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Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu

Literary organisation for the promotion of Urdu (1886)

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After the partition of India, the separated organisations, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind in the Republic of India and Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu Pakistan continue their work. These serve as the largest Urdu scholarly promotional associations in the subcontinent.

History

The organisation owes its origin to the All India Muslim Educational Conference, set up by the great social reformer and educationist Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in 1886, with the assistance of Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk. The basic objective of the above-mentioned conference was to encourage Indian Muslims to adopt modern education, and for this purpose, establish schools and colleges along the lines of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (later known as Aligarh Muslim University).

The conference had three sections: Women’s Education, Educational Census and Schools. In a later conference held in 1903, three more branches were added: Social Reform, Shoba-yi-Taraqqī-yi-Urdū, and Miscellaneous. It is to the Shoba-yi-Taraqqī-yi-Urdū that the current Anjuman traces its origins. Incidentally, Thomas Walker Arnold was the first elected president of the Shoba-yi-Taraqqī-yi-Urdū and the noted writer Allama Shibli Nomani was the first secretary along with Abul Kalam Azad, first Minister of Education in independent India, as Assistant Secretary. They were some of the renowned personalities that worked hard to create the Anjuman and people continue to draw inspiration from them even today.

Abdul Haq became the secretary of the organisation in 1912, and its base was shifted to the modern-day Aurangabad district in 1913, where he was employed by the then Nizam of Hyderabad. Thereafter, the Anjuman shifted its base to Delhi in 1938 where it functioned until 1947 with Abdul Haq as its head.

Under Abdul Haq, Anjuman launched a number of magazines notably Urdu launched in January 1921, Science, in 1928, and Hamari Zaban, in 1939.

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