In 1867, some Hindus in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during the British Raj in India began to demand that Hindi be made an official language in place of Urdu. Babu Shiva Prasad of Banares was one of the early proponents of the Nagari script. In a "Memorandum on court characters" written in 1868, he accused the early Muslim rulers of India for forcing them to learn Persian. In 1897, Madan Mohan Malaviya published a collection of documents and statements titled "Court character and primary education in North Western Provinces and Oudh", in which he made a compelling case for Hindi.