Religion, language, and race have been among the most crucial
factors behind the formation of various national and communal identities
in modern South Asian history. Just like the political division of
British India, the complex interplay of these factors also culminated in
a bifurcation of linguistic boundaries along the religious lines
according to which Urdu became associated with Islam and Muslims. In
contrast, Hindi became increasingly connected to the Hindu culture.
These historical developments also affected the extent and nature of the
academic materials on Hinduism in the Urdu language, which the present
paper examines. The paper takes stock of different relevant materials.
Then, it discusses how the changed socio-political realities
quantitatively and qualitatively affected the works on Hinduism in the
Urdu language as the majority of the Hindu scholars lost enthusiasm to
write on their religion in Urdu considering its increased perception of
being a Muslim language. Muslims in Pakistan, on the other hand, lost
opportunities of everyday interaction with Hindus and easy access to the
original Hindi and Sanskrit sources resulting in a considerable decline
in Hindu studies on their part. Thus, the overall production of
literature on Hinduism in the Urdu language declined sharply. By
implication, the paper hints at how decisively socio-political and
historical contexts bear on the pursuit of the academic study of
religion.