International Journal of Pure and Applied Researches; 2016 Vol.
1(2);
ijopaar.com; ISSN: 2455-474X
The Role of Persian Language before Independence in India
Dr. Mirza Mohd Ejaz Abbas
Department of Persian, Shia P. G. College
University of Lucknow, Lucknow-226020.
Abstract
The role of Persian language in India was very important and it was used as the second official
language of India, the Persian language considered as the language of culture and science of
subcontinent, before the British colonized India. The Persian language was replaced by English
Language in India in 1832. Before 1832, the Persian language was spoken by people from Sind to
Bengal. The Farsi language is used among the Indian people as only the same language among them
where as Indian languages differed from group to group and the people had the different dialects in
every place of Subcontinent. The Farsi was never an indigenous language of India. It was used as a
lingua-franca of many middle-eastern and Asian countries, from around 1000 A.D. - 1800 A.D. In
India particularly, it was used as a language of culture and education in several Muslim courts. It
was customary to know Farsi, along with Sanskrit, by both Hindu and Muslim scholars in those times,
chiefly because the rules of the game demanded it.
Keywords: Britishers, Persian, Indian languages.
1. Introduction
In the case of the history of Persian language, Persian language is known as one of
the oldest languages in the world, this language is directly related to Indo-European language and it is
known in the world as a branch of Indo-European language and it has root in the history of human
being and came back to Aryans group were an old group arrived to Persia area from western Asia.
Rashidvash (2012) mentioned that among the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia, Iran was
inhabited by human. But Iranian history dates back to 3200 BC. The first dynasty was Achaemenids,
and the great founder of this empire was Cyrus. In addition, he was the first emperor established the
charter of human rights and this empire was overthrown by Alexander the Great in 330 BC was
empire of Seleucid Greek Dynasty. In this discussion, we consider briefly the history of the Persian
language from Old Persian language to Modern Persian language. Old language in Iran is referred to
Achaemenid Iranian language (until 400 BEC); this language is related to Avestan or Zarathshtra
language. Fekri- Ershad and Mehrabi (2006) divided the Iranian old language into the four parts:
1. Old Persian
2. Avestan
3. Sacian
4. Median.
Abolghassemi (1994) indicated that in the beginning of the first Millennium B.C., one of the Iranian
Arian groups settled down in the high grounds of Iran, thus; old Persian language became independent
language and the language prevailed in the area along with the other local dialects were used by the
people. The use of Persian in the domains of power was the part of the Orientalist language policy.
The East India Company's modest patronage of traditional Oriental studies was one manifestation of
the prevailing policy of Orientalism; that was the official ideology of British India from the time of
Warren Hastings (1773-85) until the arrival of the liberal reformer William Bentinck (1828-35), whose
Governor- Generalship witnessed a decisive shift towards Anglicism in official workings. The policy
of Orientalism interwove the company's political need to reconcile Indians to the emerging British Raj
Paper ID: D16111; The Role of Persian Language before Independence in India By Dr. Mirza Mohd
Ejaz Abbas; pp. 232-235; Date of Publication: 15th May 2016; Current Impact Factor: 0.832.
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with the scholarly interest of individual British officials in Indian languages and culture. Orientalists
in India used material both in Sanskrit and in Persian to access India's textual traditions. According to
Gauri Viswanathan, Orientalism was adopted as an official policy because the British had a political
sense that an efficient India administration rested on an understanding of 'Indian culture. The
Orientalist position was that a Western political tradition could be successfully grafted upon Indian
society without having to direct itself toward the transformation of that society along western lines.
Thus, the convergence of British political and intellectual interests is revealed in the establishment of
the Calcutta Madarsas, to which Hastings contributed personally, and the Sanskrit College at Banaras,
which owed its foundation to the initiative of the Company official Jonathan Duncan. For the first two
decades of nineteenth century, the British education policy in India retained a predominantly
Orientalist character. At the forefront of the campaign to anglicize Indian education and society was
the Evangelical movement, followers of which believed that the introduction of Western education
and Christianity would transform a morally decadent society. One of the best-known Orientalist
scholars, Sir William Jones, described his impression in 1798 in the following terms:
.. .India lay before us, and Persia on our left, whilst a breeze from Arabia blew nearly
on our stem ... If gave me inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the midst of so noble an
amphitheatre almost encircled by the vast regions of Asia, which has ever been esteemed the nurse of
sciences, the inventers of delightful and useful arts, the scene of glorious actions, fertile in the
productions of human genius, abounding in natural wonders, and infinitely diversified in the forms of
religion and government, in the law, manners, customs, and languages, as well as in the features and
complexions, of men ... .I have ever considered languages as the mere instruments of real learning,
and think them improperly confounded with learning itself: the attainment of them is, however,
indispensably necessary.
