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By Ather Farouqui <farouqui@yahoo.com>

The Milli Gazette Online

Professor Abbi now stated, "However, before we hand over the cheque to the Registrar and enter into a formal agreement with the NCPUL, a few things need to be sorted out regarding the scope of the project, the provisions in the different budget heads…." So the NCPUL had doled out money for the project even before entering into a formal agreement with the JNU. In offering the project to JNU the NCPUL now made, among others, the following two observations. 

• The amounts mentioned in recurring Heads are tentative and upward revision of these figures is possible depending on the requirements and progress of the Project. 
  

• Figures under different Heads in the recurring sections are open to inter-Head reappropriation.

As noted above, Project Assistants-later transformed into Research Assistants/ Technical Assistants and then transformed back again into Project Assistants -were appointed on the 9th August 1999. Almost two months before that Professor Abbi had demanded the release of the grant under the head "Recurring", observing, "without any money under ' Recurring' we cannot proceed at all." She had other demands as well. On the 10th August, the very next day after the appointment of the six assistants (as against only four posts advertised) she demanded two more. She also demanded an increase in their salary from Rs.3000 to Rs. 5000, despite the fact that Rs 3,000 had been the sum advertised, that none of the appointees had asked for more, and the minutes of the selection committee made no mention of provision for enhancement.

Tensions were now developing between Professor Abbi and the hitherto compliant NCPUL. On the 25th August 1999 Dr. Hamidullah Bhatt asked the coordinator for "revised project proposals". He also asked her to submit -something which she had long ago promised -the questionnaire which the team had drafted for an all-India survey. Professor Abbi, instead of sending the questionnaire, responded, "I am sorry to say that we will not be able to proceed at all without the financial help". However, although the questionnaire had still not been sent, Rs 1,00,000 were released on the 1st October 1999. But tension again developed, and on the 27th October 1999 the NCPUL wrote to Professor Abbi, "… you are requested not to initiate any action on the project till the project guidelines are developed in the proposed seminar-cum-workshop. No expenditure (recurring/non-recurring) may be incurred till future course of action is devised and communicated to you". So the NCPUL suddenly woke up to realize that there was all play and no work in the project. In a Note dated 18.2.2000, the Director, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat noted, "Till date, NCPUL has released Rs. two lacs to the project team. We have not received any statement of accounts or progress report of implementation enabling us to take further action at our end. It will be advisable if the meeting of the monitoring committee is convened and project team requested to place before it the work done, report and statement of accounts and particularly the nature of survey they have been conducting, if any". 

The Vice-chairman, Professor Gopi Chand Narang 'agreed' the contents of this letter. Notwithstanding all this, the proceedings of a meeting of the Monitoring Committee held on 2 March 2000 the Director was once again happy with the smooth running of the project. 'The project team…requested the release of further grant, which was agreed'. An estimate of Rs. 4,20,000 expected to be spent in the next 9 months -April 2000 to December 2000 -was presented by Professor Abbi and was accepted. 

It was proposed to buy more equipment-once again computers, printers, UPS, CD writers, etc. No one bothered to ask what had happened to the earlier equipment-whether it was in operation, how much of it was being used and how much of it was lying unutilized. Interesting budgetary provision included the purchase of 'Audio-cassettes and Cells worth Rs. 10,000 and Video Films worth another Rs. 10,000. An amount of Rs. 1,64,000 against the budgetary demands mentioned above was released on 19 April 2000 and this did not include money for the purchase of computers and VCR etc. The NCPUL stated that this would be made available as and when sufficient data became available from the survey. However, once again, the NCPUL relented within a few days and on May 2, 2000 another installment of Rs. 32,000 was released towards, among other things, the purchase of a VCR and an HP Scanjet.

Meanwhile work which it might have been expected that the project would do was being done by the NCPUL. It was the NCPUL which wrote to the State Urdu Academies, requesting photocopies of Urdu newspaper/ magazine clippings from 1950 onwards. And it was the NCPUL that provided the project team with the addresses of the Urdu Academies and the names of their secretaries. It was also the NCPUL which sought the copies of Annual reports of the Academies during the last 50 years. Meanwhile the project was getting more money from the NCPUL. Another installment of Rs. 31,825 was sent on 7 June 2000 for non-recurring expenditure, that is for buying more equipment. 

