As per Government of India census data of 2001, the total number of Urdu speakers in India were 51,536,111 (of which 51,533,954 spoke Urdu and 2,157 other dialects such as Bhojpuri,Maithili,Awadhi,Magadhi & many other forms of Hindustani.
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Urdu is officially recognised in India and has official status in the National Capital Territory of Delhi to which the language has remained deeply attached through its medieval history of Muslim sultanates and empires, and the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Regional distribution
Following is a list of States and Union Territories of India by speakers of Urdu census data with estimated 2011 speakers.
For census data of 1991:GOI census 1991: DISTRIBUTION OF 10,000 PERSONS BY LANGUAGE - INDIA, STATES AND UNION TERRITORIES - 1991
Speaker strength
Following is speaker's strength data of Urdu language for decades of 1971, 1981, 1991 & 2001:
Ranking
Following is ranking data of Urdu language for decades of 1971, 1981, 1991 & 2001: