Essay On Anita Desai's in Custody

‘In Custody” by Anita Desai is a novel about the conflict between Hindi and Urdu, elaborate.
In Custody by Anita Desai is a novel about the decline and deterioration of Urdu
language and poetry in post colonial India. Set against the backdrop of the language
conflict between Hindi and Urdu in the country, Desai brings out the predicament of
Urdu by a constant juxtaposition of the two languages that is visible throughout the
entire novel. The first testimony to this statement is the protagonist himself, who is
torn between the two languages. Deven, a temporary lecturer of Hindi in the small
college of the dusty little town of Mirpore, is devoted to Urdu, and aims to preserve
the classical tradition of Urdu poetry by interviewing and interacting with his hero,
and the famous poet, Nur.
Throughout the length of the novel we come across multiple instances where the
implied conflict between Hindi and Urdu becomes more glaringly visible to the
readers. Deven, a character who comes out an anti hero of sorts, even though is
dedicated to Urdu, chooses teaching Hindi as his choice of career because of the
corporeal benefits that it offers. While Urdu serves as the imaginative muse of
Deven, the fact that he has to forgo his mother tongue and teach Hindi, makes Urdu’s
fall more than apparent. Even though the small Lala Ram Lal College of MIrpore has a
department of Urdu, it is as barren and desolate as the state of Urdu in the country.
Here too, The author links Urdu with its glorious past and imposes on the readers
that the department exists only because of large donation made by some Nawab to
the college, who wished for an Urdu department rather than his name on the
signboard.
Desai’s narrative of language and politic is problematic because it constantly links

Urdu to its lost glory and not as a language still spoken by thousands of North
Indians. She tries to portray that while Hindi is being propagated and taught in
schools and colleges, Urdu is dying a slow death in the dusty lanes of Chandni
Chowk. While Hindi flourishes, the tradition of Urdu is knocked down like Siddiqui’s
manse, to make way for newer things. The author concedes to the the tradition of
looking at the precolonial past with nostalgia and pride, where Urdu was the
language of courts and aristocrats, widely appreciated and enjoyed. This, in turn
gives the novel a suggestive theme of communal tension and stratification of
language in terms of religion caused by partition. However, this is knotty because she
fails to note how in reality, the polity of language has a very limited role to play in the
common man’s life
There is an evident mistrust among the agents of the two languages, and this
mistrust is the materialization of the Hindi-Urdu conflict which is a major theme of
the novel. People like Murad and Nur, who are although not communal, and rise
above the communal divide of language show a clear disdain towards Hindi, calling it
a vegetarian monster that sustains on potatoes and radishes. Nur questions Deven
regarding his choice of career and mockingly chastises him by saying “Those
Congresswallahs have set up Hindi on top as our ruler. You are its slave. Perhaps a spy
even if you don’t know it, sent to the universities to destroy whatever remains of
Urdu, hunt it out and kill it. And you tell me it is for an Urdu magazine you wish to
interview me. If so, why are you teaching Hindi?”. Murad, who’s supposed to be
Deven’s friend also believes that he’s on a higher moral ground because Deven has
supposedly sold himself over to the side of Hindi, whereas he, even though his
publication business is not widely successful, is continuing to preserve Urdu through
his journal ‘awaz’. There is an evident disdain for Urdu among the supposed lovers of
Hindi, and in the novel this disdain is associated with a religious hatred as well. When
Deven goes to Tiwari to ask for leave in order to proceed with the recordings of Nur’s
undocumented verses, he’s met with an angry refusal. Tiwari out rightly refuses by
saying I’ll have you demoted, Sharma –I’ll see to it you don’t get your confirmation.
I’ll get you transferred to your beloved Urdu department. I won’t have Muslim
toadies in my department, you’ll ruin my boys with your Muslim ideas, your Urdu
language. I’ll complain to the Principal, I’ll warn the RSS, you are a traitor” and other
lines like “Urdu is supposed to have died, in 1947. What you see in the universities- in
some, a few- is its ghost, wrapped in a shroud. But Hindi- oh Hindi is a field of greens,
all flourishing.”, only perpetrate the visible conflict between the two languages.
In totality, Anita Desai’s ‘In Custody’ is a lament of the lost tradition and glory of
Urdu, it is a farewell of sorts to the decaying custom, and all its characters, Deven,
Nur and Murad are caught between their desires to restore this tradition to its
former glory. The novel, despite being a modern secular English narrative is unable to
break out of the communally charged present with its Hindu-Hindi and Muslim-Urdu
dynamics of stratification.
Anukriti Rai
B.A (Hons.) English (First Year)
Roll No. 692

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‘In Custody” by Anita Desai is a novel about the conflict between Hindi and Urdu, elaborate.

Desai’s narrative of language and politic is problematic because it constantly links

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