Many strong leaders broke away to form their own parties. The first bulletin of Science Ki Duniya came out in 1970, the full-fledged magazine was published in 1976.”Īfter 1990, Dehlvi says, “communal forces” gained political power like never before. After Indira Gandhi became the prime minister, I badgered her, and, after helping resolve a workers’ strike at several CSIR labs, secured the organisation’s backing. “But many in the bureaucracy were anti-Urdu, and the magazine didn’t see the light of day for a decade. Permissions from Nehru and Azad came in 1957-58. I asked, ‘Maulana, how will this temper be developed if people don’t get scientific literature in their own language?’” “After independence, both Nehru and Maulana Azad (then education minister) would speak of inculcating scientific temper in their public speeches. Dehlvi also fought to publish the government’s science magazine in Urdu. To this end, he was instrumental in setting up Urdu schools across the country since 1970, and abroad, in later decades. After that, I’ve been fighting for communal harmony and for Urdu conservation.” Before 1947, I fought against the British.
After independence, there was a time when the biggest Urdu scholars in India were afraid to speak up for the language. Dehlvi says, “The Partition strengthened those who sought to establish the binary of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan and Urdu-Muslim-Pakistan. Partition dealt a crippling blow to Urdu in India.
Apart from passing his MA exam from Hindu College, he also cleared the Adeeb Fazil and Munshi Fazil examinations (equivalent to high school and BA degree respectively across all Urdu boards) of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind in New Delhi. Sitaram market in Old Delhi is named after one of his ancestors, he says. In 1951, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent him to USSR for an international conference, and he was selected as the second world youth laureate.ĭehlvi was born on Jin Old Delhi’s Gali Kashmeerian to Allama Tirbhoon Nath Zutshi “Zar” Dehlavi and Brij Rani Zutshi “Bezar” Dehlavi, both Urdu poets. “Most of the nationalist poetry during the freedom movement, such as those by Bhagat Singh, was written in Urdu, a language some today seek to discredit as un-Indian,” he says.ĭuring the freedom movement and after independence, Dehlvi was a regular at Congress meetings and rallies, as a premier Inquilabi poet. That is how Aruna Asaf Ali noticed me, and my association with the Congress began,” he says. “I rounded up students of various government-run schools, and we boycotted the celebration. In Delhi, engraved brass plates were being distributed, along with four annas to schoolkids to have chaat and pakaudas at Chandni Chowk. In 1933, King George V and Queen Mary of England were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. He’s a symbol of all that Delhi has stood for, and is in danger of losing - a multicultural identity, where languages and traditions of all the empires that ruled the city evolved from and merged into each other organically.ĭehlvi’s association with the freedom movement began early - when he was in Class IV, he says. Dehlvi is a Kashmiri Pandit who spent his life working for Urdu and enriching it with his poetry.
The walls of his home are covered with photos of him onstage with big names from the world of literature and politics, in different periods and different countries. Veteran Urdu poet Gulzar Dehlvi, was the editor of Science ki Duniya, the only science magazine the Government of India published in Urdu.
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