Delhi College and Urdu* - MINDS@UW Home

GAIL MINAULT • 125France. 20Under Boutros and his successor as Principal, Dr. Aloys Sprenger,Delhi College developed a high reputation as a center of learning in theMughal capital, and as an arena of dialogue between eastern and westerncurricula, carried out in Urdu. This was a phenomenon that Macaulay’sgrandiloquent minute did not foresee. The Orientalist-Anglicist controversyenvisaged either traditional, religiously-based literary learning or elsewestern learning in English, but not a combination of the two withinstruction in a modern Indian language. This successful experiment wasmade possible by the many learned men of talent who participated asteachers, students, and administrators. Muftµ ¿adru ’d-Dµn ¥zurda servedon the local committee, as did Saiyid ƒ≥mid ‘Alµ Kh≥n, the nephew andheir of Nav≥b I‘tim≥du ’d-Daula. The local committee originally hoped toemploy a disciple of Sh≥h ‘Abdu ’l-‘Azµz as the head Arabic teacher, 21showing that there was no animosity between at least one branch of theSh≥h’s lineage and the British administration. By the early 1830s, theArabic teacher was Maml∑k ‘Alµ N≥nautavµ, a distinguished Islamic scholarfrom a lineage that later produced the founder of the Deoband school. AsPersian teacher, the committee hired Im≥m Bakhsh “¿ehb≥'µ,” who haddistinguished himself as a tutor to a number of leading families in thecity. 22The poet Gh≥lib was also a candidate for the Persian post at DelhiCollege, but failed to get it because of a famous misunderstanding. Gh≥libarrived for the interview in his palanquin, but when Thomason, who wasconducting the interviews, failed to come out to the curb to receive thepoet—did not greet him, in other words, in the way Gh≥lib felt befitting—hedid not go through with the interview, but left in a huff. 23Thomason explained to the poet that he was bound by regulations. If thiswere a darb≥r, a formal welcome would be in order. In such courtly20 Sharp, pp. 150–1; MDK, pp. 154–5; cf. Home (Pub), 8–14 & KW (15 July1840), NAI.21 This was Maulvµ Rashµdu ’d-Dµn Kh≥n. The records are incomplete in the1820s, and he may have been employed at the Madrasa in that period. BC #s25694–95, 1826–27, Vol. 909, pp. 551–52, IOLR.22 Khv≥ja Mu√ammad ƒ≥mid, “Im≥m Bakhsh ¿ehb≥’µ,” Nav≥’-e Adab, 14:1(Jan. 1963), 14–33.23 Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam, Ghalib: Life and Letters (London:Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. 62–3.