According to a recent report, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice rejected with majority vote a bill seeking the status of national language for a number of regional languages. The said bill was moved by PML-N lawmaker Marvi Memon after long deliberations and consultations with the linguists and educationalists from several languages.
As the discussion ensued, some remarks were made by the special secretary of the law ministry, Justice (retd.) Raza Khan. Khan, while rejecting the bill, commented thus: “The country had already suffered the East Pakistan tragedy in 1971 as a result of the decision to declare both Urdu and Bengali as national languages.”
The idea that giving national status to Bengali led to the separation of East Pakistan is simplistic and uninformed. The honourable special secretary might be well aware that the Bengali Language Movement, or the Bhasha Ondolan as it called in Bengali, did not start after 1956 when Bengali was recognised as a state language. The movement has its roots in the colonial period alongside the campaign for the independence of India from British rule. Even during the All-India Muslim League’s struggle, the issue of a lingua franca for Muslims surfaced again and again. At the Lucknow session of the All-India Muslim League in 1937, delegates from Bengal had opposed a resolution recommending Urdu to be the lingua franca of Muslims all over India.
The argument by the special secretary is, however, not surprising. Every Pakistani has been taught lies and half-truths about history at school, college and university. Like many, the special secretary thinks that national harmony can be secured by coercive and suppressive measures. This official line, very often crafted by the civil and military bureaucracy, leads the country to the verge of failure. Whoever challenges this line is dubbed an ‘agent’, an ‘enemy’, a ‘traitor’ or an ‘infidel’ in Pakistan. This is not a new phenomenon. It is but a generations-old tradition.
Had the bureaucratic advisors of Jinnah not briefed the him saying that the people who demanded a state language status for Bengali were actually communists and Indian agents, Pakistan’s history would have been very different. When Jinnah reached the Dhaka airport on March 19, 1948 he found a less-than-enthusiastic crowd there. If his advisers had told him the truth he would not have spoken thus: “…..But let me make it very clear to you that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language.”
Whether it is the state organs or the non-state actors in Pakistan, everyone has taken it up as his/her responsibility to discredit and decry every form of diversity or heterogeneity. The common narrative insists on a very unnatural kind of homogeneity which is backfiring in a hundred different ways before our very eyes today.
In order to hold together a diverse newborn country, Jinnah and his advisers applied an exclusive policy derived from the ‘one-religion-one-language theory’ to the entire country. Urdu, being a major bone of contention before the Partition, was made the only national language despite the fact that only a few fringes of the Pakistani population spoke and understood it. This consequently denied due rights to speakers of the majority language, Bengali. This, along with other factors, aggrieved the Bengalis, who used to be at the forefront of the movement for Pakistan.
It was not the acceptance of Bengali as ‘a state language alongside Urdu’ that caused the tragedy of 1971. Rather, it was the stubborn stance of the Pakistani nationalist leaders that transformed a just demand into a mass movement and eventually led to the separation of East Pakistan. The West Pakistanis recognised Bengali in the 1956 Constitution only after the overwhelming victory of the United (Jugto) Front which won 215 out of a total 237 Muslim seats in East Pakistan. But they bulldozed the majority status of East Pakistan with the insertion of the parity principle in the constitution.
Indeed, language was not the only issue that led to the separation of East Pakistan. It was the imperialist thesis of the leaders of Pakistan misguided by the then bureaucrats who actually made the making of Bangladesh possible. People with the just demand for the recognition and promotion of Bengali were dubbed as communists, Indian agents, enemies and traitors of Pakistan and Islam.
