Tariq Rahman
There are two major kinds of language problems in Pakistan: those concerning the use of language as a symbol of identity; and those concerning its use as a medium of instruction. The first feeds into the ethnic politics of Pakistan; the second into the politics of social class, deprivation, marginalization and, increasingly, of political Islam.The first may be called horizontal, affecting as it does, collectivities or would-be collectivities dispersed over the geographical boundaries of the country. The second is vertical, affecting the way social mobility and class formation are affected by language. Both are connected with politics, i.e., the way in which power is distributed in society and how it is pursued to secure goods and services for collectivities (such as ethnic groups), social classes (such as the westernized elite), and individuals.
This chapter studies the use of language in both ethnic politics and the politics of social class in Pakistan. The first part owes its origin to my work, Language and Politics in Pakistan (1996),1 but it has been updated to take into account subsequent developments. The second is based on recently published and still unpublished research.2 There is also a brief discussion of the present language policy on the indigenous (weaker) languages of Pakistan.
Paul Brass3 and Jyotirindra Das Gupta4 remain the paradigmatic models for the study of the relationship between language problems and politics in India. As Indian realities—brought out in many studies5—parallel those of Pakistan, these models remain valid for students of the language politics of Pakistan. Language, however, remains almost as under studied a variable in the ethnic politics of Pakistan as it was in 1995 when the present author’s work on that subject just mentioned was published.
The pioneering scholarly work in those days were articles by Hamza Alavi,6 articles on “regional imbalances and the national question” in a book edited by S. Akbar Zaidi7 and Tahir Amin’s full length study of the rise and fall of “ethnonational movements” in Pakistan.8 Hamza Alavi’s analysis deals with the overdeveloped state, which creates a “salariat” dependent on its patronage for goods, services and power. Ethnic struggle, in his view, is the struggle between the central and peripheral “salariats” for power. Although these contending elites “fracture (or align) along ethnic lines,” they do not necessarily work in the interests of the subordinate classes.9 Alavi was wary of ethnic politics and paid no attention to the role of language in constructing the subordinate group or personality in Pakistan. Akbar Zaidi’s edited book includes articles not only on the language issue (Feroze Ahmed’s) but also the underdevelopment of certain regions; they are among the pioneering empirical writings on this subject in Pakistan.10 The pioneering book-length study of ethnicity, however, is by Tahir Amin. He gives a “dynamic picture of changing group identities”11 with reference to internal and external factors without, however, paying much attention to language.
The work of Feroz Ahmed, published two years later, was a collection of his work on this subject from a Marxist point of view, all written earlier.12 However, Feroz Ahmed was one of the first political scientists to study the alienation of the Urdu-speakers (mohajirs) of Sindh from the political process and to suggest that they should be accommodated.13 After that the only major study of a language-based ethnic movement, based on the Siraiki language of Southern Punjab, is Hussain Ahmad Khan’s Re-Thinking Punjab: The Construction of Siraiki Identity (2004).14 Apart from that, though language has been touched on in studies of ethnicity in Pakistan after 1996—Ishtiaq Ahmed, Adeel Khan15—it is not the focus of these studies. Ishtiaq Ahmed offers a comparative analysis of ethnic politics in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Language is given attention but, “since the invocation of language or religion as a basis for separatist national identity in contemporary South Asia has not been consistent,”16 it is seen in the context of resistance to the state’s project of modernization, which is perceived to benefit certain elitist groups at the expense of the resisting minorities. Adeel Khan points out that it is not only the economic disadvantages of modernization but the distance from the state structure of the ethnic groups that determines the degree of their resistance to the ruling elite. In his view,“culture, history and language have been part of the symbolic and rhetorical armory of these movements but not of their actual political agendas.”17 This point, if interpreted to imply that languages have iconic significance and are used to express conflicts for power in a given political system, needs no emphasis. If, however, this becomes a justification for leaving language out of the analysis altogether, or treating it in an inadequate manner, it needs to be corrected. This chapter attempts to make this kind of correction in order to point out that language policies and practices, both of the ruling elites and those resisting them, have far-reaching consequences for the politics of a country.
Pakistan is a multilingual state with six major languages—Punjabi (spoken by 44.15 percent out of a population of 160 million in 2007); Pashto (15.42); Sindhi (14.10); Siraiki (10.53); Urdu (7.57); Balochi (3.57)—and about 57 minor ones. Urdu is the national language and English the official one.18 English is spoken spontaneously and fluently only by a small elite, which is estimated to comprise between 5–6 percent of the population.19 The 1973 constitution of the country, which was suspended in part both during the military rule of Generals Zia ul Haq (1977–1988) and Pervez Musharraf (1999–2008), is again in force. It provides the following guidelines on language policy:
(a) The National language of Pakistan is Urdu, and arrangements shall be made for its being used for official and other purposes within fifteen years from the commencing day.
