The Hindi-Urdu controversy arose in 1867 when the British government prepared to accept the demand of the Hindu communities of the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar to change the Perso-Arabic script of the official language to Devanagari and adopt Hindi as the second official language on demand of Hindi activists.

The demand for Hindi, led largely by Hindus, was to Sir Syed an erosion of the centuries-old Muslim cultural domination of India.

[3][4] Testifying before the British-appointed education commission, Sir Syed controversially exclaimed that "Urdu was the language of gentry and people of high social standing, whereas Hindi was to be vulgar.

[1] Sir Syed's protege, Shibli Nomani, led efforts to adopt Urdu as the official language of the Hyderabad State and as the medium of instruction at Osmania University.

[1][6] To Muslims in northern and western India, Urdu became an integral part of political identity and communal separatism.

The political cause of Urdu became a core issue at the heart of the Two-Nation Theory, which advocated that Muslims and Hindus were irreconcilably separate nations.

Advocates of the Pakistan movement sought to make Urdu a key argument in drawing distinctions with India's Hindu-majority population.

Although politicians like Khawaja Nazimuddin supported the cause of Urdu, a vast majority of Bengali nationalists saw the government policy as a symbol of racial discrimination.

Numerous Urdu language films have been produced, which include Umrao Jaan, Shatranj Ke Khiladi, and Pakeezah.