ISLAMABAD:
Citing constitutional impediments as reason, the federal law ministry has opposed a bill for teaching, promoting and using provincial languages in addition to the national language.
Awami National Party (ANP) Senator Haji Adeel had suggested amendments in the Article 251 of the Constitution and said the word ‘language’ in the heading should be substituted with the word ‘languages’.
He said it should be inserted that the national languages of Pakistan are Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto, Balochi and Seraiki, “and arrangements shall be made for their being used for official and other purposes within fifteen years from the commencement of the Act”.
Similarly, in Clause 2 for the word ‘Urdu’ should be substituted with the phrase ‘the national languages’ and in clause 3 for the words ‘National Language’ be changed with ‘National Languages’, he had recommended.
However, the law ministry replied that as regards regional languages –Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto and Seraiki – Clause 3 of the Article 251 empowers the provincial assembly to prescribe measures for teaching, promoting and using the provincial language in addition to the national language.
Haji Adeel had stated that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment it was necessary to give all languages of federating units the status of national languages. Even in India some of these languages have been declared national languages, he added.
The law ministry, however, said Senator Adeel’s statement was factually incorrect. “The position stated by him is not supported by Article 343 of the Indian Constitution, which says the official language of the Union (Federation) shall be Hindi in devanagri script.”
It said Article 345 of the Indian Constitution empowers that legislature of a state (in our case a provincial assembly) to adopt any one or more languages to be used for official purposes of the state. “The Indian Constitution, nowhere, declares regional languages as national languages” the ministry said. The law ministry’s reply further said the bill would not serve any purpose when it was read in light of the Article 28 of the Constitution, which clearly spoke of preservation of language, script or culture.
“The Constitution being a sacred document and not an ordinary law, its sanctity has to be preserved at all cost and must not be tinkered with,” it said.
According to the official website of the Khyber-Pakhtunkwa (K-P) government, Pashto will be introduced as a compulsory subject in 17 districts from grade one to grade ten, with Hindko, Seraiki, Khowar and Indus-Kohistani introduced in the remaining seven districts of the province.
Moreover, the K-P government had also taken steps to see to the formation of a Khyber-Pakhtunhwa Regional Languages Authority (KPRLA), which would work for the promotion of all the languages spoken in the province, the ministry added.
Talking to The Express Tribune, the K-P education minister Atif Khan said his ministry’s focus was on English language and the KPRLA had become a redundant body. “We have trained thousands of teachers to teach English to children so they could compete with their peers studying in the private institutions,” Atif Khan said.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2014.
COMMENTS (10)
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Respect to all: I am a professor of linguistics and have been teaching South Asian Languages in the United States for many years. Let me write some facts: 1. There is NO national language in India, but 22 official languages in India and Hindi is one of them and "associate" official language is English. Making all the languages: 23 (not 18). 2. Article 343 of the Indian Constitution says, "the official language of the Union (Federation) shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.” 3. In India, language is NOT state issue but Federal one. 4. Please do not use the word "Hindustani" as it died a communal-political death in 1947, instead, use the word "Urdu" (Nastaliq) or "Hindi" (Devanagari). 5. When economy becomes stronger nobody fights over linguistic issue as every person wants to send his kids to English medium school NOT to a Madrassa or Pathshala; learn from India. 6. If you have further doubts about linguistic issues in Pakistan, please talk to my Ustad/Guru saheban, Prof Tariq Rehman sahib or Prof Hassan A Rizvi sahib. And, finally, Namaste/Salam to all.
Haji Adeel of ANP forgot there are Hindko and Brohi also peoples speak in pakistan and they should be added in national languages.
@Pakhtun: Did Koreans ever learn english? or Japanese or even the Chinese? How about the Turks? No! We should stick to our own heritage, our own languages! I have no problem with English, but please have some respect for your mother tongue!!
Although India does not have an official language. India all regions have their own languages, the number of official regional languages of India are 18. These regional languages are taught along with English, and sometimes Hindi. Languages should not be put in a hierarchical order where you one language on top, and others on bottom. Everyone should read, write, and speak in their own mother tongue. India by the way has far more Urdu users, close to 52 million vs 15 million in Pakistan. I don't' know why Pakistan never promoted Punjabi, since it is the mother language of 60% of the population.
@Syedpk:
Hindustani is not a language foreign to Pakistan? A really baffling and bizarre comment. Can you tell me exactly which region of Pakistan it is native to?
As far as unifying power is concerned, if the government had promoted Mandarin as aggressively as it has promoted Hindustani for 3/4 of a century Mandarin too would have a unifying power by now!
Pakistan can never be a normal state while it denigrates its native people, their languages and their cultures.
@Frank,
Well Urdu is not a foriegn language to Pakistan. Urdu has been a unifying factor in Pakistan. Its not just about which has more nativre speakers or not, its about which langauge people use to communicate. A pukhtun can coomunicate with other pukhton using Pushto, Punjabi with other Punjabi uses Punjabi, same goes for Sindhi and Balochi people and languages. But when a Sindhi meets a Punjabi, Pukhtun, Baluchi , Seraiki or Kashmiri he uses Urdu ... thats the unifying power. If a group of people meet from all these places sans Urdu speaking "Hindustanis" or "foriegnors", they will still use Urdu (even though theres no native speaker among them), because its the language that everybody understands. So with all due respect stop the crap !
@Sehr Siddiqui:
What is so 'progressive' about imposing a foreign language and culture on the people of Pakistan while attempting to murder their own languages and cultures? If Pakistan is ever going to be a normal state this is one of the first things we're going to have to fix, by giving the status of national languages to our own languages rather than to Hindustani.
This amendment is yet another attempt to divide the country into pieces beside pushing the people in further backward. These characters will send their children abroad for education. One nation theory is already at stake. May God help us making sensible decisions. This is the result of having illiterates in assembly. They want every body to be like them. They should try to be like others who have progressed.
The aggressive promotion of Hindustani as the sole 'national language' and the strangulation of our native languages is one of the greatest injustices perpetrated by the state.
This makes no sense at all. Instead of ANP fighting for this, why not actually fight for promoting English across the board so that people of your state may learn, speak, read and write the most widely spoken International language and be able to compete effectively with people from across the Globe.