Rekhta- From an Un-cultured language to the language of Elite
As the students of the History Department in third-year are reading about Rekhta as a source to reconstruct Mughal History, they have also come across a reading by Prof. Saifuddin Ahmad- Bas Ke Samjhe Hai Isko Sare Awam: The Emergence of Urdu Literary Culture in North India. Therefore to throw some light on the topic of Rekhta and to acquire more knowledge out of the given readings, the History Department of Kirori Mal College invited Professor Saifuddin Ahmad to speak on the Early Urdu Literary Tradition & the Practice of Rekhta. The lecture was conducted via GoogleMeet platform at 11am on 1st September, 2020.
About the Lecturer:
Professor Saifuddin
Ahmad is a professor at University of Delhi and he specialises in Medieval
Indian History and Culture and History of the Islamic World. He has done his
Bachelors and Masters in History from Aligarh Muslim University and completed
his M.Phil in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Savouring the Past: Food and Taste in India during the Medival Ages
and The Delhi College and the Revolt of
1857 are some of his own publications. He has also presented papers at the
International Seminar on Mir Syed Ali Hamadani, National Seminar on 1857
Perspectives, and National Seminar on Methodology of Conducting Research on
Medieval Indian History.
About the Lecture:
Under the guidance of
Dr. Amit Kumar Suman, the lecture was moderated by Ishita Roy who is the
Academic and Media Coordinator of the History Department of Kirori Mal College.
The lecture began with his brief introduction and apart from the students of
third year, students from second year and faculty members also showed interest
and were part of this lecture. Prof. Ahmad began by differentiating between Rekhta and Urdu. Rekhta, as he mentioned was the earliest form of what we today know as Urdu. The reason why it is important to focus on vernacular literature,
especially Rekhta is because a lot of
information is not covered in the official texts. Many of the times we see that
the court commissioned texts, even though consist a rich vocabulary, but they
do not necessarily throw light upon the negative sides of the emperor and
totally miss out on the general public of that particular period. Those texts
only evolve around the Emperor and legitimising his rule. Whereas vernacular
literature bridge the gap between the Emperor and the Empire, which is why it
is important to study them in order to reconstruct the History of a particular
time.
From Delhi Sultanate to
the Mughal period, Persian remained the official language and was used in the
court and administrative affairs. Though it was not spoken by the large section
of the society, it was yet used in the official matters as it had gained an
Elite status as it was only spoken by a particular section of the society- the
Nobles and the Mughal Court. Though we do see instances in the Mughal History
where different emperors have recognised vernacular languages, Babur and Akbar
are the earliest of them, to name a few. As Harbans Mukhia mentions, Akbar even
used slangs in the Hindavi language, however Persian still remained an
important language of the court, and it was only until Shahjahan and Aurangzeb,
when the Mughal court was fully commanded in Urdu (Hindavi or Rekhta).
By the time Shahjahan
became the emperor, the knowledge of Hindavi became an essential requirement to
be in the service of state, but the standard language of administrative matters
remained Persian. Though we see instances of multi-linguist literature in Baburnama, as he uses variants of
Turkish, but increasing interest of Braj and other dialects could only be seen
from the 18th Century.
Prof. Ahmad then
presented a presentation on the Rekhta
traditions and told that Rekhta
actually means mixed/interspersed/ poured, meaning, it is a language made with
writings and poetry in mixed language. As Persian already enjoyed a high status
in the Mughal Court, therefore Rekhta
or present-day Urdu was considered “giri
hui”, “padi hui” or “tuti hui,” which literally translates to
un-cultured/characterless/worthless and unfavoured language.
The earliest form of Rekhta is visible in the works of Amir
Khusrau, who was versatile in Sanskrit, Hindavai, Persian, Braj and many other
languages and his vast knowledge in different languages reflect in his
writings. His works show the rich use of colloquial Hindi and Awadhi dialects.
ze-hāl-e-miskīñ makun taġhāful durā.e naināñ banā.e batiyāñ
ki tāb-e-hijrāñ nadāram ai jaañ na lehū kaahe lagā.e chhatiyāñ
In the couplet above,
we can see the use of terms that come directly from the Persian with influences
from Braj and other local dialects. Another example is of Chandrabhan Brahman’s
work (1574-1662), which held the office of Wazir
under Dara Shikoh and prior to that held the office of Munshi under Shahjahan and also was a known poet. He wrote:
Khuda
ne kis shahar andar hamarko lae dala hai
Na
Dilbar hai, na saqi ha.i na shisha hai, na pyala hai
This text again is a
clear example of the mix of various languages as well as dialects and as the
use of such language becomes frequent, Rekhta
gets refined and gradually by 18th century, Urdu comes into being.
In works of Mir Insha Allah Khan, we again find use of several languages like
Arabic, Persian, Turkish and even Punjabi. It would therefore correct to say
that over the course of time we can see an evolution of Rekhta. In the earliest of the times, Amir Khusrau called this
Hindavi, followed by Abul Fazl who termed it Dehlavi (language of Delhi), in
the South it was called Deccani and soon after, in various regions, it was
named after its local dialect. Evolution of Rekhta
therefore required contacts with different communities in order to survive. The
interaction that it had, it unique and rich in nature and easily comprehensive
by the large mass.