(b) Subject to clause (1) the English language may be used for official purposes until arrangements are made for its replacement by Urdu.
(c) Without prejudice to the status of the National language, a Provincial Assembly may by law prescribe measures for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national language.
(Article 251)20
This policy, as overtly declared and actually put in practice, has led to ethnic resistance using language as a symbol of identity, the continuation of a class-based, unequal system of education, and the weakening of the indigenous languages of the country. Let us take these issues one by one.
With the death of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a tribal leader of the Baloch, in August 2006, and the construction of the Gawadar port which is seen by the Baloch nationalists as an outpost of the Punjabis (and especially the army) in their motherland, the province of Balochistan has witnessed the re-emergence of a militant ethnic movement last seen there in the 1970s.21 In Sindh, too, there is deep resentment against the army, ostensibly because of the construction of cantonments. Indeed, since the late 1990s, the ethnonationalists have formed an alliance called the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM), which held a meeting in Islamabad on the 1st and 2nd of November 1998.The declaration adopted there had eight demands, one of which was:
Pushto, Siraiki, Balochi, Sindhi and Punjabi languages should be declared national languages and the culture of the federating nations should be given an equal opportunity to develop and prosper.22
However, language, though very much a part of rhetoric and declarations in conferences, is not as strong a force as it was in the first 25 years of Pakistan’s existence.The most powerful language-based ethnic movement of the first few years of Pakistan was the Bengali language movement. The most detailed and incisive account of this movement, though in the context of left-wing politics and from a Marxist perspective, is by Badruddin Umar.23
In 1948 and 1952 a number of urban Bengalis—mostly students, intellectuals and educated people—demanded that their language, Bengali, should be a national language of Pakistan and should also be used in public domains. This movement, called the Bengali Language Movement or Bhasha Ondolan, was politically significant because it was a reaction to the perceived domination and injustice of West Pakistani decision makers towards the people of East Bengal. However, the Muslim League in particular, and West Pakistanis in general, saw it as a conspiracy of communists, Indian agents and enemies of Pakistan to destabilize the new state. Among the few West Pakistanis who saw it as a spontaneous response to West Pakistani hegemony were ethno-nationalist leaders who were themselves regarded as anti-state forces by the West Pakistani establishment.
The Tamuddun Majlis, a private social organization, demanded Bengali as the language of instruction, administration and means of communication in East Bengal as early as September 1947, only a month after Pakistan was established. However, it was ignored till December of that year when it was feared that Urdu alone would be the language of the state. The language movement started off in earnest in 1948 when Mohammad Ali Jinnah, or Quaid-i-Azam (the Great Leader) as he is called in Pakistan, declared on 19 and 21 March, 1948 that the state language of Pakistan is “going to be Urdu and no other language.”24 Jinnah made that statement on the assumption that one language unites a new nation and that nobody, except anti-Pakistan agitators, was against Urdu. Later, in 1952, Khwaja Nazimuddin, the then prime minister of Pakistan, repeated these sentiments in Dhaka.25 After this, the language movement really gathered momentum. The students of Dhaka University were the leaders of the movement, who organized processions in favor of Bengali every day. On 21 February, 1952 the police fired on the students who had decided to defy Section 144 by coming out of the University in batches of four and five. As a result of this firing, according to the police report given to the inquiry conducted by Justice Ellis of the Dhaka High Court, there were “nine casualties of whom three were students and six out-siders.”26 This day, called Ekushe, became a significant symbol of Bengali defiance of the West Pakistani ruling elite and evokes strong sentiments even today. The language movement appeared to come to an end in 1954 when Bengali was accepted as one of the national languages—the other being Urdu— by the constituent assembly.27 However, the sentiments it had created lingered on and formed the basis of Bengali nationalism, which led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. In short, the Bengali language movement remains crucial for the understanding of identity formation, ethnicity, nationalism and the clash of elites and proto-elites in multilingual aspiring nation states.
The conditions of East Bengal parallel those of Sindh. Like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of Bangladesh, G. M. Syed, the nationalist leader of Sindh, also advocated the creation of an autonomous state of Sindhu Desh.28 However, this demand for autonomy was sometimes accompanied by veiled threats of secession. Here too Sindhi has been the medium of instruction in government schools as well as that of the judiciary and the administration at the lower levels, just as Bengali was in East Bengal. Thus the ruling elite’s policy of favoring Urdu, which is the mother tongue of the mohajirs of the cities of Sindh, is strongly resented. The mohajirs,a non-assimilationist minority proud of their urban Mughal culture, of which Urdu is a symbol, resist all attempts at promoting Sindhi. In 1970 when the Sindh University and the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education made Sindhi compulsory for mohajirs, they protested and there were riots in January–February 1970 in the cities of Sindh.29 In 1972, when the provincial PPP tried to pass a bill to increase the use of Sindhi and make mohajirs learn it, there were riots again.30 The situation nowadays, ever since 1984, is that the mohajirs see themselves as an ethnic group like the Sindhis and claim power in Sindh on the basis of this distinct identity. In other words the question is really which community will rule Sindh—Sindhis or mohajirs? This makes Sindh a potential battleground for a vicious civil war.
