SUBA SERAIKISTAN KIS LIYAY? By Zahoor Dhareeja; pp 160; Price Rs 200 (hb); Publishers: Seraikistan Qaumi Council, Multan

Zahoor Dhareeja, a veteran protagonist of Seraiki and Seraikistan, has many reasons to justify the establishment of the Seraiki province. The ruling PPP, its co-chairperson Asif Zardari, and almost all feudal of the area however, have just one reason to support the province: political expediency. Incidentally, it was the Seraiki-speaking area of Dera Ismaeel Khan and Tank (part of the proposed Seraikistan) where the late Mufti Mahmood had crushed the elder Bhutto in the 1970 elections. Though Bhutto was elected from Punjab and Sindh constituencies, his party did not perform well in the Seraiki-speaking areas of Punjab and Balochistan provinces and to some extent in Sindh also. Now the PPP of Zardari links its hopes with Seraiki-speaking areas to get majority in the coming elections.

Dhareeja’s point of view is that 22 districts of the Punjab and the Pukhtoonkhwa have their own language, literature, culture and history. He says that some Seraiki-speaking areas of Sindh and Balochistan have not been included in the map of Seraikistan.

Of course, the Sindhis had challenged the Multanis in the early 1970: “Sir daisoon par Sindh na daisoon”. It is the Sindh which gave a language name to south Punjab just some 50 years back. Till the times of Khwaja Farid and Khurram, south Punjab people would associate themselves with Punjab and Punjabi.

Now, Dhareeja quotes Grierson or Dr Trump: “From every district of Sindh (except Thar and Parker) specimens have been collected of the language locally known as Seraiki. On examination it turns out that in every case this language is not Sindhi at all but in forms of Lehnda closely allied to the Hindki of Dera Ghazi Khan”.

Dhareeja quotes another well known Urdu scholar Dr Gopi Chand Narang who in his article published in the second Seraiki International, Delhi, declares that “Seraiki is not only the mother of Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi but also of Sanskirt”.

That is one claim on which a Seraiki Suba (without Sindhi and Baloch Seraiki-speaking areas) is being demanded. He throws challenge to Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani and Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to have an open debate (manazara) with him on the name Seraiki.

Dhareeja’s second or historical argument is that Multan was always a separate province while Punjab was nowhere. He is of the opinion that Punjabi is much junior to Seraiki and it were the Sikh Punjabis who cunningly humiliated the Multan’s Afghan rulers. His another stand is that almost all the Seraiki poetry, including that of Shah Husain of Lahore, is in pure Seraiki but the Punjabi calligraphists, editors and publishers made the hell with the lettering. About MNA Javed Hashmi’s proposal to name the new province Punjnad, Dhareeja says what does the word represent -- a nation, language, or culture? He says the Seraiki is a nation with old history, language, civilization and separate culture.

The fact is that the feudal of the area intentionally kept the area backward to keep the ‘Riaya’ under control. They were anti-development and never represented their poor voters in assemblies in budgetary grants. They would happily allow the army and the civil establishment to get millions of acres in south Punjab. This deep sense of deprivation worked on which a hate campaign against so-called Takht Lahore, a term used in Akbar’s period by a dissident from the central Punjab, Dullah Bhatti, has been launched. Dharreja has compiled articles he got published in newspapers in this book. ******

SACHAL FAQIR….Chonawan Kalam; Editor/compiler Sangat; pp 108; Price Rs200 (pb); Publishers Suchet Kitab Ghar, 11.Sharaf Mansion, Chowk Ganga Ram; Book Street No. 1, Queen’s Road, Lahore. E-mail: suchet2001@yahoo.com Among the literary historians of the last century, Maula Buksh Khushta in his Tazkara Punjabi Sho’ara first time included the name of Sachal, of Daraza Sharif, because the first printed collection of Sachal included Punjabi Dohrras. His sizeable volume of poetry was presented as Punjabi and that is how Khushta made him the part of his Tazkara. In the recent past the Cultural Department of Sindh reproduced the same version and the Punjabi headings were kept intact.

From Tazkara the now defunct Majlis Shah Husain tried to publish the whole Punjabi verses of Sachal but ultimately it was published by the Punjabi Adabi Board. In the south Punjab, Sachal was represented as Seraiki poet (word Seraiki never used by Sachal) and a selection was published just with a view to strengthen the stand on Seraiki.

Perhaps it is Najm Hosain Sayed’s Sangat where the kafis or verses included in the volume were read with explanation. In this volume, only glossary has been appended with every kafi meant for Punjabi readers.

Notes about Sachal’s Punjabi orientation and the influence of at least three senior Punjabi poets -- Shah Husain, Sultan Bahu and Bulleh Shah -- should have been considered a ‘must’ to help the reader understand the closeness of the thought expression and language of these great sufi poets of the Indus Valley. This has not been done.

In the glossary many time the meaning has been given in Urduised Punjabi. For instance Punjab and most of its dialects, Sindhi have one thing common that their verbs end on ‘N’ and not on ‘Alif’ as used in the book:

The influence of senior Punjabi poets as reflected in the following lines should have been added:

This is a good attempt to bring closer the dialects and include all that written in Punjabi in and outside the Punjab area, in Punjabi literature. — STM