1) Interestingly, most Muslims of Uttar Pradesh speak Hindi. According to 2011 census, only 1.08 crores in Uttar Pradesh speak Urdu, while there are 3.84 Muslims. Assuming that all the Urdu speakers are Muslims, only ~25% of the Muslims of UP speak Urdu; the rest speak Hindi.
2) In Bihar, however, it changes rapidly. There are 87.5 lakh Urdu speakers in Bihar, while there are 1.75 crore Muslims. Assuming all Urdu speakers are Muslims, ~50% of the Muslims speak Urdu as the mother tongue. This is very intuitive. `Hindi' in Bihar is mostly `dialects'.
3) Things change rapidly south of the Vindhyas. There are 1.79 crore Muslims, and 75 lakhs speak Urdu! In [united] Andhra, it is even more striking. There are 81 lakh Muslims, and 75 lakh Urdu speakers! In Karnataka, there are 79 lakh Muslims, and 66 lakhs speak Urdu!
4) In TN, there are 42 lakh Muslims, and 13 lakhs speak Urdu. These are the major states where Urdu has a significant presence. Other states have very small numbers of Urdu speakers. In all other states, Urdu has a very small presence. But let us analyse the implications.
5) The implications are very clear. The Muslims of Karnataka, [united] Andhra and Maharashtra are mostly those whose mother tongue itself differs! In short, the Muslims of Karnataka, [united] Andhra and Maharashtra don't even declare their mother tongue as the state languages.
6) I am not even counting those Muslims who declare their mother tongue as Hindi in Maharashtra, Karnataka and [united] Andhra. In short, the division in these states is clear. OTOH, in the north India, Muslims declare their languages as Hindi, because they are at home in Hindi!
7) It is in the southern states that a linguistic identity also corresponds completely to a dharmic identity. In the northern states, this division is less clear. Yet, we are accused of being Urduphilic, when it is clear that our linguistic identities are purely dharmic only!