Heavens will not fall on Pakistan if the so-called ‘regional languages’ along with the ‘other’ mother tongues are recognised as national languages. Rather, it would be a right move to address some of the grievances of the people who just are as Pakistani as the civil and military establishments are.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 24th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (41)
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@Kanwaar:
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Which Writing Script Should Be Used For Punjabi in the 21st Century
There are various arguments on both sides of the case which I will not bother repeating as we have heard them all before, such as the details of the history of the Gurmukhi script or the Shahmukhi script. These one can look up, in terms of origins et al. I am concerned with going forward and in that light this is not an academic study but rather a viewpoint to start a healthy debate which should lead to those who participate without prejudice to come to conclusions not necessarily in agreement with me that will hopefully lead to a teaching policy more needed in Pakistan and the West rather than the Indian state of Punjab. Fact, Punjabi literature was mostly written in the Shahmukhi script from the word go by the majority of writers which ever religious community they were from. Fact Gurmukhi via the Sikh Gurus was adopted from a Landa script originating like most north Indian scripts from Pali, Sanskrit and Brahmi. As Persian was the court language the former held dominance. As the latter was created and used by the Sikhs, despite it capturing the sounds more efficiently, prior to partition it was for the main part used exclusively by Sikhs for religious purposes. Also a fact, shahmukhi being via Farsi adapted from Arabic has all the same flaws that Latin ( English language etc) script does capturing Punjabi sounds. In that sense it is true whatever name we give Gurmukhi ( I believe it simply should be called Punjabi) it is of the currently used scripts the best case for capturing Punjabi. Of course to counter the weakness of Shahmukhi and yet avoid the “Sikh” association of Gurmukhi, someone has come up with the Saanjo script, which is as intuitive as Gurmukhi but has no religious confusion. However it looks complex and will be battling both Shahmukhi in Pakistan and Gurmukhi the established script for 95% of Punjabi writing since 1947. I think this makes it confusing and one should simply keep Gurmukhi whose characters are easier to form then Saanjo, and teach it as the new international standard script with shahmukhi as option.
What do you think?
Issue of Urdu and its upper hand is not due to virtues of urdu but hatred of punjabi for mother tongue. If punjab decides to teach in punjabi in schools and up.that will be end of Urdu . Salute to author for writing truths about history.
it is a shame that in Pakistan such illiterate people as raza khan become judge and subsequently are made special secretary. his sort of decision makers r entirely responsible for what happened with Pakistan and what we are facing now
@Huma: I fully endorse your point. It was not language struggle but consequences of martial law that led to separation of East Pakistan. This does not mean that West Pakistan was suppressing the eastern province. In fact martial law was imposed by the East Pakistani General Iskandar Mirza. In fact had Ayub not committed fraud in the 1962 elections and had Ms. Fatima Jinnah formed the government, we would still have been united. Sadly, Ms Jinnah and Mr Suhrwardy were eliminated by Ayub. East Pakistan being the largest province, instead of leading the struggle against military dictatorship chose to walk away and left the smaller provinces at the mercy of the establishment created by their very own general Mirza.
Huma, I am not sure i agree with you that muslims of south india only spoke in urdu. They might have learnt the language to communicate with other muslims of subcontinent (as did the Bengali muslims) but they certainly did not consider urdu their mother tongue. Tamil Nadu has produced many muslim writers writing in tamil. One of them (Justice M.M. Ismael) was a noted Tamil scholar who also wrote commentaries on Ramayana (the Indian epic). A.P.J. Kalam, the former President of India, is a tamil poet. The list is long. The story is different in Hyderabad which has many Arabs settled and marry local population. They speak urdu and nothing else!
(Jinnah declaring Urdu was a political move to discourage south indian muslims to move to pakistan.) Ha, ha. Is this what they teach in history books in Pakistan nowadays? South Indian muslims were never interested in moving to Pakistan as it did not hold much fascination for them. Partition was a north indian affair. There were no riots in south. Some families did move from places like Hyderabad (South) to Pakistan but that is about it. Jinnah could have declared Swahili as the national language of Pakistan without causing a ripple in the south.
(Anyway the biggest surprise was that Indian Muslims fought and voted for pakistan but didn’t move.) Again a stupid assumption. Indian muslims of Bengal, United Province, Punjab voted for Pakistan. Why all of them did not go to Pakistan is a mystery. Those who voted for Pakistan should have moved there.
