Source: TW
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Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was for “united India” as long as Hindus were to accept Muslim supremacy as it was during Sultanate. Why would Indian Muslims want a separate territory when they can get the whole India? This “change” in SSAK came when he saw no hope for Indian Muslims to be able to achieve that, noticing the rising tide of Hindu revival, with a sophisticated Svadeshi movement with Bengal. The “change” was noted by many, such as by Lala Lajpat Rai, who expressed it in a series of open letters to SSAK.
SSAK and other Muslim elites detested works like “History of India as Told by its Own Historians” in 8 vols, which in 1867 made accessible to public the reasonable translations of original Persian-Arabic sources on Muslims rulers of India, laying bare for Hindu students the unvarnished history of the Islamic tyranny on Hindus. The Indian Muslim elites never denounced the Islamic tyranny in India themselves - zealots were their heroes. But elites like SSAH of course saw the danger in Hindus studying the Islamic record made accessible by British.
Indeed SSAK often made flowery statements for Hindu consumption about how Hindu and Muslim unity was essential to India, while in his addresses to the Muslim audiences he was very virulent in his attitude.
On another occasion he made a poetic comparison of Hindus and Mussalmans to the two beautiful eyes of a newly wedded bride. “If the two exist in concord the bride will remain resplendent, while if they see in different directions, she is bound to become squinted and even partially blind.‘‘4
However, these apparently nationalist ideas were only intended for the consumption of Hindus, according to M.R.A. Raig “As is well-known, he (Sir Syed) secured donations for Aligarh from Hindus of his own feudal class. When canvassing he expressed such exemplary sentiments as that Hindus and Muslims were the two eyes of the beautiful Indian bride. But when addressing exclusively Muslim, audiences, especially political meetings, he was militant enough to threaten civil war.”5
SSAK assessed that Indian Muslims were not strong enough to withstand the torrent of Svadeshi revival which had reached a great peak by 1880s and which would not accept the alien paramountcy of either Muslims or British. His reaction was natural- join hands with British.
Protection of Urdu was a bogeyman SSAH raised to oppose Svadeshi Movement - Hindi revival was whose one fruit.
Urdu creole
But first thing first. Urdu is not Hindi with “sprinkling” of Arabic-Persian. Sprinkling of loan words are present in any language and don’t make it a diff lang. No - Urdu is not a “developed version of Hindi”, but a creole of Hindi as spoken by people of Arabi-Farsi culture. Urdu is a creole of Indian Muslims. A creole always remains a degenerate version of a base language not a “developed version”.
Here is one Urdu sample writing of Sir Syed Ahmed himself. Not a sprinkling of Arabic-Farsi words but a whole container full of them, which would be unintelligible to most Indians, who would consider themselves native Hindi speakers.
तीसरी दफ़ा मुस्लमानों के उलूम की तरक़्क़ी उस वक़्त हुई कि बाअज़ लोगों ने अक़ाएद मज़हबी में इख़तिलाफ़ किया और फ़र्क बदा वाहवाए-का शेवा हुआ और इलम-ए-कलाम में किताबें तसनीफ़ होनी शुरू हुईं फिर उसी इलम-ए-कलाम को और ज़्यादा तरक़्क़ी हो गई जब कि तरदीद मसाइल फ़लसफ़ा यूनानेह भी, जो अक़ाइद इस्लाम के बरख़िलाफ़ थे इस में शामिल किए गए। सबसे अव्वल इस इल्म में हारिस महासबी ने किताब तसनीफ़ की जो हज़रत इमाम अहमद बिन हनबल का हमअसर था। अव्वल अव्वल उल्मा और अतक़या-ए-एस इलम को ज़दिक़ा-ओ-इलहाद समझते थे फिर रफ़्ता-रफ़्ता उस की ऐसी ज़रूरत मालूम हुई कि फ़र्ज़ किफ़ाया तक नौबत पहुंच गई।
In an essay on Urdu, Sir Syed himself admits both- that Urdu developed but as a creole of Hindi by foreigners, and as the language of Indian Muslims. It’s funny that speakers of a creole, say Bermudan English, demand that the proper English should not be allowed in courts. And if English speakers demand that proper English also be admitted, the Bermuda creole speakers consider it an attack on their religion!
Hindus did not target Urdu, they just refused to give up the base language of Hindi to be replaced by a Muslim creole.