Maharashtra Urdu Academy Asked To Vacate Office Amid 50th Anniversary Plans, Faces Budget Cuts And Staff Shortage

Even as the Maharashtra State Urdu Academy is planning to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, the organisation set up to promote the language in the state has been asked to vacate its office in the Old Customs House building near Horniman Circle.

The reason is that the academy has been transferred from the culture to the minorities department, and the present premises belong to the former. The academy has asked for an alternate space from the state government's general administration department.

The academy was created with ambitious plans. When it was established in April 1975 by the Maharashtra government, Urdu literature stalwarts were among its committee members. This included Ismat Chughtai, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Setu Madhavrao Pagdi, and other luminaries. The then state chief minister, S B Chavan, was the chairman. The nominated committee members were largely drawn from the Progressive Writers Movement, a left-leaning literary movement that included writers like Premchand and Saadat Hasan Manto. The academy's stature is now diminished.

The academy has been functioning without a committee for the last five years, and the meagre budget means that it functions with minimal staff and curtailed activities, said members of the Urdu literary fraternity in Mumbai. Farid Khan, president of Urdu Caravan, said he visited the office a few weeks ago and was sad to see the condition. Khan applied for the Right to Information law and found that while the academy has a sanctioned staff strength of seven, there were only two employees, the chief executive officer and an office clerk. 

"The academy's job is to promote new writers in the language by organising cultural programmes and awards. The organisation has not announced its annual awards for the last three years. The academy has been reduced to a symbol," said Khan.

Writer and poet Obaid Azam Azmi, who edits Urdu Channel, a literature magazine, said, "The academy was established to promote Urdu. They did a lot of work 10 to 15 years ago. The academy's budget has been reduced, and it is not very active now."

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The academy's dormancy has been brought to the government's notice in the current session of the state assembly. Member of the Legislative Assembly, Rais Shaikh, said he spoke to the minorities development department minister, Dattatray Bhamre. "The minister said he will hold a meeting on the subject. We have put up a proposal for the anniversary celebrations," said Shaikh.

Shoaib Hashmi, chief executive officer of the academy, said they received a letter in May to vacate the office. "They want us to vacate as soon as possible. The culture department needs more space as more language academies have been set up under the ministry. We have asked the general administration department for space. We will go wherever they put us up," said Hashmi, who added that the academy was running 12 schemes for the language's promotion.

Many Urdu writers are opposed to the transfer of the academy to the minorities department. "This association of Urdu with a minority religious group is not right. Urdu has a much broader history and was not the language of Muslims alone," said Khan.