Fading alphabet to fresh paint: Dogri scripts a comeback on Jammu signboards

Why in the News

New public signboards in Jammu carry area names in Namey Dogra Akhar, the script of the Dogri language, alongside the usual Devanagari for Hindi and Roman for English. Dogri has long been written in Devanagari, with its own script falling into disuse. Civic authorities are putting the boards up at prominent locations and institutions as an attempt to revive that script. Dogri itself carries the full set of formal protections available to an Indian language, at the Union level and in the Union Territory. The tension is that the decision that secured the language, adopting Devanagari to popularise its literature, is the same decision that displaced its script.

What is Namey Dogra Akhar?

1. A modified Takri: Namey Dogra Akhar is a modified version of Takri, the original script in which Dogri was written. The name translates as new Dogri script.
2. It was created to solve a transcription problem: Takri had no vowel signs, so official orders and documents could not be reliably transcribed in it.
3. The vowels were borrowed from Devanagari: Writers were directed to take vowel signs from Devanagari, which produced the new script. It then entered administrative work alongside Persian, which was already in use.

Where does Dogri stand as a language?

1. Family and group: Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Indo-European family that also includes Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. It belongs to the Western Pahari group, a cluster of related languages found mainly in the western Himalayas.
2. Speakers and spread: It was the primary language of nearly 2.6 million people at the 2011 Census. It is spoken mainly by the Dogras of Jammu and Kashmir’s Jammu division, with smaller groups in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
3. Formal recognition: Dogri was recognised as one of the 22 scheduled languages under the Eighth Schedule in 2003. It was declared one of the official languages of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in 2020.

How did the script lose its place in administration?

1. The first Dogra ruler left it undeveloped: Maharaja Gulab Singh, the first Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, directed his energies at expanding the empire up to Tibet. He found little time to promote or develop Takri.
2. His successor built the new script into government: Maharaja Ranbir Singh, who ascended the throne in 1856, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian and a reformer who had the civil and criminal laws compiled into the Ranbir Penal Code. The modified script emerged in administrative work during his rule.
3. Urdu replaced Persian and squeezed the script out: Maharaja Pratap Singh, who succeeded in 1885, replaced Persian with Urdu as the official language to simplify administrative work, since Urdu was already widely used among the local population.
4. Local use outlasted official use: The Dogri script continued to be used by many local people for several years after it lost its administrative standing.
5. Three script demands were balanced against each other: Maharaja Hari Singh, who became ruler in 1926, faced British pressure for English in official work and a demand for Hindi in the Dogra heartland. He promoted Devanagari and Roman alongside the Perso-Arabic script used for Urdu.

Why did reviving the language not revive the script?

1. A literary body switched scripts to widen readership: The Dogri Sanstha, a literary organisation, adopted the Devanagari script in 1944 to popularise Dogri literature.
2. The switch bought recognition at the script’s expense: It helped Dogri gain Sahitya Akademi recognition in 1969. It also contributed to the eventual decline of Namey Dogra Akhar.
3. Academic institutionalisation ran entirely in Devanagari: The University of Jammu set up a Dogri Research Cell in 1971, later upgraded into a full department. The language became a formal subject in affiliated degree colleges in 1987, taught in Devanagari.
4. The agitations were about the language, not the script: A Dogri Action Committee led by a Dogri poet held demonstrations in 1990 to get the language introduced in schools. An umbrella group, the Dogri Sangharsh Morcha, launched an agitation two years later for inclusion among the scheduled languages, and Dogri entered primary schooling as a third language in 2002.

What is the current revival attempt?

1. It began outside government: Civil society members started displaying boards written in Namey Dogra Akhar at religious places and cremation grounds a few years ago. A former principal of the Government Medical College, Jammu led that effort.
2. It then moved to the municipal body: The same effort approached the Jammu Municipal Corporation to install public signboards, which is how the boards reached prominent locations and institutions.
3. Teaching is the announced next step: Classes in the Dogri script are to be started, on the stated position that a language cannot survive without its own script.

Challenges to reviving the Dogri script

1. Signage does not by itself create readers: A script on a board stays decorative until a population can decode it, and Dogri continues to be taught in Devanagari. Eg. Manipur returned Meitei Mayek to everyday use only after making the script compulsory in schools from 2006.
   The Fix: Introduce the script as a taught component of the existing Dogri syllabus in schools and colleges rather than as an optional cultural add on.
2. Digital support is thin: A script without fonts, keyboard layouts and rendering support cannot be used in the places where writing now happens. Eg. The Dogra script received its own Unicode block in 2018, and usable fonts and input methods remain scarce.
   The Fix: Commission open licensed fonts and an input method, and require them in Union Territory government publishing so the script has a working digital base.
3. The written corpus is not accessible: Older material in Takri and its modified successor survives largely in temple and private collections rather than in catalogued, digitised archives. Eg. The National Mission for Manuscripts, set up in 2003, catalogues such holdings, and regional collections in scripts with few readers move slowest through it.
   The Fix: Fund a script specific digitisation and transliteration project, so learners have material to read once they can read it.
4. Official status has not required the script: Recognition for the language and official language status in the Union Territory brought protection to Dogri without obliging anything to be written in its own script. Eg. Government business in the Union Territory runs in Devanagari, Roman and Perso-Arabic.
   The Fix: Mandate the script on official signage, letterheads and certificates, so demand for literacy follows an actual use.

Conclusion

The boards make the script visible before they make it legible, and that gap is where comparable revivals have stalled. Recognition for Dogri arrived through a script that was not its own, which is why formal status has never carried the script along with the language. The marker to watch is whether the promised classes and a place in the school syllabus follow the signboards, since a script survives by being written rather than by being displayed.

Back2Basics: Eighth Schedule of the Constitution

1. What it lists: The Eighth Schedule names the languages the Union is obliged to develop and enrich. It currently carries 22 languages, against 14 at the Constitution’s commencement.
2. Where it is used in the Constitution: Article 344(1) provides for an Official Language Commission whose members are drawn from these languages. Article 351 directs the Union to draw on them in developing Hindi.
3. How a language is added: Inclusion requires a constitutional amendment. Dogri, Bodo, Maithili and Santhali were the most recent additions, made by the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act.

[2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.