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Hyderabad is letting Dakhni down. A Bengaluru rapper is doing more for it

Bengaluru has become a serious space for Dakhni representation in the last five years. In Hyderabad, there is a lot of fun content being created, but most of it is mindless.

The last time I was excited about a movie or any other form of entertainment was when Bolo Hau by Tarun Dhanrajgir was released in 2021. I won’t say it was a cinematic masterpiece, but I felt it was a worthwhile contribution to something more serious for Dakhni, a language we speak in Hyderabad and other parts of southern India.

Dakhni is often mistaken for Urdu, or is deliberately categorised as a sub-dialect of it in the South by chauvinists who either look down on the language or have tried to suppress it without looking at its history in conjunction with Urdu.

For those who don’t know, Dakhni is spoken across the Deccan, particularly in the cities of Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Bidar, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Guntur, Chennai and Bengaluru, among many others.

Who speaks Dakhni varies from city to city. In Chennai, it is spoken largely by Muslims. The same is true in Bengaluru, though many non-Muslims speak it as well. In Hyderabad, by contrast, Dakhni is spoken by almost everyone due to historical reasons.

Yet Hyderabad, the city most closely associated with Dakhni, is now being left behind by Bengaluru when it comes to taking the language seriously.

Also Read: Stop Urdu snobbery. Dakhni is 200 years older

The past and present of Dakhni

Dakhni evolved in the 15th century under the Bahamani kingdom (1347-1518) in Bidar as a mix of Dehalvi, Kannada, Marathi, and........

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