Parsi or Persian was the language of the Parsa people who ruled Iran between 550 330 BCE. It belongs to what scholars call the Indo-Iranian group of languages. It became the language
of the Persian Empire and was widely spoken in the ancient days ranging from the borders of India in
the east, Russian in the north, the southern shores of the Persian Gulf to Egypt and the Mediterranean
in the west. Writing letters and drafting documents was an important business of the state
administration in the Mughal state. This was taken care of by Darul Insha. Ilm al-insha refers to the
art of drafting letters and documents and also means the creation and construction of letters,
documents and state papers. It has been a part of Muslim literary and politico-diplomatic world from
the very beginning. The term is also applied to the writings of a refined prose style. According to one
scholar, 'the final aim of insha is to acquire a knowledge of the virtues and faults (muhasin wa ma
'aib) of prose composition, but the principal forms involved in the study of insha are khutab (sermons)
and rasa 'if (epistles)'. Insha in this respect takes two forms: one is addressed to the general reader
(without specifying any name) and can be called individual style; the other is addressed to a specific
person can be named as chancellery style. Amongst the Munsha 'at (anthologies) which were
prescribed or read were the Ruqa 'at-i-Jami, Bada' 'i al-isha, Mukatabat-i- 'Allami or Insha '-i- Abu 'l
Fazl, Sahifa-ishahi and the Nami-i-nami. All the rules and conditions related to the art of epistolary
composition, andtne manners ofwriting and composing (a 'in-i-kitabat wa a 'in-i- 'ibaraat) as
formulated by the great exponents of the art, were thoroughly dwelt upon before a munshi could enter
the service in that capacity. Thus, the process involved considerable training over a long period of
time, and apprenticeship had an elaborate code of conduct and learning. Even hindu munshis were
trained and educated in the ethos of Persianized composite culture. During the Mughal rule, and
subsequently right up to the full establishment of British rule, Persian was widely adopted by the
Bengali elite as the language of administration and high culture. Members of families of the landed
classes who had dealings with the Mughal court and desired to positions in administration studied
Persian.
As Persian was the language of the court, much of the literature produced in this
period was written in Persian. Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan Dehelvi wrote superb poetry in Persian.
Historians like Minhas-us-Siraj and Zia Barani and Ibn Batuta who came to India during those days
wrote accounts of rulers, important political events and incidents in this language. In the medieval
period, Persian was adopted as the court language. Several historical accounts, administrative manuals
Paper ID: D16111; The Role of Persian Language before Independence in India By Dr. Mirza Mohd
Ejaz Abbas; pp. 232-235; Date of Publication: 15th May 2016; Current Impact Factor: 0.832.
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and allied literature in this language have come down to us. The mughal rulers were great patrons of
leaning and literature. Babar wrote his tuzuk (autobiography) in Turkish language, but his grandson
Akbar got it translated into Persian. Akbar patronized many scholars. He got Mahabharata translated
into Persian. Jahangirs autobiography (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri) is in Persian and is a unique piece of
literature. It is said that Noorjahan was an accomplished Persian poetess. Quite a fair amount of
Persian literature has been produced by the courtiers of the Mughals. Abul Fazls Akbarnamah and
Ain-e-Akbari is a fine piece of literature. From there we get a good deal of information about Akbar
and his times. Faizi wrote beautiful Persian poetry. Several collections of letters of the Mughal period
(insha) have come down to us. Besides shedding light on Mughal history, they indicate different styles
of letter writing. Another name in prose and history writing is that of Chandra Bhan, a writer of
Shahjahans days. Similarly, we have a work named Tabqat-i-Alamgri, shedding light on Aurangzeb.
Badauni was another writer who belonged during Akbars time. In the twentieth century, Iqbal wrote
good Persian poetry. All this has now become a part of Indian heritage and culture.
The Britishers were entirely dependent on the Indian munshis for record keeping and
writing letters of administration and court correspondence. In 1800, the British started training
munshis at colleges of Fort Williams in Calcutta and Haileybury in Britain. Later, between 1820 and
1850, a new generation of munshis appeared who were educated in English in addition to vernacular
languages. The British also realized that even their English employees needed to have a working
knowledge of the Persian language. The prestige of Persian as the best language for an ambitious
British cadet or junior writer continued into the early nineteenth century. Hastings; who had lobbied
unsuccessfully in 1765 for the establishment of a Chair in Persian at Oxford, vigorously argued that
Persian and Arabic should be the keystone of curriculum at the newly established Company's College
at Fort William. When Lord Wellesley opened the College at Fort William in 1801, he expressed the
opinion that no civil servant should be nominated to certain offices of trust and responsibility until it
was ascertained that he was sufficiently acquainted with the laws and regulations of the government,
and the language of the country. He allowed the young men two years to acquire these qualification
and fixed January 1801 as the period after which no appointment would be given except to those who
had passed an examination in the native languages. In the years between 1813 and 1857 the East India
Company was obliged to make and state a clear policy for Persian. With the establishment of a
General Committee of Public Instruction (henceforth GCPI) in 1823 the task at hand, pertaining to
educational institutions and grants became clearer. In accordance with this policy, the GCPI in Bengal
introduced modem science and English established new colleges at Calcutta, Agra and Delhi whose
curricula were intended to blend Indian and Western learning. In 1829 Lord William Bentinck, wrote
to the GCPI that
to promote the great object of improving India by spreading abroad the lights of
European knowledge, morals, and civilization ... .it is the wish and admitted policy of the British
Government to render its own language gradually and eventually the language of public business
throughout the country.
