Awesome Event Alert! The Fate of Urdu: Muslims, Language Politics, and Colonial Hyderabad

Because this is a crazy interesting topic, you should attend.

When: Thursday, April 1, 2010, 4-6PM

Where: Asian Centre

Who: Kavita Datla, Mt. Holyoke College

What: The Fate of Urdu: Muslims, Language Politics, and Colonial Hyderabad

Despite its long and varied history, by the 1920s Urdu had increasingly come to be identified as a Muslim language.  What was the response of South Asia’s Muslim intellectuals to such an identification?  How did they position the Urdu language in relation to the past and future of the Indian nation? This talk examines the work of Muslim writers, literary critics, and intellectuals in the southern city of Hyderabad. There they founded the first vernacular university of modern India, Osmania University, using Urdu as the medium of instruction in all subjects from History and the Humanities to Medicine and the Sciences.  The work of these intellectuals allows us to rethink the place of Muslims within the history of Indian nationalism and the trajectory of the national language question in modern India.