Balochistan is a multilingual province because some parts of Afghanistan were included in it in British days. Thus, besides Balochi and Brahvi, Pashto too is fairly widely spoken in Balochistan.As the Balochi-speaking and Brahvi-speaking people define themselves as Baloch, they insist on common origin rather than language as a marker of identity. However, there has been a Balochi language movement since 1951 which aims at preserving the Baloch cultural identity. Balochi identity is expressed by coining words of Baloch origin and, indeed, by writing in a language which has little official patronage.31 Baloch ethnicity, which includes Brahvis also, is expressed mostly through armed resistance, as in 1948, 1960s, mid-1970s, and at present (2006 onwards). This is probably because the educated elite is so small that a language movement is hard to sustain.
In Balochistan as well as in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pashto serves as an identity symbol. It was the moral code of the Pathans, Pashtoonwali, which was such a symbol in pre-modern times. The efforts of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–88), the anti-British Pakhtun nationalist leader, made Pashto such a symbol.32 Earlier, Persian was the language of culture and prestige and was used by the Persian-speaking population of northern Afghanistan and the ruling Pakhtun elite.After the 1930s, the ruling elite promoted Pashto as a means of creating nationalism and unity among tribes which were divided and understood only their extended kinship system and tribal loyalties. Thus Pashto was the new symbol, like the national flag and other centralizing icons, used to create the Afghan nation out of a mere collection of tribes.
In both cases, Pashto was used for political purposes under modern political conditions. However, because of the Afghan claim to Pakhtunistan, the ruling elite was mistrustful of Pashto despite the fact that the Pakhtun nationalist NAP (National Awami Party) chose Urdu as the official language of the frontier in its brief rule in 1972. It is only recently that the Pakhtun elite has been co-opted by Pakistan’s ruling elite and the threat of the secession of the NWFP has disappeared. Pashto still remains an identity marker and part of Pakhtun nationalism as expressed politically by the Awami National Party (ANP, the new name for the NAP), which continues to challenge the domination of the center. The events of 9/11 formed a watershed in Pakistan ethnic politics. By this time Pashto had come to be associated with the Taliban who were ruling Afghanistan while Persian, once the major bureaucratic language and elitist symbol of Afghanistan, was associated with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Thus, when the coalition forces attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, the Pakistani Pakhtuns supported their Afghan “brethren” out of religious as well as ethnic (linguistic) affinity. The ANP failed to defend Pakhtun ethnic interests and at least part of the Pakhtun ethnic vote went to the religious coalition MMA (Mutahadda Majlis-e-Amal or United Congress for Action) rather than the ANP.33 In short, in the Pashto-speaking areas at least a certain fusion of religious and ethnic feeling appears to have taken place.
The southern part of Punjab is underdeveloped and the leaders of this area blame the Punjabi ruling elite for this underdevelopment. From the 1960s they have labeled their language Siraiki and have standardized it for purposes of writing.The language had been written even in the nineteenth century, but different writers used different orthographic symbols of the Urdu script.The choice of the term Siraiki in the 1960s meant that the people of southern Punjab could identify with one identity symbol instead of calling their language by local names such as Multani, Derewali, Riasati, and so on. Since a famous conference in Multan in 1975 a number of institutions— like the Siraiki Lok Sanjh—have been promoting the language, with the support of Siraiki ethnic political parties.34
While the Siraiki movement is clearly a response to perceived Punjabi domination and internal colonialism, the Punjabi language movement is hard to understand.The Punjabis occupy most of the powerful positions in the apparatus of the state: the federal government, legislature, and especially the army and the bureaucracy, and oppose the use of Punjabi even in primary schools. They do so presumably because they have internalized the low status given to Punjabi by all former rulers of Punjab and feel that this language cannot be used in formal domains. Possibly, they also feel that if the use of Punjabi is allowed in formal domains, the speakers of the other languages, which are also ethnic identity symbols, will increase the pressure on the state to give even more importance to their languages. This, they reason, will lead to the intensification of ethnic sentiments and the weakening of the federation of Pakistan. But this attitude of the Punjabi elite is precisely why there is such a movement. The activists of the movement claim that the price of Punjabi domination over Pakistan is the denial of the Punjabi ethnic identity. In fact, by teaching only English and Urdu to the Punjabi elite, Punjabi language and culture have been suppressed.This culture shame, they feel, should go; Punjabis should learn to be proud of their Punjabi identity.This is only possible if the state uses Punjabi in the domains of power. But if the state does that, the ethnonationalist argument of using all the other indigenous languages in these domains too would be strengthened.Thus the status quo continues.35
The theoretical insights used in this account of the relationship between language and ethnic identity are constructivist. Language is not a primordial given but something which, under certain circumstances, gains salience as an icon. In short, an identity is imagined and language—along with shared myths, artifacts, and history—help to “imagine” it.36
From this theoretical perspective it appears that in all language movements, except the Punjabi one, language has been more or less consciously manipulated by leaders for instrumental, rational, goal-seeking reasons: the creation of a pressure group to obtain greater power, goods and services from the state; to redress a situation of internal colonialism which is perceived as being unjust. In the Punjabi language movement, however, the major motivation is sentimental or extra-rational. It is the desire for self-respect; for the acceptance of one’s identity without culture shame; for psychological fulfillment without adopting the language and behavior of another culture.
