Month: August 2016

Few days back Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Lashkar-e-taiba or Jamat-ud-daawa gave a surprising statement about Punjabi language. He said, in spite of Urdu, the right candidate for National Language was Punjabi. He may be thinking on these lines that adopting and promoting the Punjabi Language would win the trust and support of Indian Sikhs, or otherwise he may be of this view to alienate the Pakistani society from ganga jamni cultural assault of Hindi Urdu through Bollywood movies. Let’s first investigate little about the background of Language politics in India.

Right after 1857 war, the Muslims of India started aligning them to standout from rest of the communities. Ali Garh institute provided the nursery for the Muslim Leadership and Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan was the role model of educated young Muslims. In short, the whole story of Muslim politics in India was weaved by the Ali Garh Institute and the UP/CP was the hub of all political activities. This new Muslim leadership along with British government successfully introduced the Urdu language as the only language of Islam labeling all other languages as those of infidels.

It may look humorous, but it is what it is. It is still believed by many that languages in India belong to certain faiths. Urdu is Muslim, Hindi is Hindu and Punjabi is Sikh. This division of Indian society was on one hand in the interest of the east India company and on the other hand for the benefit of UP/CP people. The ruling party left India but left behind the legacy of English which can not be overturned so easily as it has now become an international language and contains all the modern scientific knowledge. After 1947 the politicians of UP/CP replaced the east India company and started ruling India and Pakistan. In India, in the name of Hindi, the language of Hindus and in Pakistan, in the name of Urdu, the language of Muslims. It is irony, that Pakistan does not have any region where Urdu is spoken as the native language. The languages of Pakistani soil are Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Balti, Shina and others.

They say, that Hindi and Urdu are two different languages, if there is some truth in it then how come that film is released in India after it has been watched in Pakistan. If we investigate the Urdu Hindi languages, intact, they are the two names of same language Hindustani. Hindustani is actually standardized form of khari boli which is spoken in the areas of UP and CP India. This Hindustani language is the pure representation of ganga jamni culture. Urdu and Hindi were separated on the basis on script only due to vested political agenda. So after, Mr. Sam left India, Delhi and Lakhnu held the reign. Now this language virtually rules almost the whole region of indo pak. The media, in the form of news, movies , dramas and other stuff is spreading this language non stop twenty four by seven.

Now it is right time for all the entities of India and Pakistan to get out of these dogmas and promote and preserve the languages of their own soils.

Now in this background let’s re-analyze the statement of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed that Punjabi should had been the National and Official Language of Pakistan. In fact, Muslims of India, chose Urdu as their language to be united and to differentiate themselves from Hindus who were in majority, but they were deceived by this false notion as Urdu was not a different language. As a result, virtually, they did form a separate state but in reality they ran after the Hindustani language. That is why, Lahore although the capital of Punjab, is mad after Bollywood Hindi movies. The new generation is even not able to understand the Punjabi language. This phenomenon must be in the backdrop that Hafiz Saeed advocated for Punjabi Language. He realized that even after partition Muslims could not separate themselves from Hindus due to common language and the ganga jamna culture that is prevailing on other identities and cultures of indo pak.
This linguistic and cultural imperialism is the result of the false dogma of indo pak people which associated religion to the languages and forgot their own regional and and on ground reality.

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The freedom means, you feel recognized and dignified in your existence. But even after seventy years we are even more downgraded and pushed aside. Although you may disagree with me arguing, that, Muslims of sub-continent got economic freedom from Hindu majority. Although, the illusion of economic freedom is also debatable, I am talking about another very important perspective, the perspective of identity of a nation.

Since the war of 1857, the Muslims of British India were in a situation of distress and confusion. They were quite uncertain about there future in sub-continent. Since, the region of UP/CP had been the center of Muslim power for centuries. The new political era of Muslims also stemmed from this very region. Right from start, Muslim League was actually a party of Urdu Speaking lot from Ali Garh institute in particular and UP/CP region at large. The dominance of UP/CP politicians set up new hegemony over rest of the Muslims. The Muslims of sub-continent have no alternatives. So they followed the footsteps of Muslim League.

It is noteworthy, that Muslim League followed the same model of Imperialism against other regions of Muslims as the East India company did it  against Urdu Speaking Muslims.

After deadly episodes of bloodshed, Pakistan appeared on the map of the world. The need of time was to lay its foundation on equality, justice and respect forming a federation with equal rights of all the five Units. But unfortunately, the ruling Urdu-Hindi class treated Punjabis, Sindhis, Balochies , Pashtunes and Bangalies in the same way, as British treated them.

As we all know, it is the fundamental right and even UNESCO enforces it, that every child should be imparted basic education in mother tongue. But this basic right was subjugated by force and coercion.

Mr. Jinnah in his speech at Dhaka sternly ordered that Urdu and only Urdu would be the academic and official language of Pakistan. This was quite a matter of disgrace for Bangalies that they being in majority were being enslaved by UPite Urdu Speakers who were very few in numbers.

This language imperialism of Pakistan would ever be remembered in the world history in the form of Mother Tongue day which is celebrated on February , 21 every year. It was that gloomy day in 1952 when innocent students were shot dead brutally in Dhaka while they were protesting in favor of Bangali language against the language terrorism of Urdu.

The Bengali nation finally parted their way, but Pakistani Intelligentsia is still unable to understand the rationale behind reservations of Bengali Nation.

Sooner or later, Pakistan’s administration should conceive it that in modern world of information and free media, state can’t suppress any ethnicity by force. The only solution is an inter-dependable federation where all units must be free to choose their language, formulate law and other policies of interest.