"Language is often communalised despite being a shared cultural heritage." Discuss with reference to the persistent antagonism towards Urdu in India.

Urdu is one of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule [1], born in the Indo-Gangetic plains as part of the composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. Yet it is routinely read as a "Muslim" language — the clearest instance of a shared inheritance being captured by communal identity.

Urdu as shared heritage

• Constitutionally Indian: listed in the Eighth Schedule [1]; official or second language in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana and Jharkhand.
• Evolved alongside Khari Boli Hindi, sustaining a common literary and courtly culture, not a religious idiom.
• The State itself treats it as a working Indian language — AICTE technical books and courses are offered in 12 Indian languages, Urdu among them [2].

How communalisation happens

• Colonial politicisation: the late-19th-century Devanagari versus Persio-Arabic script movements recast one language as two, hardening at Partition.
• Script–religion conflation: the Arabic script is misread as foreign, ignoring Urdu's Indian origins.
• Everyday contestation: a Municipal Council signboard in Patur, Maharashtra, carrying Urdu below Marathi was challenged in court [3]; mob pressure on a Telangana school that had introduced Urdu as a second language at parents' request shows hostility persisting beyond the courtroom.

Consequences

• Lawful institutional choices become revocable favours, chilling school and local-body autonomy.
• Vigilantism over curriculum converts a cultural question into a law-and-order failure.
• Linguistic minorities are alienated, and India's plural heritage shrinks.

Safeguards available

• Judicial: in Varshatai v. State of Maharashtra (2025) the Supreme Court found no bar in the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022, holding that language belongs to a community, region and people, not a religion [3].
• Constitutional: Article 29 (minority culture), Article 347 and Article 350A (mother-tongue instruction).
• Policy: NEP 2020's flexible three-language formula, requiring at least two of three languages native to India, plainly accommodates Urdu [4].

Antagonism towards Urdu is therefore social rather than legal. Converting judicial affirmation into everyday reality needs sanctioned language-teacher posts, active use of Articles 347 and 350A, and firm district-level policing — so that fraternity, the Preamble's promise, is lived and not merely litigated.