However, this instrumentalist explanation would be misleading if the emotional or extra-rational motivation of the actors in a movement were not taken into account. For, in the heat of the moment, people are ready to die or kill not for something as prosaic as a job or admission in a college but for honor, vengeance, love, hatred, and self-respect. This extra-rational aspect of movements is difficult to analyze unless one observes the deep emotion of the actors and finds out their subjective truth.
But, if language movements are part of ethnic assertions meant to counter perceived domination and injustice, only linguistic policies will not be helpful. A language will remain ghettoized and will be resisted even by its own speakers—as mother tongue schooling was in South Africa37 and the indigenous languages in the NWFP38 and Balochistan—if it is not used in the domains of power and powerful jobs are not available in it or if it is otherwise despised socially. To create a secure country where ethnicity is no longer a threat, a truly federal (or even a confederal) political order may be necessary. That will mean that there will be five national languages in the country with Urdu as a language of inter-provincial communication and English for international communication. And, even more important, it will mean that the provinces, which may be rearranged along ethnic and linguistic lines, will be genuinely empowered. In such a political system, no federating unit would want to opt out of the system because it would then be responsible for its fate and would no longer be dominated by the center. Only then can ethnicity be used to create a state with a rich and pluralistic culture.
Besides being symbolic of ethnic identity, language is also part of a divide along socioeconomic class lines. This is because certain varieties and styles of a language, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu,“can function as linguistic capital, producing a profit of distinction on the occasion of each social exchange.”39 If a language is used in the domains of power—of the state or the corporate sector—it can be exchanged for wealth, power and prestige. That is why the educational system sells it and consumers buy it. Bourdieu puts it as follows:
The position which the educational system gives to the different languages (or the different cultural contents) is such an important issue only because this institution has the monopoly in the large-scale production of producers/consumers, and therefore in the reproduction of the market without which the social value of the linguistic competence, its capacity to function as linguistic capital, would cease to exist.40
Pakistan’s educational system gives the highest value to English followed by Urdu and Sindhi. However, Sindhi is restricted to the province of Sindh and that too to mostly rural areas and small towns. English, Urdu, and Sindhi are, therefore, the media of instruction in schools corresponding to a class-based division of Pakistan society. The Ministry of Education declares officially that Urdu is the medium of instruction in government schools. At the higher level, while English in used in scientific and technical subjects, most students opt for teaching and examinations in Urdu. Parallel to this stream of ordinary students and teachers is the elitist stream which studies in English-medium schools, colleges and universities. The elitist English medium schools, where the teachers really teach in English and the students come from elitist backgrounds with exposure to English, are so expensive as to exclude lower middle and working-class pupils. The Urdu and Sindhi medium schools, as well as the few schools where Pashto is the medium of instruction at the lower levels, are run by the state and are quite affordable for most Pakistanis. Medium of instruction actually serves as an indicator of socioeconomic class with the most affluent going to the English medium schools, the lower middle classes to the vernacular medium ones and the poorest people, as well as people in remote, rural areas, studying in the madrasahs. Data concerning the number of schools according to their medium of instruction, as provided by the ministry of education, are given in Table 16.1.
The most affordable educational institutions—because they often provide free board and lodging—are religious seminaries or madrasahs reported by the ministry of education to number 12,979 in 2006. The madrasahs preserve Arabic more as a symbol of continuity with the past and of Islamic identity than a living language; most of their graduates cannot function in Arabic. They do, however, function in Urdu which has spread through the madrasah network ever since the nineteenth century and is now associated with Islam and Muslim identity in both Pakistan and India.41 In the NWFP and parts of rural Sindh, Pashto and Sindhi are used to explain concepts but the language of examination is Urdu.42
The role of English in Pakistan has been studied by Sabiha Mansoor43 and Tariq Rahman.44 Mansoor has conducted two major surveys on the attitudes of students towards languages. The first survey, conducted in Lahore in 1992, suggests that students have a linguistic hierarchy in mind, with English at the top followed by Urdu, with their mother tongue (in this case Punjabi) at the bottom. She also found that English is associated with modernity and efficiency while Punjabi is associated with informality and intimacy.45 The second survey provides a detailed analysis of the role of English in higher education. Both studies confirm positive attitudes towards English among Pakistani students, their teachers and parents, and university administrators.
