LAHORE: Political scientist and author Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed has called for avoiding language chauvinism.

“One should not be a language chauvinist. Language is used for connecting people but not to make enemies. Every province in Pakistan should have its own language. Urdu is the ‘link language’ and you need English for the world as the Chinese and the French are also learning it now. To make progress, you need all these three languages,” he declared in his keynote address on the second day of the 2nd Punjabi Conference being held at the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (Pilac) on Monday.

Over 100 Punjabi artistes, writers and scholars from India and other parts of the world are also participating in the event.

The author of Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed said until Dec 31, 1947 at least 800,000 Punjabis were massacred while 10m were displaced and one of the dominant factors of the violence was language.

“Even today, Punjabi language in East Punjab is taught until university level, however, it was mistreated in Pakistan after the Partition.”

Dr Ishtiaq says Pakistan ideology has no space for regional cultures; PA speaker pledges Punjabi in schools by next year

He said Motilal Nehru’s report of 1928 included a section about language, saying that the national language of India would be Hindustani in two scripts, Devanagari and Persian and every province would have the right to have its own language as medium of instruction but the Muslim League rejected this proposal.

“In 1936, All India Congress resolution repeated it, saying that south India could adopt English but provinces would be allowed to have their own languages. In his correspondence, Jinnah insisted that Urdu is the mother tongue of the Muslims though he himself could not speak it.”

Dr Ishtiaq said Punjabi language was supported only by the Sikhs whose population in British ruled India was 13.2pc and it was 14.1 if princely states were included. “The Muslim League did not protest against the British even for an hour and it is still a big question why the latter divided India and gave a country to it.” He said when Mountbatten refused the request of Pakistan to join the Common Wealth, Jinnah replied ‘I will go to the British people, to the commonwealth, saying that we Muslims have been loyal with the British and we never protested against the British rule’.”

Dissecting Punjab’s language issue further, he said, “Pakistan’s ideology is based on religion and Urdu language and accepting the regional cultures and identities is against its ideology.”

He stressed that the Punjabis were oppressing the Punjabis, not the Sindhis or Pashtuns as the whole military and bureaucracy consisted of Punjabis and “if they give an order now, tomorrow Punjabi language would start being taught in schools tomorrow”.

PUNJABI POLITICS: In a session on ‘Punjabi politicians and politics,’ Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan said when he became an MPA for the first time in 2002, MPA Rasheed Bhatti stood up in the assembly and started speaking Punjabi but the speaker stopped him, saying that rules of procedure required permission of the speaker to speak Punjabi.

“I found it very strange that in Punjab Assembly, if I wanted to speak Punjabi language, I needed the speaker’s permission for it while no permission was allowed to speak in English or Urdu.”

Mr Khan said when he had a chance to rectify the wrong after becoming the speaker as well as the chairman of the committee on rules of procedure. “I decided to change the ‘frivolous rule’ and now nobody needed any permission to speak Punjabi.”

The PA speaker regretted that had he been educated in his own language, he would have understood his lessons more clearly but the medium of instruction was Urdu, English and even Arabic and Persian. “No school has Punjabi language as the medium of instruction. We are trying to make a law to introduce Punjabi subject at the school level. I assure you that Punjabi will be taught at the school level by next year.”

However, Malik Ahmad Khan stressed a futuristic look at the Punjabi language as progress was impossible by only looking at the past. He said if there would not be modern and new knowledge in the language, there would be no official patronage for it. He called for translations and more work for promotion of Punjabi.

When asked by moderator Akmal Ghumman why Punjabi politicians did not own their language, former Punjab governor Chaudhry Sarwar said, “commitment starts from home. I am proud to say that Punjabi was always spoken in my home even in England.”

During the discussion, the former governor pointed out an issue of the land of Punjab, saying “our lands have been destroyed by housing societies. “They are everywhere-- in Lahore, Faisalabad, Jaranwala and they are all illegal. Plot files are not sold anywhere in the world. It’s my request to save agriculture as well as the masses of the country by stopping plot sales.”

Former minister Aitzaz Ahsan said the language problem started when “Allah Hafiz” replaced “Khuda Hafiz” through Arabisation, especially after the Afghan war as money came into Pakistan through Saudi Arabia. “And whoever brings in money also brings their language and culture.”

“We were restricted to Persian script and hence lost all treasures of knowledge. Our identity turned extraterritorial,” he lamented.

Mr Ahsan said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made cross-border movement difficult and people on both sides should try to bring things back to normalcy. He remembered how Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister had normalised relationships when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM of India but a general (Pervez Musharraf) attacked Kargil to sabotage talks.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2024