Gradually, as a new class of businessmen emerged from the non-existing elite class, they started patronising the local dialects and thus Rekhta achieved a higher status in the social strata of languages. A notion had also come up that there is no longer need to fight or compete with Iranian or with the use of the Persian language; rather it is high time to start using the language people are most comfortable with. As Sauda writes:
Jo chahe yah ke kahe Hind ka
zabandan sha’ir
To
behtar uske liye Rekhta ka hai aaiyin...
Kahan
tak tu unki zaban ko durust bolega
Zaban
apni mei tu baandh ma’ani-e rangin
[If
one wants to be called poet of Indian languages,
Nothing
better for him than writing in Rekhta...
To
what extent can you speak in their language accurately?
Compose colourful poetry in your own language.]
Sauda’s writing is an
appeal to the larger section of the society to write in Rekhta and showcase the richness that it has. This change could be
seen with the emergence of new elite class, and at the same time the previous
elite class realised the Persian patronage will no longer suffice and there has
been shift of centres of power from Persian to Rekhta or Urdu, therefore there was a need to produce literature in
Rekhta. Sauda and Mir could further
be seen crediting themselves for encouraging Rekhta. Through their works, they have made sure they are given the
credit they deserve in order to popularize Rekhta,
which not only lead to its patronization, but also made it a popularly accepted
languages and up-lifted its status in the social strata of languages.
Sukhan
ko Rekhta ke puchhe tha koi Sauda
Pasand-i
khatir-i dilha hua ye fan mujh se
-
Sauda
Rekhta
rutbe ko pahuchaya hua usi ka hai
Mo’taqad
kaun nahi Mir ki ustadi ka
- Mir
Rekhta
not only portrays the process of a language’s evolution, but it also gives an
insight to the shift in the political centres which tells the condition of the
Mughal Empire. What we cannot find in the official texts is the criticism,
which can be seen in either vernacular literature, Rekhta, with regards to Mughal History and writers like Badauni,
who was not commissioned by the Mughal court. We also find evidences of the
decline of a specific reign and dissatisfaction of the people of the empire is
also often reflected through such literature, which can again be essential
while reconstructing past.
Shah-i-Ashob is a form
of poetry that depicts the devastation of a city as a result of political,
social or economic distress in a satirical mode, one of the most known works
could be seen of Jafar Zatalli’s. This genre of the vernacular/ non-court
commissioned work is also called Haqiqat-Pasandi
(realism), and is largely studied by historians, as they reflect the concerns
of the larger mass and talk about destruction, devastation, loot and plunder,
and other such incidents which are not mentioned in the official documents. In
the writings of Sauda, we find the condition of Delhi after it has been looted
and plundered by the invasion of Nadir Shah:
Jahanabad,
tu kab is sitam ke kabil tha
Magar
kabhi kisi ashiq ka ye nagar dil tha
Ke
yu mita diya hoya ye naqshi batil tha
Ajab
tarah ka ye pahare jahan me sahil tha
This shows that Rekhta allowed the poets to freely talk
about the devastation and even criticise the emperor on his failure, as we see
from the works of Kayam Chandpuri from Bijnaur, who writes after another
invasion of Nadir Shah in Delhi and criticises Shah Alam II to an extent that
he calls him “pimp”, “rascal;”, “evil spirit”, and “Shadow of Satan” with
contrast to Akbar’s title of Shadow of God.
Therefore we see that Rekhta or Urdu allowed many to write in the language they were comfortable and use it as a form of expression, they expressed dissatisfaction, which was not seen in the court-commissioned Persian literature. Not only does it give us a better understanding of the socio-political scenario, but vernacular literature were also used to communicate to a larger group of people, as Mir Asr writes:
Ek to Rekhta hai sahal zaban One, Rekhta is easy language
Dusre jab ke ho bah sokhi-e bayan Secondly, when it is matter of humorous statement
Bas
ke samjhe hain is ko sare awam Thus
it is understood by all the public
Jin ko na nazm se, na nasr se kam Who do not have anything to do with poetry or prose
The lecture therefore
ended at the note of highlighting the study of vernacular literature in order
to understand and reconstruct the past and how it throws light upon the
incidents that one cannot find from the court commissioned texts. The lecture
was then followed by the Q&A session where the representation of women in Rekhta and the present status of Rekhta was discussed. The Lecture was
also chaired by Dr. Vandana Chaudhary and Dr. Ajeet Kumar, Head of Department
of the History Department of Kirori Mal College and Mr. Dheeraj Kumar. Thank
you note was also presented to Prof. Saifuddin Ahmad in a PDF format.
-
Author:
Ishita Roy
Academic & Media Coordinator
History Department, Kirori Mal College
University of Delhi
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