The rational at the time and even now to have a uniting language in Pakistan makes sense. But not to the detrement of the natural local languages. religion should not be a factor, but history. To that end Arabic, English and Urdu are alien to the area and elitist. There are ore muslims in India and Indonesia is a non arabic country that has never got rid of its natural languages and i steh biggest islamic state on earth.
language should not equal religion. If that was the case Engilsh would not be spoken in England, but Latin the holy Christian language would. That long last its power as did the court languages like French.
In time Punjabi etc must be given their due otherwise the true histroical culture of the land will vanish. Punjabi is not a language that belongs to Sikhs, it belongs to Muslims and Hindus and anyone from the Indus valley. It is of Punjab, so belongs to India and Pakistan who I get the imprssion have both recreated history to suit themselves.
Best answer to me is if Child is born in punjab, first teach that child Punjabi only, then a little later urdu and then worry about other languages. Surely that is your answer?
Punjabi is dying in India but wil be a dodo in Pakistan in a few years..reverse this trend please without losing Urdu..that is the answer..and it should not matter what script. On a practical basisonly, Gurmukhi has most punjabi written in it and along side Shahmulhi must be taught to all Punjabis..it is not exclusive property of Sikhs.
@Huma: Sorry to burst your bubble, but at the time of independence most Indians were illiterate. The ones from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, etc. barely know Urdu even today. Even a casual Hindi speaker like me can speak and comprehend Urdu better than most of them.
Name of the shop written in Urdu does not mean a thing, especially as the names were written by a painter who himself had at most rudimentary knowledge of the language. My own maternal grandfather's shop had prominent inscriptions all over in English, but he never understood a single word of it.
Very logical arguments by the writer. I don't know why our policy makers are hellbent to enforce Urdu be the only national language of Pakistan. Are the other ethnic groups less Pakistani or don't deserve the status of equal Pakistani citizens. Pakistan is blended with diverse cultures and ethnic groups which all need the same attention as Urdu for the promotion of their own languages and cultures. Doing so will not lessen the importance of Urdu or any other regional language but will help recognize that they are also as important as the English-Urdu speaking elite of Pakistan.
I am amazed at the arguments the article presents. Tell me which region can claim Urdu to be its language, from Chitral to Assan, from Nepal (yes they do understand and can converse in Urdu/Hindustani/Hindi) to Deccan, There is no place that can claim Urdu to be its regional language. UP (The united provinces of British India/Agra and Awadh) had its own regiponal languages and Urdu happened to be the language of the court. All those who were associated with the court (state officials/nawabs) across the subcontinent were fluent in Urdu. The Bengali movement was just an attempt by the majority to impose its regional language on minorities. What if Punjab today tries to impose Punjabi in all of Pakistan? Will a Baluchi or Chitrali understand it, let alone accept it. Try to be rational, not emotional.
I just wonder what made Jinnah declare Urdu as national language of Pakistan. He himself was a Gujrati and did not speak Urdu. None of the regions that were going to become Pakistan spoke Urdu. Then why Jinnah bothered to declare an Indian language as a national language of the new country? Did he think that Punjabi , Balochi , Sindhi, Pashto or Bengali was not good enough to be used as national language ? Or did he think only Urdu speaking people were educated enough to run the country?
@gp65, ratnam and others Urdu was the lingua franca of the Muslims before partition. It was the language of the Muslim elite and any Muslim who aspired to become something learned it as well as Persian which was the language of the courts/ government. I have photographs of Muslim shops from Bengal, Tamil Nadu etc from before partition and they always have name of the shop written in Urdu plus other languages. It was seen as part of the symbol and unique identity of muslims in India. After partition, the Bengalis saw no need for Urdu to maintain a link with the other Muslims of the subcontinent.
I fully endorse the author. All languages of Pakistan are like the different flowers in a bouquet that makes the country more beautiful. The bouquet needs to be safe otherwise there will be monotony.
