ESTABLISHED in January 1903, the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu is one of the oldest cultural institutions of the subcontinent. Considered to be one of the foremost institutions working for the promotion of Urdu language and literature in the country, the Anjuman now has its offices in Karachi. It has a long and interesting history.

In 1866, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan established 'The British Indian Association' at Aligarh to bring to the notice of the British rulers the sentiments of the people of India about the administration and its policies. The most important piece of work that the association did was demanding the establishment of a vernacular university. But the association could last for just about one year and in 1867, when Hindus began a movement for adoption of Hindi written in Devanagari script as court language, the association simply vanished in thin air. The movement for Hindi was in fact aimed at replacement of Urdu, which was the court language at that time. Soon a number of movements and organisations working for the development of Hindi sprang up which not only resulted in the Hindi-Urdu controversy but also gave rise to the Hindu nationalist movements and revivalist sentiments.

The British announced in April 1900 a status for Hindi equal to Urdu's. Alarmed — as it reminded them of the change of official language in 1837 which resulted in their general exclusion from government offices — Muslims founded in August 1900 the 'Urdu Defence Central Committee', later renamed 'Urdu Defence Association', with Muhsin-ul-Mulk being its president. He was at that time the secretary of Aligarh College. The government, considering the establishment of the association a political move, threatened to withdraw financial assistance for the college. Muhsin-ul-Mulk had to step down as president of the association. But a little later, the Mohammadan Educational Conference, established by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1886 and later renamed Muslim Educational Conference, established an 'anjuman' for the promotion of Urdu and named it Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu.

In January 1903, the Muslim Educational Conference in its meeting held at Delhi decided to make the Anjuman a separate entity. Thomas Arnold, the renowned orientalist who taught at Aligarh, was its president and Shibli Nomani its secretary. It was a kind of passive resistance that Muslims offered, implying that they could not afford to resist the British government but they were willing to fight for Urdu at the same time.

With eyes on the establishment of an independent vernacular university that Sir Syed dreamt of, the Anjuman began its work for the promotion and development of Urdu. Till 1912, it could not do as much as it was expected to do and one of the reasons was the paucity of funds. Secondly, its office-bearers kept on changing for one reason or the other. Yet the Anjuman was able to get published seven Urdu books on scientific and technical subjects which were either got especially written or translated form English. In the year 1912, the Muslim Educational Conference in its annual meeting nominated Maulvi Abdul Haq as the Anjuman's secretary and the rest is history. In fact, the decision changed Urdu's history.

Until Maulvi Abdul Haq took over as secretary, the Anjuman existed mainly on papers. The Anjuman's 'assets' consisted of a wooden box, tied with a rope, which contained a few registers, a few unedited manuscripts, a pen and a penholder.

Maulvi Abdul Haq at that time was inspector of schools in the education department of Hyderabad State and lived in Aurangabad. He literally took the Anjuman with him to Aurangabad and transformed it from a lukewarm, lethargic organisation to a great movement for Urdu's promotion. The credit should also be given to some Muslim stalwarts who realised the significance of Anjuman's work and assisted it in many ways including sparing huge funds for it. But had it not been for Maulvi Abdul Haq, who put everything else aside for the cause of the Anjuman, it would have never been so great and historical an organisation that it is today. In fact he was the moving spirit behind it and had to fight on several fronts at the same time.

Right from establishing a proper premises for the Anjuman to securing necessary finance for it; from carrying out some basic research on Urdu and its rare manuscripts to the setting up the Anjuman's own press; from compiling dictionaries to fighting political battles with Gandhi on the issue of Urdu and its script; Maulvi Abdul Haq showed such resilience and achieved such great feats that he was truly called Baba-i-Urdu. He got written and published a large number of books in Urdu on scientific, technical, literary, linguistic, historical and philosophical subjects. He launched a number of Urdu magazines that furthered the cause of Urdu. Perhaps the most prestigious of them is quarterly 'Urdu'. Launched in January 1921, the magazine is still published and its current issue of 2011 has made it Urdu's oldest surviving magazine and the only such example is that of 'Nigar', which was launched in 1922 by Niaz Fatehpuri. Other magazines launched by the Anjuman were 'Science', in 1928, and 'Hamari zaban', in 1939. In 1938, the Anjuman moved to Delhi and began working even more vigorously. It established Urdu Markaz all over India. It also established an Urdu college and fought to neutralise the effects of certain quarters that were working against Urdu. After the Independence in 1947, the Anjuman's offices in Delhi were attacked and a part of its library was also ransacked; gone along with books were a large number of rare manuscripts. In his book 'Panjah sala tareekh: Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu' Hashmi Fareedabadi has given the details of how the Anjuman's Delhi office was looted and taken over illegally. The Anjuman's Karachi office was established in 1948 and Baba-i-Urdu migrated to Pakistan. It was renamed Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Pakistan. 'Qaumi zaban', a fortnightly-turned-monthly, was launched the same year. This magazine is still published monthly. Later, magazines in Urdu were brought out on economics, history, politics and science with an eye on higher education in Urdu, though they had to cease publication due to different reasons. Keeping in view Sir Syed's vernacular university's idea, foundation was laid for Urdu College in 1949 where the medium of instruction was Urdu.

Maulvi Abdul Haq passed away in 1961 and the next year Jameeluddin Aali took over as the Anjuman's secretary. Aali Sahib is still serving the Anjuman in this capacity. He took special interest in the affairs of Urdu College, which was ultimately granted the status of a university in 2002. Finally, Sir Syed's dream of a university that could impart education in Urdu has come true in the shape of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, functioning in Karachi.

Today, Anjuman is still working with its huge and remarkable library catering to the needs of scholars and students alike. Its publications on various subjects have passed 600 mark.

In brief, Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu is not only an institution but it is a movement and it goes on.