Type it in Urdu, your name is mud
AJAZ UL HAQUE
Srinagar, Publish Date: Feb 13 2016 9:39PM | Updated Date: Feb 13 2016 9:39PM
Log in to the Aadhaar card software programme. Type your name see what does it read in Urdu. Infact see what happens to it when it's rendered in Urdu.
A lucky few see it correctly scripted, the rest are amused. What pops up is a word you might not have seen or read ever. As if monkeys have hammered on the keyboard of a character generator and you are seeing a queer combination of Greek, Latin and Sanskrit put together. Your name falls apart and you are renamed something too amorphous to be called a name. You are – to say the least – molested.
Software experts say it happens with Urdu only. Can it be a mere incident or the fault is deliberate. Well, reading a conspiracy theory will be too hasty a conclusion, but the question remains. If the whole language software is corrupt, why does it effect Urdu only? In the first place how could it be allowed to operate in a state where the card-holders are predominantly Urdu readers. In a communally polarised nation, even if it's an error, it will be perceived as a plan. In a (now called) Modi-fied India, where plans are afoot to change the minority status of reputed educational institutions, Urdu abuse can't necessarily be an accident.
`Aadhaar' is a revolutionary concept, thoroughly conceived and meticulously executed. Why doesn't it occur to the concerned language software experts? Didn't they know that a substantial population of India want their English names to be written in Urdu. And when the very software denies to render your english letters in correct Urdu, where lies the problem? Does it require another revolution to create an Urdu data-base or the problem is of ordinary nature just allowed to persist. If it's an error it needs to be rectified. If it's deliberate, the responsibility must be fixed.
The issue is not emotional or jingoistic, the issue is rational. By fouling the very language you are smearing the identity of a people. As an individual, you won't like to see a comic distortion of your name. Misnaming is construed as insult. This one is an insult to a community. If it happens with every other Indian language, then the problem is general. If it's Urdu specific, Urdu-targeted (which it seems to be), then it demands attention. We don't mean inciting people in the name of language, we just seek a solution to a problem which – by all standards of logic – is a problem. If you are reviewing other aspects of Aadhaar, review this first. Set right the basics.