@Huma: Urdu was NOT the lingua franca of all Muslims before partition. Bengali Muslims spoke Bengali, Tamil Musli ms spoke Tamil, Gujarati Muslims spoke Gujarati, Malayali Muslims spoke Malayalam and so on. Most Indians in 1947 were not literate and hence the script did not even enter into the picture.
As to how can a country survive without a national language - answer is India does just fine thank you. In fact India would have divided if an attempt to impose Hindi had been made on all Indians.
Invariably those who talk a lot about National and regional languages send their children to English medium schools.The common man will continue speak his/her native language.
Urdu/Hindi is an Indian language originated in UP and brought and imposed on Punjab ( Pakistan ) after it's annexation in 1849 . It has no land of it;s own and is spoken by a minority comprising mostly of Indian infiltrator who are occupants of some of big cities of Sindh . What a pity that a minority landless language is enjoying the supreme position of national language by usurping the god blessed rights of languages of the soil .. It is the high time that our myopic policy makers learn the lesson form history ( of cessation of Bengal ) and not let repeat it in another shape of fragmentation of an already fragile federation called Pakistan
No body can deny the fact that it was Language issue which sowed the seeds of cessation in the hearts of Bengalis .... The repetition of same mistake of not giving due status to the languages of Pakistan can prove harmful to this already fragile federation of four provinces . It is a pity that a minority language having no land of it's own and spoken by Indian infiltrators occupying the big cities of Sindh is enjoying the supreme position by usurping the God blessed rights of the languages of the soil
By reading this article one will be really shocked to know about the myopic approach of our ( judicial ) bureaucrates about the highly delicate language issue which is still unresolved and if the status quo continues can prove catastrophic for the remaining Pakistan
@Huma: Where did you get the information that "Urdu was the lingua franca of Indian Muslims"? The most obvious rebuttal to your assertion is that Bengali Muslims (in undivided India) did not speak Urdu. I am sure Pakistanis are well aware of that since a large part of Bengal became East Pakistan. But, even not counting Bengali Muslims, have you considered Muslims from parts of India other than the north, say Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc? They don't speak Urdu at all.
You should get your facts about India correct before rushing to comment.
the hypocrisy and irony of it all, the most vocal proponents of mother language are the intellectuals and intelligentsia of pakistan, yet they themselves continue to read, write and teach their off springs english.
The irony that after gaining independance, the father of the nation addressed the newly formed nation in a language only he and the assembly around him could understand
@Sudhindra: Are you being sarcastic or being just plain old stupid?
urdu was language of educated in some part of Northern India prior to partition. Urdu literature and shiary was only for elite of UP, Delhi and Punjab. But an educated bengali Muslim then had no interest in urdu and to him Nazarul Islam and Tagore were the ultimate in Literature. i doubt if Nazarul Islam wrote anything in Urdu.
Urdu is an imposed language on Pakistan. Baluchi, Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashtun should be made national languages as they are the languages spoken in the territory that encompasses Pakistan. As far as Seraiki and Hindko are concerned they are just dialects of Punjabi so they don't deserve a status as a national language.
"Every Pakistani has been taught lies and half-truths about history at school, college and university." That is an open secret anyway.
@Huma: You cannot impose a language on multi lingual States, it will cause multiple problems. Urdu may have been a language spoken by many Indian Muslims, but honestly not even half of them. In Bengal they speak Bengali, in Tamilnadu it is Tamil, in Kerala it is Malyalam and in Gujarat it is Gujarati. I cannot understand how the language of converts can change, Indian Christians continue to use their mother tongue, the language of the State they come from. Does an African American convert to Islam change his language to Arabic or Urdu ? Sanskrit is the oldest language and the mother of many modern ones, should India have made it their national language when less than 1% of its population can speak it ? Homogenity can never be imposed on any population, neither can language build bridges.