Having done her shopping for the project, Professor Abbi wrote to the NCPUL on 23rd June, 2000 that she was proceeding to Germany on leave for six months and Professor R.S. Gupta, who was one of the Principal Investigators would be coordinating the project. Now it was Professor Gupta's turn to run the project, that is to demand more money. So, no one was surprised when on 18th September, 2000 Professor Gupta demanded the immediate release of Rs. 2,06,426 which was the remaining unpaid balance from a total sanctioned amount of Rs. 6,02,252. As for the up-to-date accounts of the money already received that had been asked for, he stated that these would be submitted as soon as Professor Abbi returned from abroad. Professor Gupta now decided to go on a tour. One would have imagined that for collecting data or for apprising himself of actual conditions of Urdu teaching/learning he would go to places like Ballimaran in Delhi or Nakkhas (Lucknow) in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar Sharif in Bihar or Aurangabad in Maharashtra where there are concentrations of Urdu speakers. But he chose instead to go to Bangalore and Mysore- and the NCPUL sanctioned the tour without even a murmur of a protest. 

The progress report up to 29 August 2000 stated that data had been collected from Delhi, Maler Kotla, Lucknow, Mysore and Himachal. There was no mention of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar all of which have substantial populations of Urdu speakers and learners (In J&K, of course, Urdu is the state language). So much for the all-India reach of the project. There was of course mention of some short stories having been collected and journalistic writings analysed. Apparently these were culled out of anthologies of books available in Delhi or were sent by State Urdu Academies in response to the letters sent out by the NCPUL. More than two years and lakhs of Rupees later, this is what the project had to show by way of progress.

Professor Gupta also managed to persuade the NCPUL to extend the appointment of the Project Assistants for another year and their tenure was extended up to 12 October 2001.

On 27th October 2000, Professor Gupta sought the assistance of the NCPUL in conducting a survey of Urdu education in Delhi, Lucknow and Maler Kotla and asked them to 'depute somebody from NCPUL to assist me in conducting and coordinating the fieldwork.' Why the Project Assistants who were receiving their salaries regularly and who were located in Professor Gupta's own department could not do this was not explained. 

A Report of Activities March 2000-September 2000 was submitted. This reported fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, which is not major Urdu speaking state. The other focus of the project team had been on Bangalore and Mysore, which again are not the most significant places for teaching or learning of Urdu. The reasons for ignoring the most obvious places in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujrat, Maharashtra, Andhra and Kerala were not given. Nor did the NCPUL ask for them.

On 8th February, 2001, Professor Gupta wrote a letter to the NCPUL saying that he had become Coordinator of the project only in the place of Professor Abbi who had proceeded to Germany on six months' leave, and now that she had returned 'I am handing back the Coordinatorship of the project to her'. He continued, " I take this opportunity to also state that it will not be possible for me to continue assisting/participating in the said project as one of the Principal Investigators any longer. There are several reasons for this, the details of which I do not wish to go into." It seems that he was not asked the reasons.

There were signs how that the whole project would soon collapse. And on March 8, 2001, Professor Abbi wrote a letter to Dr. Hamidullah Bhat. Gone was the bonhomie and mutual praise-showering that had gone on for two years when money was being sought and doled out without any accountability. Professor Abbi wrote, among other things, "This is to request you to consider this most urgent and release the installment of Rs. 3,92,122=50 (the original request made by Prof. Gupta dated 27 October 2000 along with the justification) to meet the already incurred expenditure and future running of the project. Any lapse and failure to do so will force me to close down the project and I am sorry to say you will have to own the responsibility of the premature death of a very significant and nationally useful project. I hope your office takes cognizance of this communication and expedite the release of the funds. 

Professor Abbi signed off with 'With best wishes'. Not a word had been said about the amount of work done by the project team during the three years of its existence, during which it had spent more than 5 lakhs on purchase of equipment, salaries and honoraria. 

