New Delhi: Dr. Syed Ahmad Khan, National President of the Urdu Development Organisation (UDO), said that the revival of important work that had remained pending for the last five years in the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) is a welcome development. He appreciated the dedicated efforts and active role of Dr. Shams Iqbal in taking this work forward.
He said that the UDO has been consistently working to protect the constitutional and educational rights of the Urdu language. Owing to the efforts of the organisation’s Founder General Secretary Dr. Parwaz-ul-Uloom and Dr. Lal Bahadur, several important legal cases have been won in favour of Urdu.
Dr. Khan recalled that the Supreme Court’s judgment on 4 September 2014 against the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan was a historic victory for the Urdu language. Had the verdict gone in favour of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, the constitutional status of Urdu as the second official language in seven Indian states could have been adversely affected. The Supreme Court upheld India’s multilingual tradition and protected the constitutional rights of Urdu.
He further stated that the organisation has written to the Chief Ministers of various states, senior government officials, and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) regarding the condition of Urdu Academies and other pending issues. He expressed hope that these initiatives would produce positive results. He added that if the Urdu-speaking community remains united and continues to work collectively for its constitutional rights, many more significant achievements can be secured in the future.
