Mumbai: Vice-President Hamid Ansari yesterday inaugurated a national conference on Urdu at Bhiwandi near here and stressed the need for development of the "beautiful language".
"Bhiwandi is a historical place where people from different parts of the country are staying and Urdu has become a local language," Ansari said at the conference with the theme 'Urdu in the 21st Century'.
"Urdu is a historical language. After 1947, Urdu developed selectively in India. It developed well in some parts but lagged behind in others," the Vice-President said.
Ruing that Urdu could not become popular the way it should have been, Ansari said Maharashtra is one place where the language developed well.
"Urdu could not get popularity and progress more due to lack of institutional structure and trained teachers. But it survived on its inherent strength," Ansari observed.
The Vice-President said that development of Urdu should begin at home. "One should take responsibility to spread Urdu by speaking it at home and place of work. It is the responsibility of each person to spread this beautiful language," he added.
The Vice-President pointed out that there are five crore speakers of Urdu which is the sixth largest language in the country.
"Urdu's strength lies in four characteristics. It's language of revolution, language of love, language of deep culture and also the language of war," Ansari said.
He drew attention to words from other languages being adapted by Urdu "which has grown exponentially due to internet and is now reaching the whole world".
Ansari said Urdu was not restricted to India and Pakistan but has become a global language. "Use of Urdu in film industry has added to its strength and book could be written on it," he said.