"But reaching to the university level i can only foresee a disaster of having well educated youth finding simple communication an ordeal" COMMUNICATION TO WHOM? is communication only for elite and university educated? what about common man who is uneducated or has only studied up to School level and may not be proficient to communicate in chaste Urdu speaking from my experience, i have come across people who are highly qualified and learned in their respective field of learning but are unable to properly express themselves in a language learnt in school or college. probably Bulleh Shah and Vare Shah if alive today would have failed to express themselves. there will be no Sassi punnu , Heer Ranjha or Sohni Mahiwal.
@Huma: the way it used to happen before urdu. India doesn't have a national language.
An excellent read. Pakistan must recognize all the languages as national languages so as to foster a pluralistic society
Urdu was the language of the Turko-Persian- Mongol elite . It has nothing to do with Islam neither the Indian majority Muslims who spoke a myriad of languages. Urdu became the lingua franca of north india after 1837 when the British replaced Persian, and imposed Urdu on everyone. The Baluch,Pashtun,Sindhis,Seraikis and Bengali were not consulted when this Indic language of Lucknow was unilaterally imposed on Pashtun,Bengali, Sindhi and Baluch.the other major national languages. Both Pashto, Sindhi and Punjabi and Baluchi have more native speakers than Urdu,which is only 7 %. It is only after this Delhi-Lucknow language was favoured and imposed on all as national language that it is spoken by more as second or even 3 language. The 4 languages of the major peoples of Pakistan should be national languages and the other mother tongues should be offered where there are substantial speakers of those languages. English would be better as a binding factor. higher education should at provincial level be in Pashto,Sindhi, Baluch,Seraiki and Punjabi and federal institutions can be in English.
@Happens: Dear! Our attitudes and behaviors are salute-able, we aren't getting even some serious research and argument . I would like to know specially about your comment that " Arabic language could be best for Pakistan"How ??? even we are not Arabic !!!! you can say about Pashto , Panjabi, Baluchi, Sindhi, Saraiki, and hundreds of more languages and nation but I didn't heard that Arabic is also a language of our country . As we are already bound to learn Arabic Language and we learn it with other languages but i am opposing you strongly to make it our National language...............
If we don't have a national language, then how will one ethnicity communicate with members of other ethnicities? Doesn't the author know about the biblical story of the Tower of Babel? Also, the writer fails to mention that before partition, Urdu was the lingua franca of Indian Muslims and it was natural that the new country of Pakistan adopted it as it's national language. Having said that, regional languages must be preserved and promoted as cultural assets, and speakers of them encouraged to teach it to their children.
@Happens: I believe that is not the solution to make our national language arabic .Secondly we are not arabs, and being a muslim doesnot mean you have to start learning Arabic. Arabic is not a prerequisite to being a good muslim .
Finally Pakistan is an amalgamation of people of different races & culture with different languages Everyone has the right to speak their own language. Urdu is the link for all cultures in Pakistan.
Jinnah declaring Urdu was a political move to discourage south indian muslims to move to pakistan. Anyway the biggest surprise was that Indian Muslims fought and voted for pakistan but didn't move.
@Happens ... Applause ...
Declaring regional languages as national languages seems to be a ploy to get the ball rolling. Not soon after this recognition i am going to assume a press for curriculum to be devised in those languages. Soon after i assume another press for making teaching mandatory in those regional languages. All seems fair and well to this point. But reaching to the university level i can only foresee a disaster of having well educated youth finding simple communication an ordeal, let alone stimulating thought processes to have space to nurture. And during this whole process we fail to acknowledge the nuance of the disaster our present boards already are in the formulation of curriculae. Having a hundred more boards would, to put it mildly, compound to a very chronic problem. The problem being the development of a rationally thinking, problem solving nation. I think we need to regress on this issue rather than progress, that is just take what already has been proven to be beneficial around the world and use it to teach our students.
All issues would have been solved if Arabic was made national language . Still we have time .
Very strange! No comments?! Moderator, are you feeling good suppressing comments? The author has written some home truths about Pakistan history, very different from the lies fed through "Pakistan studies" curriculum. However, the author is being disingenuous trying to downplay the true nature of MAJ, who was clueless,stubborn, irrational and dictatorial.
Wasn't this article published before?