Language wars written by Hajrah Mumtaz

Hajrah Mumtaz

IT is easy to get embroiled in controversies of which there never seems to be a shortage in Pakistan. The online world has ensured that any contentious bit of news or information can spread like wildfire. Recently, it was about a notice issued to students of a school in Sahiwal. “Foul language is not allowed within and outside the school premises in the morning, during school hours and after home time,” it said. “Foul language

includes taunts, abuses, Punjabi and the hate speech.”

According to the 1998 census — the last time the country got round to conducting the exercise — Punjabi is spoken by nearly 45pc of the population.

Given this, it is unsurprising that the circular caused much hullabaloo, complete with a petition in the Lahore High Court, a protest demonstration, and much denunciation on the internet. The language of the circular may grate on every single one of my copyediting nerves, but it was obvious from the start what the headmaster had meant when he wrote these lines.

The issue of regional languages has dropped off the radar.

As the school clarified after being on the receiving end of days of heavy censure, what had been meant was “Punjabi curses”, the operative word having being erroneously and unfortunately missed. And for that, the poor headmaster cannot be blamed. Anyone with even a working knowledge of Punjabi knows that amongst its many beauties is the fact that it is quite delightfully expressive when it comes to cussing.

That said, though, this particular storm in a teacup does illustrate how language is a flashpoint issue that continues to simmer under the surface of Pakistani society. There is a long and violent history behind this, of course, which unfortunately does not receive the emphasis it deserves in the history books being taught today. Language issues can be said to have caused the breakup of the country; the tensions between the then West and East Pakistan first coming to a head 19 years before the secession of the latter, in 1952, when there were mass protests in Dhaka against the centre’s move to make Urdu the national language of the country.

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Then, 20 years later, the Sindh Assembly passed the Sind Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill 1972, establishing Sindhi as the sole official language in the province. This brought to a head the latent tensions between ethnic Sindhis and Urdu-speaking immigrants, the latter community then constituting nearly 30pc of the provincial population.

Given how indelibly intertwined language and identity are, it is to be expected that there would be debate over which language defines Pakistan and should be promoted as the ‘national language’. There are at least five major regional languages and many sub-dialects. That there are activist groups promoting each one of them shows how each feels itself to be threatened.

On a countrywide level, though, the issue has largely dropped off the radar, receiving attention only sporadically. Certainly, not enough attention is given to the matter in the schooling system, the passing on of a mother tongue left largely to the child’s home and social environment.

Interestingly, this is one area where the greater, disadvantaged bulk of the population ends up at a sort of advantage over the elites (sort of, because in many cases the gains must be offset with the losses of not having formal education).

Across the board at high-end schools, almost all of which are privately owned, the emphasis is on English. The teaching of Urdu cannot be avoided (it is compulsory under the curriculum policy), but that is it in the context of local languages. Simul­ta­ne­ously, schools strongly discourage the use of, say, Punjabi or Pushto on the premises, many going as far as to admonish children to restrict themselves to English. At home, similarly, well-to-do parents tend to focus on English, their concern being that their child be conversant in the internationally spoken language that has, in Pakistan, become strongly identified as a status symbol.

As a result, we have a bloc of children at the highest tiers of society that do not understand, or certainly aren’t comfortable in, languages other than English or Urdu. The aggregate effects this will have on the status of regional languages over the coming decades is a matter of grave concern. But so is the fate of the children, who are becoming adults cut off from significant parts of our cultural history — music, poetry, literature and so on. This, too, ought to be considered a matter of shame; in so being rendered rootless, they increasingly risk becoming irrelevant.

A change in course is long overdue, though it is difficult to see how this can happen without contention at the level of state policy. Even so, the exercise needs to be undertaken.

The writer is a member of staff.