English is the language of globalization.The international corporate sector, bureaucracies (such as the United Nations and the World Bank), foreign-funded NGOs, the service sector and the internet work predominantly in English in Pakistan. This is of enormous advantage for the Pakistani elite, whose members are very proficient in English. Consequently, lucrative private sector employment is almost entirely dominated by the
English-using elite while the vernacular educated proto-elite is increasingly joining public-funded institutions (the state bureaucracy, education, the judiciary, and the military).
The Pakistani elite has invested in an elitist system of education through the medium of English while allowing most Pakistanis to remain uneducated, seek madrasah education or remain confined to vernacular medium schooling and substandard institutions of higher education. This has created a perception of injustice, and hence anger. The elite’s appropriation of English as cultural capital for themselves and a device for filtering out the less advantaged, as explained by Myers-Scotton,46 is a political strategy which perpetuates the hegemony of the English-using elite over the upper echelons of Pakistani society.
One component of this elite, the officer corps of the armed forces, has used its power and resources to establish and control educational institutions. Initially, the armed forces established cadet colleges, which are large residential schools run along the lines of elitist British private schools (the so-called public schools, such as Eton and Harrow).These were defended by Ayub Khan, the first military ruler of Pakistan (1958–69).47 During the 1960s, however, a number of students opposed these schools.A special commission whose mandate was to investigate the causes of the students’ mobilization declared that the system was unlawful because it discriminated between citizens but, nevertheless, allowed it to continue in the name of quality. The elitist schools, therefore, kept flourishing.48 The state spends public money to subsidize these cadet colleges (see Tables 16.2 and 16.3) while government schools (vernacular medium) receive much less funding per student per year (see Tables 16.3 and 16.4). In the last 15 years or so the military has expanded its business activities—including banks, business firms, real estate, insurance, transportation, entertainment49—and has also entered the business of education. Besides controlling schools it has also set up five universities, all using English as the medium of instruction.50 In addition to the armed forces, a number of other institutions—bureaucratic as well as corporate sector ones51—have established English medium schools for their employees. Even the federal government has established “model” schools and colleges which use English as the medium of instruction. Tuition and fees at these institutions, like their counterparts in the private sector, are high and either the state or the students, or both, must pay for them. In short, the state gives subsidies to the rich from public funds (see Table 16.3).
Language policy and education, as we have seen, are subordinated to the class interests of the urban, professional, English-using elite in Pakistan. For its political interests, this elite has been using the name of Islam, and has strengthened the religious lobby in the last many years. Given the state’s encouragement of privatization in the recent past, this seems to be a trend which can have negative consequences for peace in South Asia and the world. Privatization, with its concomitant strengthening of English as an elitist preserve, will lead to “ghettoization” in Pakistan’s public educational institutions and increase anger
among the non-English educated and especially the unemployed workforce of the country. This will have several consequences. First, the most educated people will lose faith in the country and give up on it. Second, the ideological polarization between the different socioeconomic classes will increase even further. And, above all, the incentive for reforming Pakistan’s educational system and making it more conducive for creating a tolerant and peaceful society will decrease.
Another trend will be to strengthen the power of the military in Pakistan.As more and more elitist schools and universities pass into the hands of the military, the number of teachers, administrators, and business concerns under the patronage of the military will increase. More students will also be influenced by them. This will work in favor of the military’s views about national interest, the future of the country, and economic priorities. This may dilute ideas of civilian supremacy that underpin democracies and jeopardize the chances of lasting peace in South Asia.
An even more dangerous possibility is the strengthening of political and militant Islam in the country. It is true, as pointed out by Hussain Haqqani, that the military has strengthened the Islamists in Pakistan.52 However, it is also true that the rank and file of the Islamists owe their existence to a failed educational system which excludes them or exposes them to pro-war, anti-India, and anti-Semitic ideas. Already resentful of the injustices of their society, they now hear of American aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan or Zionist expansion in the Middle East, which tends to radicalize them further.This includes madrasah students but, as pointed out by a survey of those who had gone to fight against the US in Afghanistan after 9/11, most of these militants are not from the madrasahs. They are from the ordinary Urdu medium schools.53 As law and order breaks down in Pakistan and the military keeps appropriating the highest share of the country’s resources, vigilante groups seeking to impose their own interpretation of Islam increase their power. The rank and file of these groups, although using the idiom of Islam, manifests the same alienation from the state as do the ethnic militants.
