Punjabi as a catalyst for regional and global trade — I

On December 28, 2014, I had the privilege of giving a talk at the National Punjabi Conference held at the Punjabi Complex, Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore. One of the greatest tragedies in the life of people is when they feel ashamed and hesitant to speak and write in their mother tongue. Upwardly mobile Pakistani Punjabi Muslims are a notoriously complex-ridden people who associate their mother tongue with a humble and rustic origin. As they climb the social ladder — or imagine they do — they start speaking Urdu while the Punjabi elite prefers English. So, there is a clear class cut-off point with regards to the language question in Punjab. Almost all Pakistani Punjabis are illiterate when it comes to their ability to read and write Punjabi, and I am one of them.

However, we are now determined to set right this historical wrong. Arguments in support of speaking Punjabi as well as writing it were advanced at the conference by different scholars, writers, poets and activists. I chose to speak on the role Punjabi can play in boosting economic development and prosperity. I hope the enterpreneurial class and concerned civil servants take note of the connection between language and the economy. I shall begin with some remarks on the role of language in human societies.

As far as we know, language is a faculty unique to human beings. It enables particular experiences to be abstracted and put in words, which in turn makes possible the coining of general terms and concepts describing recurring phenomena. On such a basis regular interactions between human beings can take place and thus relationships can be established that make possible a more complex society and social structure based on a division of labour regulated by law to generate goods and services over and above the needs of bare survival. This is the beginning of civilisation. Therefore, language is an essential part of the material or economic base of social organism upon which communication, culture, surplus production and civilisation rest.

Ordinarily, a language is learnt and internalised through regular interaction over long periods of time. Consequently, over time, the speakers of a particular language acquire a distinct cultural identity that distinguishes them from the speakers of other languages. Understandably, such long interaction and association generates shared values, norms and practices and they, in turn, produce shared cultural and emotional ties. Poetry, fiction and other art forms that also evolve in the historical process become a part of the intellectual and aesthetical heritage of a people.

Language is therefore both a part of the economic base as well as of the cultural identity of a people. Some theories of nationalism consider language the core element in nation formation and nation identification. It is therefore reasonable to assert that the speakers of Punjabi language share a common identity thatwe can call Punjabiyat. However, language is not the only factor shaping and defining group identity. Ethnicity, religion, sect and even caste ties have historically been important to the formation of group identity. Such multifarious ties have sometimes converged to constitute a compact national identity but not always. They have also competed with each other and led to conflict and splitting up among language speakers and, in some cases, become the dominant factor in group and national formation, thus driving shared language to the periphery. Nowhere is this epitomised more graphically than in the history of the Punjabi speaking people.

As a frontier province, located at the entrance to the Indian subcontinent from the northwest mountain passes, it has seen waves of people arriving and settling down. In the process, new religions and languages also became part of society that existed in territories now known as the Punjab. We have evidence of a language akin to Punjabi being used as early as the 12th century, used by the common people even when the ruling classes spoken some foreign language such as Turkish or Persian. After the British annexed Punjab they decided to use Urdu as the language of education and, therefore, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs who sought government employment had to learn Urdu. Historically, Punjabi was written in the Persian-Urdu and Devanagari scripts; the second Guru of orthodox Sikhs, Guru Angad, introduced a third script called Gurmukhi.

In the beginning of the 20th century, Punjab became politically active as secular nationalist as well as communal revivalist movements emerged among the three main communities of the province. Muslims constituted the biggest group, followed by Hindus and Sikhs. In my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, I have argued that communalist revivalist movements gained the upper hand. In census records, while Muslims began to return to Urdu as their “mother-tongue”, Hindus returned to Hindi and Sikhs to Punjabi. On an everyday basis all three communities spoke Punjabi but group identity based on religion became the core factor around which political identities consolidated. In 1947, the British Punjab province was partitioned on the basis of religion. It required that contiguous religious majorities of Muslims and non-Muslims were to be separated and given to the states of Pakistan and India respectively. The same principle of contiguous religious majorities was applied to partition India into two separate states: India and Pakistan.

The actual partition process proved to be extremely violent. More than a million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were killed and 14 million to 18 million were forced to cross the international border between the two states. Punjab bore the brunt of the violence. Out of its 34 million population, 10 million had to cross the international border created in Punjab between India and Pakistan. This means that nearly 30 percent of its total population had to leave home and hearth to be in the state where their religion was a positive factor. Some 500,000 to 800,000 Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were killed during the partition riots and raids.

Later, East Punjab was further divided to create the Haryana state in the easternmost parts of former united Punjab and some Punjabi-speaking areas were taken away and given to Himachal Pradesh. West Punjab remained in the same shape though briefly under the One Unit Scheme it was amalgamated with other provinces in West Pakistan to create West Pakistan. Now demands are being raised to divide Pakistani Punjab to create a separate province for the Saraiki-speaking people of mainly southern Punjab.