AT the one-day symposium, organised by Idara-i-Farogh-i-Qaumi Zaban (IFQZ) to discuss the status of Pakistan’s national language and Pakistani languages, the participants seemed to agree on many issues. But on three points there was an absolute consensus: 1) every Pakistani language should be protected and promoted; 2) English should immediately be replaced with Urdu as official language; 3) there is only one language that should be Pakistan’s national language and it is Urdu. These thoughts were later made part of the recommendations unanimously approved.

The debate on Pakistan’s national language and Pakistani languages has been raging ever since the introduction of a proposed constitutional amendment bill in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Titled Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2014, the bill sought to amend Article 251 of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan and proposed that nine Pakistani languages — namely, Balochi, Balti, Brahvi, Punjabi, Pashto, Shina, Sindhi, Seraiki and Hindko — be declared Pakistan’s national languages along with Urdu.

Later, the proposed bill was introduced in the Senate of Pakistan. Titled The Proposed Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2016, the bill was approved by a Senate committee but with amendments. According to Dawn (May 11, 2017), “the Senate’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice approved on Wednesday a Constitution[al] amendment Bill to give the status of national languages to Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi. The committee approved the bill introduced by Senators Sassui Palijo and Mukhtiar Ahmed Dhamrah with certain amendments. The amendment to Clause (1) of Article 251 of the Constitution was proposed to declare Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi as national languages along with Urdu”.

This writer has had the honour of attending four symposia that were convened to debate the language policy and/or proposed amendment bill, three at Islamabad and one at Karachi. The first was held at Air University in October last year. Titled ‘Language Policy Dialogue’, it chose English as the language of the conference to recommend a language policy for Pakistan and most of the deliberations were in English. To add insult to injury, an Indian-origin US scholar was invited to deliver the keynote address, perhaps an intentional and obvious sign to tell what would be the shape of things to come.

Two more symposia took place on the issue, one at Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) in the last week of February this year and the other at Karachi University early this month. The fourth one was organised by IFQZ last week. While most of our nationalist friends were vociferous at the PAL conference and zealously supported the proposed bill, many of them seemed shell-shocked and disappointed at the IFQZ symposium and contrary to their previous stance favoured Urdu as “the only national language of Pakistan”.

The reason was that the proposed amendment bill introduced in the Senate has been modified and seeks a reduced number of languages to be declared national languages. It has disillusioned the supporters of the other languages — namely Balti, Brahvi, Seraiki, Hindko and Shina — that were included in the bill earlier but have been dropped from the bill approved by the Senate’s committee. This writer had urged the participants at PAL’s meeting that declaring a few languages national languages would create a sense of deprivation among the speakers of other languages and it would be tantamount to opening a linguistic Pandora’s Box as there are 76 languages spoken in Pakistan.

The IFQZ symposium offered some insight as different linguistic, ethnic and national issues came under the spotlight. Irfan Siddiqi, adviser to the prime minister, declared in unambiguous terms that “Pakistan’s national language is Urdu and it should remain undisputed”. Stressing the importance of other Pakistani languages, Siddiqi said our constitution emphasises the protection and promotions of the other Pakistani languages. While giving details of the government’s efforts to implement Urdu as official language he stressed the government’s “seriousness” on the issue.

Iftikhar Arif, IFQZ’s director general, while emphasising respect for the mother tongues and all Pakistani languages, highlighted the efforts made by IFQZ (formerly National Language Authority, or NLA) to prepare Urdu for implementation as official language. Arif said Urdu “is ready in every respect to be implemented as official language and thousands of government employees have been trained to use Urdu as official language”.

Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik, the former chairman of NLA, in detail described how the final recommendations were prepared for implementation of Urdu as official language by NLA in 2007 and submitted to the then government. He recalled the days when Mufti Mahmood in NWFP (now KP) and Bizenjo in Balochistan had declared Urdu as provincial official language and Punjab was about to adopt Urdu, things were slowed down on political grounds.

Masood Mufti, Ehsan Akber, Jaleel Aali, Wahid Bakhsh Buzdar, Jabbar Mirza, Fatema Hasan, Nasir Abbas Nayyar, Hafeez Khan, Parveen Malik, Mohammad Ziauddin and some other speakers represented at symposium the different parts and languages of Pakistan.

Other recommendations to be sent to the government through IFQZ included the creation of an independent language commission, providing funds for protection and promotion of all Pakistani languages, restoring NLA’s former name and its authority, allowing provincial assemblies to adopt any Pakistani language/s as official language/s, declaring Urdu as medium of answers along with English for all service commissions’ exams, inclusion of nine major Pakistani languages as optional subject for service commission exams and adopting Urdu for all judicial proceedings and writing legal decisions.

The sprit at IFQZ symposia was that of mutual respect, national integrity and national identity. The recommendations presented at the symposia suggest ways to get out of the linguistic quagmire that the proposed amendment bill has landed the nation into.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2017