remained neutral ( actually even partially hostile) with respect to Germany in World War 2. Ireland is English ( or Irish dialect) speaking, yet was hostile to British Imperialism prior to World War 2 and was neutral during the war. Another obvious case is South Africa that never looked kindly on the UK despite having a dual Afrikaan English language system.

Bright Sword said:

There is a "basic" Hindustani which is akin to other "illegitimate " ( won't use the common expletive) languages such as Portunol ( Portuguese Spanish), Creole, Flemish, Yiddish etc. There is also Gulf Khaleeji a funny mix of Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog used by the expat labour community in GCC region.
A true language is more than just communicating for petty business such as grocery shopping which can be done in sign language.
A true language has:
- 1. Script
2. Literature
3. Vocabulary for political
commercial and administrative
usage.
4. A geographical region, or nation
where this language is.
recognized and in use.
as a medium of communication,
and education.
"Urdu " in India does not meet the criteria above. Urdu in Pakistan does.
If as a Hindi speaker you can understand Imran Khan then it goes to your credit, because you have probably picked up some Urdu words and increased your vocabulary with effort. This is similar to an Italian picking up Spanish words and getting a gist of what a person from Spain is saying. That doesn't mean Spanish and Italian are the same language though the grammar structure maybe similar. India's Prime Minister cannot understand his Pakistani counterpart without an interpreter.
If the purpose of this discussion is to project cultural and linguistic similarities between India and Pakistan and thus implying that Pakistan is likely to be closer to India as compared to China then the argument is fallacious. Linguistic similarities do not determine alliances. Austria is German speaking but was neutral in the run-up to World War 2 with Germany and became an unwilling ally only under an enforced merger and semi-occupation. Switzerland has a large German speaking population but remained neutral ( actually even partially hostile) with respect to Germany in World War 2. Ireland is English ( or Irish dialect) speaking, yet was hostile to British Imperialism prior to World War 2 and was neutral during the war. Another obvious case is South Africa that never looked kindly on the UK despite having a dual Afrikaan English language system.

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You are right, about the alliance part, alliances are determined more by a national interest than culture, although the latter helps.

My English abilities are far better than my Hindi abilities, I only really speak in Hindi in the household. My impressions of Pakistanis is based upon my university experience where there were some Pakistanis and we c

Bright Sword said:

There is a "basic" Hindustani which is akin to other "illegitimate " ( won't use the common expletive) languages such as Portunol ( Portuguese Spanish), Creole, Flemish, Yiddish etc. There is also Gulf Khaleeji a funny mix of Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog used by the expat labour community in GCC region.
A true language is more than just communicating for petty business such as grocery shopping which can be done in sign language.
A true language has:
- 1. Script
2. Literature
3. Vocabulary for political
commercial and administrative
usage.
4. A geographical region, or nation
where this language is.
recognized and in use.
as a medium of communication,
and education.
"Urdu " in India does not meet the criteria above. Urdu in Pakistan does.
If as a Hindi speaker you can understand Imran Khan then it goes to your credit, because you have probably picked up some Urdu words and increased your vocabulary with effort. This is similar to an Italian picking up Spanish words and getting a gist of what a person from Spain is saying. That doesn't mean Spanish and Italian are the same language though the grammar structure maybe similar. India's Prime Minister cannot understand his Pakistani counterpart without an interpreter.
If the purpose of this discussion is to project cultural and linguistic similarities between India and Pakistan and thus implying that Pakistan is likely to be closer to India as compared to China then the argument is fallacious. Linguistic similarities do not determine alliances. Austria is German speaking but was neutral in the run-up to World War 2 with Germany and became an unwilling ally only under an enforced merger and semi-occupation. Switzerland has a large German speaking population but remained neutral ( actually even partially hostile) with respect to Germany in World War 2. Ireland is English ( or Irish dialect) speaking, yet was hostile to British Imperialism prior to World War 2 and was neutral during the war. Another obvious case is South Africa that never looked kindly on the UK despite having a dual Afrikaan English language system.

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Yeah, you are probably right, my impressions were based on my university experience with British Pakistanis, their Urdu abilities were probably not that great and like my abilities with Hindi (mostly confined to speaking within the household) they could only really make small talk.

[QUOT
Urdu is not indigenous to that part of India, it is a dialect of Hindi that was used by Persian/Turkic conquerors to communicate with their subjects, however it did spread.

As for free passes, the Western media has been negatively covering the CAA/NRC even though these two things are nothing but innocuous refugee laws (allowing fast track citizenship for non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh)
[/QUOTE]

You just contradicted yourself, earlier claiming that Urdu is native to and prevalent to Northern India not Pakistan. So now the evil foreign conqueror theory is resurrected as justification for the persecution of a language. A language that developed over 500 years in India and nowhere else becomes a foreign language. Similar to the way the Nazi's persecuted Yiddish.
Question:
Why are we dragging India and language into this thread?
The language issue was raised by Nobonita during the discussion when I posted a video clip of the Pakistani Prime Minister acknowledging the threat of a missile attack.
Conclusion:
Pakistan has its own link language and it reaches out to the outside world Pakistanis are learning Mandarin, Turkish, and Arabic which gives Pakistan sitting on the crossroads of Central Asia an immense linguistic advantage exactly suitable for the Belt and Road initiative.
India can revert to Sanskrit as its national language and hire more interpreters for its Parliament.