The last phase of such a policy started in 1837 with the replacement of Persian. In this
and subsequent sections we will discuss the struggle between the supporters of education in Indian
languages and in English, and how this struggle culminated in the removal of Persian as an official
language in 1837.
The period between 1820 and 1835 is known as the period of the Orientalist Anglicist
controversy in writings on educational .history. The Orientalists, like Colebrooke (himself a former
Persian Secretary), sided instinctively with men of traditional Arabic and Sanskrit learning and the
wealthy and distinguished families who patronized them. The Anglicists; on the other hand, Trevelyan
and Macaulay being the foremost among them, proclaimed their desire to let the light of Western
knowledge flood in upon all Indians, without regard to cast or creed. In particular they hoped to break
the stranglehold of Brahmans on government-backed education. The Orientalists were to remain the
dominant influence on education policy in Bengal until 1833, when Bentinck appointed Charles
Trevelyan to the General Committee of Public Instruction in place of Wilson. Trevelyan immediately
set about attacking the Oriental colleges and at the same time initiated a vigorous campaign in support
Paper ID: D16111; The Role of Persian Language before Independence in India By Dr. Mirza Mohd
Ejaz Abbas; pp. 232-235; Date of Publication: 15th May 2016; Current Impact Factor: 0.832.
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of the Anglicist cause in the press, in which he publicized his controversial scheme to romanise the
Indian vernaculars.
2. Conclusion
The Farsi was never an indigenous language of India. It was used as a lingua-franca
of many middle-eastern and Asian countries, from around 1000 A.D. - 1800 A.D. In India particularly,
it was used as a language of culture and education in several Muslim courts. It was customary to
know Farsi, along with Sanskrit, by both Hindu and Muslim scholars in those times, chiefly because
the rules of the game demanded it. For example, Ram Mohan Roy, who is also known as the Father
of Indian Renaissance, was fluent in Farsi, Arabic, Sanskrit and English, and his knowledge in these
languages was crucial to him becoming a revered scholar in those times. Farsi was the language of the
educated elite and the ruling elite. Farsi got replaced with English by the British colonizers in India.
So, one widely-spoken, official foreign language was replaced by another foreign language, which
would become widely spoken and official language of India. At the same time, Hindi and Urdu were
being encouraged to develop as vernacular languages in India, as a colonial project to increase rapport
with the natives, and as a mode to replace Persian or Farsi as a spoken language. An act of 1837
replaced the use of Persian with Indian vernacular languages. The act called for administration in
local and provincial levels to be done in a local Indian language. The proponents of the Act argued
that Indians should be administered in a language which they understood, and Persian was a foreign
language which was only accessible by the educated elite and therefore no longer sufficient. Though
no vernacular language was specified as such, it was made clear that a spoken language of an area
should be the language of its governance. In the early nineteenth century, when Persian was being
increasingly replaced by Urdu as the vernacular that served as the administrative language in the
colonial bureaucracy, certain Hindu elites and British educators, started creating pressure on having a
standardized Hindi, as an alternative to Urdu, which was thought to have too much of a Persian
influence. Urdu was seen as a language that still created a distance among the natives and the colonial
masters, far removed from the language of the people. This pressure situation took shape in the 1860s
as opposing language movements, which supported either Hindi or Urdu. Ultimately, Hindi
movement got a stronghold among the Hindu majority while Urdu, with its "foreign" script, was used
among the Muslim minorities. Persian print was used by the East India Company in a very effective
way, so as to acquire knowledge of Indian customs and usages. Persian texts - specifically insha were used to improve the administration of India; they were printed in book form so that these skills
from India's past rulers could be taught to India's future rulers. This can be traced with colonial
educational policy in India in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
References
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[2]. Khansir, A. A. and Mozafari, N. (2014); The Impact of Persian Language on Indian Languages,
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4, No. 11, pp. 2360-2365, November
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[3]. Prior K., Brennan L. and Haines R. (2001); 'Bad Language: The Role of English, Persian and
Other Esoteric Tongues in the Dismissal of Sir Edward Colebrooke as Resident of
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