The silver tongue: How Urdu lingers on as the language of law

Milaard, gawahon ke bayanat se ye saabit hota hai ki Mr Rajesh begunaah hain....Quaid-e-ba-mushaqat...Taazirat-e-Hind dafa teen sau do ke tehat...Mere kaabil dost...Muvakkil…
Urdu legalese has thundered across filmy courts for as long as we can remember. The grimness of tazeerat-e-hind, as milard sent it flying across the courtroom like a hammer backed by the full weight of justice, was a formidable thing even if we didn't know that it meant the Indian Penal Code.Quaid-e ba-mushaqat led to chakki-pissing and stone breaking even if we couldn't break it down to rigorous imprisonment. Ba-izzat bari meant mulzim's mother and heroine sighed in relief and touched their sari to their wet eyes at acquittal. And Dafa 302 meant end of the road for the man in prison stripes.
Bollywood has courted Urdu for decades. In reality too, the legal system has used adaliya zubaan (the language of the courts) for nearly two centuries now. Minus the theatricality, of course.
'Urdu ka Adaalati Lehja', among the most entertaining and enlightening sessions at the recent Jashn-e-Rekhta festival, discussed the many ways the elegant language livens up the grim proceedings of Indian courts. The festival is an annual celebration of Urdu in Indian life and literature.
"Persian was the language of the Mughal court, and Urdu replaced it in the late 19th century. The Adalat System, set up in 1772 by Warren Hastings was a mix of both British and Mughal Courts. In this system, Urdu came to be the language of the lower munsif's courts," says Saif Mahmood, a Supreme Court advocate and an expert on Urdu poetry and literature, who conducted the session. The legal Urdu we know today is largely the gift of novelist (Dipty) Nazeer Ahmed who translated the Indian Penal Code in 1860.
Interestingly, the most lyrical insight into the judicial system of mid-to-late 19th century India, and Urdu's place in it, comes from the incomparable Ghalib, a man Mahmood describes as "a litigious commoner". "Ghalib spent 20 years of his life litigating in every court of the existing judicial system on issues ranging from pension and debt recovery to gambling. His life as a litigant hugely influenced his poetry," says Mahmood. One of Ghalib's best-loved five-verse set (qata) quoted in Mahmood's research paper starts thus: Phir khula hai dar-e-adaalat-e-naaz/Garm bazar-e-faujdari hai (The door of the court of coquetry is open again/There is a bazaar-like briskness about the criminal case).
The distinguished legal scholar and jurist Tahir Mahmood, a panelist at the talk, has written on 'Legal Metaphor in Ghalib's Urdu Poetry'. And among the couplets he lists is the much-loved "Dil mudda'i o deeda bana mudda'a alaih/Nazaare ka muqaddama phir roobakaar hai (Heart is the Plaintiff and eye, the defendant/The case of gazing is being heard again)."
Today, words such as vakalatnama (a document authorizing a lawyer to act on behalf a client) and sarishtedaar (court officer) are used even in courts where Urdu is not otherwise used, like Bombay High Court and Supreme Court. Until the 1970s, Urdu continued to be used in the district and sessions courts of north India, especially UP, Punjab, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir, in the filing of pleadings.
The FIRs and the police roz namcha (daily journal), which can be called into evidence in court, often throws up delightful usage of archaic Urdu. "Khadim PP sahib ko namaz-e-eid-ul-fitr ada karane 10.30am le gaya – Ba-qalam khud" – thus ran a florid entry in a recent roz namcha of a VIP security officer that Mehmood stumbled upon. Simply put: I, the undersigned, escorted my protectee to the namaz today at 10.30am.
Urdu also works as a happy means of intellectual jousting between lawyers and judges. And a superb example came from the recently retired Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, known for his love of Urdu. As a judge of the Delhi High Court, he was once hearing a case for the Delhi Government being pleaded by Najmi Waziri, now a sitting judge of the same court. The case was adjourned for five or six months and the lawyer sought a shorter date. Justice Thakur denied the plea. At 1.15pm as the court broke for lunch and the judge rose from the bench, the lawyer remarked despondently to no one in particular: Kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak (who is going to live till you deign to decide)? Justice Thakur paused as he stood and said: Pehla misra padho (read the first line). And the lawyer obliged with the opening lines of Ghalib's famous couplet: Aah ko chahiye ek umr asar hone tak (it takes a lifetime for a prayer to find a response). Justice Thakur famously listed the case for the following week.
Justice Syed Mahmood in the late 1890s famously quoted Urdu poetry in his landmark judgements. And even today, Sahir and Faiz lend a human touch to the grimmest of verdicts.
But does Urdu shayari affect the gravitas of rulings? Justice Aftab Alam believes in minimal usage. He recalled using a verse to describe the naïve but effective defence of a petitioner in Patna High Court. "But why did you use it? Did it enhance your judgement?" he was asked later by a mentor. "I have since stopped using any shayari in my judgements," he joked.
Justice Thakur used a hilarious couplet to explain how Urdu works to cut the verbal clutter in courts: "Kucha-e-yaar mein agar bheed bhaad ho/Tum bhi koi sher ghusad ghasad do (if your lover's lane is full of rivals, then you too shove in some poetry)."