The present author has suggested that private, elitist, English medium schools be phased out and state-influenced ones (cadet colleges and public schools) be replaced by merit-based vernacular medium schools. Moreover, English ought not to be taught to a high standard only for the benefit of a small elite, but must be spread out as widely as possible, and, especially through innovative methods, to all schoolchildren.This will appear just to most people and reduce the perception of injustice and, hence, anger, which may create student militancy, possibly expressed through the idiom of an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. On the negative side, the author has admitted that this policy may empower the vernacular proto-elite, which may in turn strengthen traditional values and radicalize the Islamist students even further by eroding their traditional religious culture and bringing them into contact with neofundamentalist thought through the internet. While these possibilities must be recognized, the alternative hope is that the creation of a more just educational system will reduce the potential for violence within Pakistan and its possible spillover to other parts of the world.54
With the advent of modernity, the smaller languages of the world, being denied any role in the domains of power, began to die away. Globalization, having increased modes and speed of communication, has hastened the process. English, the major vehicle of globalization, can be seen as a world language, or, alternatively, as a “killer language”—an expression used by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, who champions the notion of linguistic rights.55 Indeed, so great is the concern to save the world’s 6,000-plus languages that many linguists are increasingly writing about it.56 In Pakistan, however, concerns about language death are rarely expressed.
The policy of promoting English and Urdu, in that order, at the expense of the other languages of Pakistan, has weakened Pakistani languages, even though most of them are, numerically, major languages. However, since they are not being used in the domains of power they do not have cultural capital. As mentioned earlier, languages are given a hierarchical value in the minds of Pakistanis, with English at the top of the pyramid followed by Urdu and then the indigenous mother tongues (other than Urdu). In the NWFP and Sindh, however, Pashto and Sindhi are seen as identity markers and are spoken informally. In Punjab, contrariwise, there is widespread culture shame about Punjabi.57 In all the elitist English medium schools the author visited, there were policies forbidding students from speaking Punjabi. If anyone spoke it, s/he was called “paendu” (rustic, village yokel) and made fun of. Many educated parents speak Urdu rather than Punjabi with their children. In short, UNESCO’s advice on teaching in the mother tongue, at least at the elementary level, falls on deaf ears in Pakistan.58
Such prevailing attitudes have a negative effect on Pakistani languages. Urdu is secure because of the huge pool of people very proficient in it and especially because it is used in lower level jobs, the media, education, the court system, commerce, and other such domains in Pakistan. Punjabi is a large language and will survive despite culture shame and neglect. It is used in the Indian Punjab in many domains of power and, what is even more significant, it is the language of songs, jokes, intimacy, and informality in both Pakistan and India. This makes it the language of private pleasure and if it continues to be used in this manner, it is in no real danger.
Sindhi and Pashto are both major languages, whose speakers have a sense of pride. Sindhi is also used in the domains of power and is the major language of education in rural Sindh. Pashto is not a major language of education, neither is it used in the domains of power in Pakistan. However, its speakers see it as their identity marker and it is used in some domains of power in Afghanistan. It, too, will survive though it is under some pressure. The Pashto variety which is spoken in cities in Pakistan is now adulterated with Urdu words. Moreover, educated Pakhtuns often code switch between Pashto and Urdu or English.Thus, the language is under some pressure.
Baloch and Brahvi are small languages under much pressure from Urdu. However, there is awareness among educated Balochi that their languages must be preserved. Although they are not used in the domains of power, they will survive as informal languages in the private domain. Nevertheless, the city varieties of these languages will become very “Urdufied.” About 55 very small languages of Pakistan, mostly in the northern part, are under tremendous pressure.59 The Karakorum Highway linking these areas to the plains has placed much pressure on these languages. In the city of Karachi, Gujarati is being abandoned, at least in its written form, as young people seek to be literate in Urdu and English, the languages used in the domains of power. A number of smaller languages have disappeared altogether and others are under threat.
The language policies of Pakistan’s ruling elite have referred to the ideologies of nationalism and modernization for legitimacy. Nationalism has been used to declare Urdu the national language of the country and authorize its use in the domains of non-elitist schooling, radio, TV and some functions of the government at the lower level. Modernization is used for promoting English as a language of elitist schooling, science education and elitist domains, both public and private. These policies have led to the use of the indigenous languages of the country as markers of ethnic identity. Such usage is mostly instrumental, i.e., to mobilize a pressure group in order to obtain a certain share in the goods and services available in the country. However, the participants in language-based ethnic movements find motivation for their personal actions in notions which have an emotional or extra-rational appeal, i.e., notions of self-respect, justice, love, hatred, vengeance and group honor, etc.
The application of discriminatory language-based policies to education have also strengthened the class-based differences in the country expressed through—among other indicators—the medium of instruction one can afford to buy. Yet another effect is the weakening of the indigenous languages of Pakistan, which are looked down on and are becoming weaker as the forces of globalization invest English with far more cultural capital than ever before.
