PDP’s Waheed Para slams move to erase Urdu from land record digitization in IOJK
Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and Member of Legislative Assembly from Pulwama, Waheed-ur-Rehman Para, has strongly criticized the National Conference-led government in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) for what he termed the “deliberate erasure” of Urdu from official land record digitization efforts.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Para expressed concern that Urdu—one of the official languages of IOJK and historically used in revenue records for generations—has been entirely excluded from the latest phase of digitisation, which is being carried out solely in English.
Para said that the order for this move came directly from Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who also holds the revenue portfolio in the current IOJK government.
In a post on X, Waheed Para wrote, “NC Govt wherein CM Omar Abdullah holds the revenue portfolio has ordered yet another round of land record digitisation across Jammu & Kashmir. This time, the process being carried out exclusively in English, with Urdu completely REMOVED, a language that has been integral to our revenue records for generations.”
He further questioned the motive behind the move, stating, “Why is Urdu one of J&K’s official language being deliberately erased from the new digitisation effort by NC govt”.
Notably, since the abrogation of IOJK’s special status in August 2019, the BJP-led Indian government has intensified efforts to systematically erase symbols of Muslim identity across the territory. This campaign includes renaming schools, roads and public institutions, removing names with Islamic or Kashmir Muslim heritage and replacing them with those associated with Hindu figures.
Urdu, often described as the soul of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, has been particularly targeted. Holding the status of the official language since the late 19th century, Urdu has played a vital role in the region’s administrative, legal, cultural, and literary spheres. For generations, it has served as a linguistic bridge across Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh.
In a calculated move to dilute Urdu’s significance post-August 2019, the BJP government introduced additional official languages in IOJK, an act widely seen as an attempt to marginalize the territory’s linguistic and cultural identity rooted in Urdu.
