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No language
authority, nothing else
RENOWNED
Sindhi scholar Dr Nabi Bukhsh Baloch has deplored that no work has
been done for the promotion of different languages in Pakistan. He
was speaking at a seminar on "Sindhi and other languages of
Pakistan, their use and importance", organized by the Sindh Language
Authority in Hyderabad.
The seminar was orginally scheduled
to be held on the Urs of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai but it was not to
be. Dr Baloch said teaching the language was not enough and it was
equally necessary that the language should be given due importance
in every walk of life.
Unfortunately, the Punjab has no
Punjabi language authority and Punjabis who have been appointed
chairmen of the National Language Authority think that it is enough.
After the formation of the Punjab government under Pervaiz Elahi, a
senior journalist and columnist was assured by the chief minister
that he would establish an institute of Punjabology on the pattern
of Sindhology, The establishment of Punjabology has never been
officially announced and one should not expect it. from people who
are politically and linguistically suffering from an inferiority
complex.
They could not believe that Punjabi
as a language was much richer than any of the other Pakistani
languages, including Urdu.
Dr Baloch was one of the most
respected scholars during the Zia regime. He was associated with the
Hijra Council and similar other organizations. Dr Afzal was then
minister of education and once he was also a staunch supporter of
the Punjabi language. However, during his minister ship, he did
nothing for his mother tongue. An ambitious publication programme
was chalked out in connection with the new Hijra century. The whole
programme, after getting small books written by prominent authors,
was shelved without assigning any reason. The same seems to be the
fate of the history of Pakistan and the project headed by Dr Kaneez
Yousuf, former vice-chancellor of the Islamabad University She is
most probably not there and nobody knows the fate of the project of
the Pakistan Historical and Cultural Commission, Islamabad.
With reference to the Hyderabad
seminar, one feels a little embarrassed in the Punjab, because it
has no Punjabi language authority, no Punjabology and no Punjabi
Adabi Board.
Dr Baloch says teaching of a language
is not sufficient. He can say that with reference to Sindhi and Urdu
... the two languages which have been entertained at the provincial
and national levels. Pushto has not so far been made the medium of
instruction at primary level but it is being taught in almost all
the Pushto-speaking areas as a separate subject at primary level.
The Pushto Academy is a well-developed literary, cultural and
linguistic institution at the Peshawar University. Contrary to that,
Punjabi has so far not been introduced in the teachers' training
colleges and schools. Punjabi is not taught at the primary level
what to talk of its introduction as medium of instruction at that
level. The anti-people attitude of the establishment has not yet
allowed the top bureaucracy to revive the British language policy
for the British civil servants who were supposed to know the
language of the area to which they were to be posted. For the
easygoing policy-making bureaucrats waived this condition and in the
first decade the people in Bengal, Sindh, Punjab and other provinces
saw the top officers who could speak only Urdu with the people whom
they ruled.
This Urdu hegemony invited lingual
hatred on the national level. The Urdu-speaking bureaucrats could be
spared by the people because Urdu was their mother tongue but
Punjabi could not be spared that is why the people of the other
provinces are of the opinion that those who could ignore their own
rich language would not tolerate the languages of the other
provinces.
As Dr Baloch says, the teaching of a
language in not enough. It should be given official status where it
is spoken.
The need is that all appointments in
the provinces should be made of those who know the local language or
have acquired a working knowledge of local languages and their
dialects.
What is needed in the Punjab and
elsewhere is that local languages should be made the medium of
instruction at primary level and at later stages as elective and
optional subjects. In the local offices, official status should be
given to local languages. It should also be made the language of the
courts where many litigants do not know any language other than
their mother tongue.
April
29,2003 |
