Re: Urdu as our national langauge
Elizabethan Era is considered the golden age of England because this is when England found its new identity as a Protestant state and English became the language of protestant ideas. In a nutshell, Englishness became the face of Protestantism. England is not the only country that linked language with faith and new found identity. In Turkey, Ataturk too got rid of Arabic script of Turkish language and replaced it with Roman letters as a move to depart from religious identity and failures of Ottoman Empire, and give Turkish language and Turkey the state a more European and progressive outlook. It was quite a symbolic personal initiative of a man who hated the Ottoman rulers and the Arab rebellion.
Arabic may have been the language of Muslims of subcontinent, but Turo-Persian dynasties ruled subcontinent lot longer and more extensively, and they invested more heavily into arts and literature.
How is Urdu an invented language? This is factually incorrect. It evolved from Persian and Arabic, and what is the evidence that in 16th century people spoke Urdu like you and I, and not the ever so Persian sounding Urdu of Pakistan’s national anthem? Just because the Brits promoted the language to counter the imperial influence of Persian, doesn’t mean it’s an invented language. It always existed, maybe not in the form known as today, but certainly it was considered the diluted and less sophisticated version of language spoken in the royal courts, but still close enough to be spoken by the imperial army who interact with the masses.