May 29, 2016No Urdu in Dilli, MianManash Firaq Bhattacharjee

“This poem is in the wake of a disturbing event that took place early this week in Delhi. Two artists, a Christian and a Muslim, were drawing a couplet in Urdu on a wall when they were attacked by members claiming to belong to the Hindu right and told to stop. This was an unprecedented episode of cultural policing in the capital of India, a place which reverberates with a history of brilliant poets during the Mughal era, who wrote in Persian and Urdu, and who were part of the common Indo-Islamic culture that thrived in these parts.”