This threat achieved the desired result, for on the very next day, 9th March 2001, the NCPUL sanctioned an amount of Rs. 1,72,095 and released it on the 12th. By now Rs. 5,67,920 had been spent since the project began. The final report was now done, and Professor Abbi asked the NCPUL to pay for it. She found an ingenious way of extracting this further sum of money. In a communication dated June 17 she wrote to the Director that while the report was 'almost complete' "the hard disk of the computer purchased for the project was showing 'crash signals' when we copied the data and saved it. Unless the disk is replaced (it may cost anything between Rs. 10,000 to 12,000) we are unable to complete the report. It would be a great help if the additional money is granted too."

Professor Abbi was evidently not sure whether whatever the project had remained would be approved by the Monitoring Committee or other evaluation agency. So her very last comment was a self-commendation certificate: "whatever little we could do within the available money is commendable." 

This was the end of the project. The cause of Urdu had been served and promoted to the tune of approximately six lakhs.

Need for a public enquiry
All this calls for a public enquiry in which the following crucial questions must be asked:

1. Did the proposal to undertake the project originate with the NCPUL or was it originated elsewhere?
   

2. At whose instance was Professor Anvita Abbi made the Coordinator of the Project, when she had no formal qualifications in the field of Urdu and could not even read the script?
   

3. Why did no one, more particularly the Director of NCPUL, Dr. Hamidullah Bhat ascertain the academic competence of Professor Anvita Abbi? Did they not know that she could not even read Urdu?
   

4. Why did they not investigate the competence of the three Principal Investigators? Did they know that none of them could read or write Urdu?
   

5. Why did they agree to the appointment of six Project Assistants when only four had been proposed?
   

6. Why did they approve these appointments apparently unaware that at least three of the six selected did not possess any knowledge of Urdu and could not read and write it?
   

7. Why, having discovered the incompetence of three of the project assistants, did they not take steps to revoke their appointment? 
   

8. Why did they grant Professor Anvita Abbi's demands for two additional posts and her demand that the previously agreed monthly salary of each should be raised from 3000 to 5000?
   

9. Why was money released for the project even before the MOU had been signed with the Jawaharlal Nehru University?
   

10. Why did the NCPUL continue to certify that the project was 'running smoothly' and release more installments of money when even the 'broad guidelines' for running the project had not been prepared and presented by the project team?
    

11. Why did the project team refuse to participate in the workshop convened especially for finalizing the details of the All India Survey to be conducted by the project team especially when the suggestion for the workshop had come from Dr. L.M. Singhvi, Member Parliament who had referred to the idea having first been mooted by no less a person than Mr. Justice Venkatchalia, former Chief Justice of India and the then President of the National Human Rights Commisson?
    

12. Why was the project team allowed to continue with the project after the Coordinator had refused to allow the Project Assistants to participate in this meeting, though it had been convened by the Director NCPUL, who had himself invited the Project Assistants to take part?
    

13. Why did the NCPUL not insist on knowing the reasons of Professor Gupta, one of the Principal Investigators, suddenly resigning his post?
    

14. Why did the NCPUL succumb to the pressure of the Coordinator, every time the question of release of money was linked to the submission of progress report and accounts of expenditure?
    

15. What was content of the final report?
    

16. Why were Dr. Hamidullah Bhat and Professor Abbi not asked by either the Chairman of the NCPUL (the Union Minister for HRD is the Chairman) or the Education Secretary, Government of India, to account for the fiasco?
    

17. And finally the most important question of all: Why was no professor or scholar of Urdu from any academic or research institution associated with the project?
    

Only a public enquiry can answer these questions in order to fix the responsibility for this great fraud. More crucially such an inquiry could make it difficult for such frauds to recur.

Ather Farouqui, an Urdu scholar, has written extensively about the theoretical framework relevant to the academic formulations for making Urdu a functional language in India. He may be contacted at farouqui@yahoo.com  

Read also » The great Urdu fraud - Part I