In short, the present language policies have the cumulative effect of increasing inequality and polarization in the country. While inequality was rationalized in the name of ordained fate (kismet) in traditional thought in Pakistan, it is now increasingly being seen as a consequence of bad governance. This creates resentment, which feeds into both ethnic and religious militancy in the country. Indeed, it appears that class conflict too is expressed in terms given currency by political Islam.60 Thus, there is a great danger that, unless language policies are changed, their consequences will become serious threats to the well-being of Pakistan and its neighbors.
The following abbreviations have been used in the annexures and the notes and references that follow:
GOP 2006 = National Education Census: Pakistan (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 2006)
GOP Highlights = National Education Census Highlights (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 2006)
LAD-F = Legislative Assembly Debates; North West Frontier Province (dates and pages numbers are given parenthetically)
1 Tariq Rahman, Language and Politics in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996); reprint edn (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007).
2 Tariq Rahman, Denizens of Alien Worlds:A Study of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004).
3 Paul R. Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (Cambridge: University Press, 1974).
4 Jyotirindra Das Gupta, Language Conflict and National Development: Group Politics and National Language (Berkeley, CA, and London: University of California Press, 1970).
5 R. K. Agnihotri,“Identity and Multilinguality: The Case of India,” in Amy B. Tsui and James Tollefson (eds), Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007), pp. 185, 204; L. M. Khubchandani (ed.), Language in a Plural Society (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass and Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, 1988); E. Annamalai, Managing Multilingualism in India: Political and Linguistic Manifestations (New Delhi: Sage, 2001); Lachman Khubchandani, “Language and Education in the Indian Subcontinent,” in S. May and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (New York: Springer Verlag, 2008).
6 Hamza Alavi,“Politics of Ethnicity in Pakistan,” Pakistan Progressive, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer 1987), cited in Hamza Alavi and John Harriss (eds), Sociology of Developing Societies (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 222–46. “Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology,” in Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi (eds), State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (London: Macmillan and New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987).
7 S. Akbar Zaidi (ed.), Regional Imbalances and the National Question in Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard, 1992).
8 Tahir Amin, Ethno-National Movements of Pakistan: Domestic and International Factors (Islamabad: Institute of Policy Studies, 1988).
9 Alavi,“Politics of Ethnicity,” p. 265.
10 Naveed Hamid and Akmal Hussain,“Regional Inequalities and Capitalist Development: Pakistan’s Experience”; Hafiz A. Pasha and Tariq Hasan, “Development Ranking of Districts of Pakistan”; S. Akbar Zaidi, “The Economic Bases of the National Question in Pakistan: An Indication,” in Zaidi, pp. 1–42, 43–89, 90–138.
11 Amin, p. 256.
12 Feroz Ahmed, Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998).
13 Ahmed, Ethnicity and Politics, p. 158.
14 Hussain Ahmad Khan, Re-Thinking Punjab:The Construction of Siraiki Identity (Lahore: National College of the Arts, 2004).
15 Ishtiaq Ahmed, State, Nation and Ethnicity in Contemporary South Asia (London and New York: Pinter, 1996); Adeel Khan, Politics of Identity: Ethnic Nationalism and the State in Pakistan (New Delhi: Sage, 2005).
16 Ahmed, p. 289.
17 Adeel Khan, p. 189.
18 The number of languages listed for Pakistan is 72 in Raymond G. Gordon Jr. (ed.), Ethnologue Languages of the World, 15th edn (Dallas: SIL International; online version 2005: http://www.ethnologue.com). The present author, however, lists 55 languages and dialects in addition to the six major languages (Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Siraiki, Urdu and Balochi) given in the preceding text. This lower number is calculated as follows.The dialects of Pashto (3), Balochi (3), Hindko (3), Greater Punjabi (Pahari, Potohari) are subsumed under the language head itself. English, sign language, Badeshi (which is dead) are excluded. Marwari, mentioned twice, is counted only once. Kundal Shahi, not mentioned in the Ethnologue, is, however, included. See the author’s list of languages in Tariq Rahman, “Multilingualism and Language Vitality in Pakistan,” in Anju Saxena and Lars Borin (eds), Trends in Linguistics: Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia: Status and Policies, Case Studies and Applications of Information Technology (Berlin and New York: Mouton, 2006), pp. 73–104.
19 According to the Census of Pakistan 1951 and Census Report of Pakistan 1961 (Karachi: Government of Pakistan, 1951 and 1961), the number of Pakistanis who commonly spoke English was less than 2 percent of the population (Tables 7 and 8a and statements 5.1 and 5.5 respectively).The present author calculated the number of fluent and spontaneous speakers of English (the westernized elite) from the figures of those who appeared in British school examinations in 2003. For details see Tariq Rahman,“The Role of English in Pakistan,” in Amy and Tollefson, p. 235.
