Urdu Defence Association
The Urdu Defence Association was an organisation developed by Mohsin-ul-Mulk, starting in 1900, for the advocacy of Urdu as the lingua franca of the Muslim community of India. The association is regarded as an offshoot of the Aligarh Movement. Background During the last days of the Muslim rule in Indian Sub-continent, Urdu (with Perso-Arabic script) emerged as the most common language of the northwestern provinces of India. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Arabic, Turkic, Sanskrit, and Pashto influence. Urdu had taken almost 900 years to develop to its present form. It began taking shape during the Delhi Sultanate as well as Mughal Empire (1526–1858) in South Asia. Urdu was mainly developed in Delhi and its surrounding areas which was the seat of Royal court of the Indian Subcontinent. It also became a language of Muslim nobility. After Persian language, it was most widely used in the Mughal Royal Court. It was declared the official language, and all official records were written in this language. In 1876, some Hindus began to demand that Hindi should be made an official language in place of Urdu, and they started a movement in Banaras in which they demanded the replacement of Urdu with Hindi, and the Perso-Arabic script with the Devanagari, script as the court language in the northwestern provinces. The reason for opposing Urdu was that the language was written in Persian script, which was similar to the Arabic script, and Arabic was the language of the Quran, the Holy Book of the Muslims. The movement grew quickly and within a few months spread throughout the Hindu population of the northwestern provinces of India. The headquarters of this movement were in Allahabad. This situation provoked the Muslims to come out in order to protect the importance of the Urdu language. The opposition by the Hindus towards the Urdu language made it clear to the Muslims of the region that Hindus were not ready to tolerate the culture and traditions of the Muslims. The Urdu-Hindi controversy had a great effect on the life of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Before this event he had been a great advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity and was of the opinion that the "two nations are like two eyes of the beautiful bride, India". But this movement completely altered his point of view. He put forward the Two-Nation Theory, predicting that the differences between the two groups would increase with the passage of time and the two communities would not join together in anything wholeheartedly. Vision of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan Sir Syed Ahmed Khan perceived Urdu as the lingua franca of Muslims. Having been developed by Muslim rulers of India, Urdu was used as a secondary language to Persian, the official language of the Mughal court. Since the decline of the Mughal dynasty, Sir Syed promoted the use of Urdu through his own writings. Under Sir Syed, the Scientific Society translated Western works only into Urdu. The schools established by Sir Syed imparted education in the Urdu medium. The