Kashmir News: ‘BJP leader’s demand to make Urdu non-mandatory in upcoming exam raises hackles in Kashmir’
Kashmir News: BJP leader Sunil Sharma’s demand of making the working knowledge of Urdu non-mandatory for the Naib Tehsildar examination in Jammu and Kashmir has raised concerns in the Valley, with both the ruling National Conference and Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accusing the party of “erasing J&K’s cultural legacy.”
On Thursday, J&K Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma called on Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and sought his intervention, saying that making one of J&K’s five official languages “violates the constitutional principles of equal opportunity and administrative impartiality, and it creates an unfair barrier, particularly disadvantaging aspirants from the Jammu Division”.
Sharma was accompanied by BJP’s J&K unit president Sat Sharma
Sharma’s demand comes after the J&K Services Selection Board’s (JKSSB) June 9 notification for 75 revenue posts. In its guidelines for the exam, the SSB specified that paper two of the exam will comprise checking the candidate’s “working knowledge of Urdu”. Urdu is used in revenue records, land settlements, court judgments as well as legal correspondence in the UT, making a functional knowledge of the language necessary for revenue-related positions.
However, National Conference MLA and the party’s chief spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq condemned the BJP leader’s demand, emphasising that the place of Urdu in J&K’s revenue, judicial and administrative system is “rooted in history, not in any political or sectarian agenda”. Urdu, he said, became the official administrative language of J&K over 130 years ago during Maharaja’s reign, “evolving naturally as a unifying and functional language for all regions and communities”.
PDP’s Pulwama MLA Waheed Para also warned against removing the language requirement stating that the demand “risks erasing J&K’s rich archive and cultural legacy”.
“Urdu is more than a language, it’s a key part of the region’s heritage. Undermining it divides communities and rewrites memory,” he said.
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