Mushtaq Soofi 

With the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state in 1947 the tool of the Urdu language, which was used to highlight separatist Muslim identity, suddenly lost its previous effectiveness in the face of a diverse linguistic landscape presented by the provinces or areas that formed the territories of this new state. East Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and NWFP, (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) had (and still have) their own distinct languages and cultures which Urdu speaking and ‘Urduised’ Punjabi elites in their political euphoria tried to brush aside in the name of ill-conceived notion of national unity.

The historically relevant concept of ‘unity in diversity’ in the new state was an anathema to the new rulers who, suffering from the revivalist mumbo jumbo, rehashed the religious, nationalistic idea of monolithic unity as a political ideal. They, in their haste, decided to declare Urdu as national language, forgetting that the Muslim separatist movement with the creation of Pakistan was over and new cultural and linguistic realities had to be comprehended in an entirely different context created by unforeseen historical circumstances. But, unfortunately, Muslim League leadership not just failed to jettison the dead weight of the past it rather looked at it as a serendipity that would lead them to shaping the future of the country whose complexities bewildered them. They got a stunning political shock when the Bengalis not only refused to accept Urdu as a single national language but also agitated against it in vociferous protests resulting in causalities in Dhaka. The first national controversy that arose was over the linguistic and cultural rights. Consequently the Bengali had to be accepted as a national language along with the Urdu.

Teaching of the Sindhi language was confined to primary level in the Sindh by martial law regime of General Ayub Khan. Sindhi intelligentsia being proud of their literary heritage rejected this absolutely stupid move and put up a long and sustained resistance against it. The narrative of the Punjabi in the decades of 1950s and 1960s reads like a horror story. The writers, poets and intellectuals who took up the cause of the Punjabi language were viewed by the state with extreme suspicion and were unofficially tagged as traitors and publicly declared ‘Indo-Soviet agents’. They were put under surveillance and witch-hunted for the ‘crime’ of demanding the rights of their language. Their literary and cultural organisations were officially banned. The ‘threatening shadows’ let loose by the state ruthlessly pursued them day and night. Celebrating Mela Charagan, the festival of Shah Hussain, the greatest son of Lahore, by the Punjabi writers and intellectuals was treated by the establishment as a treacherous move prompted by the ‘national enemies’. To cut the long story short the Punjabi spoken by the majority of the then West Pakistanis was declared the language of incorrigible ‘aliens’ bent upon destroying the imagined national unity of the country. The ruling elite of newly independent country proved to be more hostile to the Punjabi than their colonial predecessors. How independent we were, one can draw their conclusions.

Sadly, our elite suffering from historical amentia ignored the ground reality that Pakistan was and still is a multi-national and multi-lingual state defined by diversity and plurality born of long standing historical conditions. If such a state is unable to reconcile itself with the phenomena of diversity and plurality and fails to find a workable solution it inevitably faces a relentless threat of disintegration. Belated recognition of the diversity and plurality after having lost the Eastern part of the country (Bengal) was made for the first time in the constitution of 1973 which authorised the federating units to adopt the languages of their areas as their official languages if they wished so. Consequently the Sindhi was adopted as official language of the Sindh province along with the Urdu which is in fact more of a lingua franca than a national language. Previous government of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa last year introduced the teaching of Pushto and Hindko along with the other languages of its areas in the schools. Sadly the situation in the Punjab is still pathetic as far as the teaching of the mother tongue is concerned. Language policy in Punjab defies logic. Top to down policy was adopted which was in fact a well thought out strategy to subvert the movement that demanded the rightful place for the Punjabi. The department of Punjabi language and literature was set up at the Punjab University while nothing was done to teach it at primary level which was the natural way i.e. down to top.

To get education in mother tongue is a universally acknowledged right of every child supported by the UNO Charter. UNESCO in its reports on education in Punjab has pointed out that one of the major factors in the high drop-out rate in the province’s schools is that the education is not imparted to the students in their mother tongue. The situation is such that public representatives sitting in the Punjab Assembly, who are supposed to protect the rights of the people including those of their language and culture, cannot speak in their mother tongue with out prior permission of the speaker of the house. What a shame! But shame has no place in Punjab’s political culture. Self loathing which is a result of alienation from their roots is what our intellectually bankrupt Punjabi elites are proud of.

So Mr Governor if you have some plan about the education, you must think about the language; the language abandoned by the powerful minority and owned by the powerless majority in the culturally devastated land of five rivers. If you and the chief minister want to get something out of billions the government of Punjab spends on education, you need to consider a few simple measures which can be taken without much financial burden. First, introduce teaching of mother language at primary level in all schools, public and private, as is being done in Sindh and KP. Second, provide lecturers (for F.A and B.A classes) to the colleges where mother language is already offered as an optional subject but teaching staff is not available and start an adult literacy programme. Redefine the current convoluted concept of literacy which is but a colonial legacy. To be literate means to be able to read and write in one’s own language. Imagine what will happen if the people of England are forced to read and write German in order to be literate. After five hundred years they would still be illiterate.

If we want to see our children to be truly educated, we will have to critically examine the role language plays in creating a world-view of the taught. Each language carries a world-view; unique but shareable, born of specific historical conditions. Language embodies the past, present and potential future of its speakers. Our language represents our historical experience and by implication our wisdom handed down from generation to generation from Harappa to present day.

We are in double jeopardy. On the one hand we have not been able to assimilate the wisdom offered by other languages like English and Urdu because of the coercive nature of the relationship we have with them, and on the other we have deliberately deprived ourselves of the wisdom of the soil offered by our own language. That is why the glittering literati of Punjab despite having prestigious academic degrees prove to be a gang of ignoramuses when faced with the real problems of the people they are supposed to guide. — soofi01@hotmail.com