20 The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, 1963).
21 Nizamuddin Nizamani, “Socio-Political Unrest and Vulnerable Human Security in Balochistan,” in At the Cross Roads: South Asian Research, Policy and Development in a Globalized World (Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute, 2007), pp. 245–55.
22 Declaration of the Oppressed Nations Movement, adopted on 2 November, 1998, Islamabad, cited in Hussain Khan, p. 115.
23 Badruddin Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh: Class Struggles in East Pakistan (1947–1958) (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 190–229. Also see Anwar Dil and Afia Dil, Bengali Language Movement to Bangladesh (Lahore: Ferozsons: 2000), pp. 131–91.
24 The negative reaction of students to these statements is given in Tariq Rahman, Language and Politics, pp. 87–88.
25 Pakistan Observer (Dhaka English daily), 29 January, 1952.
26 “Report of the Enquiry into the Firing by the Police at Dacca on 21 February 1952,” in B. Umar (Comp.), Bhasha Ondolan Prasanga: Katipay Dolil (The Language Movements: Some Documents), vol. 2 (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1986), pp. 43, 48.
27 Dawn, 8 May, 1954.
28 M. S. Korejo, G. M. Syed: An Analysis of His Political Perspectives (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998). Also see his A Testament of Sindh Ethnic and Religious Extremism: A Perspective (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2002).
29 Details in Dawn, Hilal-e-Pakistan, Pakistan Times, etc.
30 Feroz Ahmed, op. cit., pp. 41–60.
31 Carina Jahani, Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language (Upsalla, Sweden: Almquist and Wiksell, 1989), p. 233.
32 M. S. Korejo, The Frontier Gandhi: His Place in History (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 18.
33 Mohammad Waseem, Democratization in Pakistan: A Study of the 2002 Elections (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 196.
34 Husain Khan.
35 Rahman, Language and Politics, ch. 11. For the role of history in the marginalization of Punjab and its language and literature, see Tahir Kamran, “Imagined Unity as Binary Opposition to Regional Diversity: A study of Punjab as a ‘Silenced Space’ in the Pakistani Epistemic Milieu,” in At the Cross Roads, p. 302.
36 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1983). Also see Anthony D. Smith, “The Nation: Real or Imagined,” in E. Mortimer (ed.), People, Nation and State: The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism (London: IB Tauris, 1999).
37 B. Hirson,“Language in Control and Resistance in South Africa,” African Affairs, Vol. 60, No. 319 (1981), pp. 219–37.
38 For Pashto, see LAD-F 12 October, 1932, p. 132; for Baluchi, Brahvi and Pashto in Balochistan see Tariq Rahman, Language and Politics, p. 168.
39 Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 55.
40 Bourdieu, p. 57
41 Tariq Rahman,“Urdu as an Islamic Language,” Annual of Urdu Studies, 21 (2006), pp. 101–19.
42 Tariq Rahman, Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 7–8, 16–18.
43 Sabiha Mansoor, Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan: A Sociolinguistic Study (Lahore: Vanguard, 1993); Language Planning in Higher Education: A Case Study of Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005).
44 Tariq Rahman,“The Role of English in Pakistan with special Reference to Tolerance and Militancy,” in Amy and Tollefson, pp. 219–39.
45 Mansoor, Punjabi, Urdu, English, pp. 51–56.
46 Carol Myers-Scotton, “Elite closure as a Powerful Language Strategy: The African Case,” International Journal of the Sociology of Knowledge, 103 (1993), pp. 149–63.
47 Ayub Khan, Friends Not Masters (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 25.
48 Report of the Commission on Student Problems and Welfare: Summary of Important Observations and Recommendations (Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, Central Bureau of Education, 1966), pp. 17–18.
49 Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2007).
50 Rahman, Denizens, pp. 53–56 (schools), 123–25 (universities).
51 GOP 2006,Table 6, p. 61.
52 Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 2005).
53 Sohail Abbas, Probing the Jihadi Mind (Islamabad: National Book Foundation, 2007), pp. 90–95.
54 For details see Rahman, “The Role of English in Pakistan,” in Amy and Tollefson, pp. 231–33.
55 Tove Skuntabb Kangas, Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? (Mahwah, NJ, and London: Erlbaum, 2000), p. 46. The major work on the imperialistic role of English is by Roberet Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford: University Press, 1992).
56 David Crystal, Language Death (Cambridge: University Press, 2000); David Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
57 Mansoor, Punjabi, Urdu, English, pp. 51–56.
58 UNESCO, Position Paper:Teaching in the Mother Tongue (Paris: UNESCO, 2003).
59 A list of these languages; including written material in them and the domains in which they are used is in Tariq Rahman,“Language Policy and Language Vitality in Pakistan,” in Anju Saxena and Lars Borin, pp. 73–104.
60 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press and Centre d’ Études et de Recherche Internationales, Paris, 2004).