| 06 December 2004 | Monday | 23 Shawwal 1425 |
Tracking the Taliban
The language controversy
A great classic in superb Urdu
The growing ethnic divide in Pakistan has become a matter of concern to its people as it poses a serious threat to its solidarity and territorial integrity. The renowned American writer, Stephen Cohen, in his latest book "The idea of Pakistan" has also perceived the ethno-national movements that sprout in Pakistan from time to time, detrimental to its national unity.
The ethnic problem in Pakistan is indeed an important and intricate issue and must, therefore, be addressed prudently to avoid unacceptable consequences. Regrettably, no serious efforts have ever been made in Pakistan to create solidarity among the several disparate ethnic groups.
As a result, the hopes of making the country a unified Muslim State, nurtured by its founding fathers, have turned out to be illusory. A lesson needs to be drawn from the 1971 tragedy to avoid the repetition of the mistakes that led to the dismemberment of the country.
It is not an over-statement to say that Pakistan's fragmentation in 1971 could have been avoided if the people of Pakistan, instead of remaining silent spectators, had played a proactive and decisive role in preventing the break up of their country.
Ironically, Islam, which has been the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan, could not serve as an ideological foundation for its national unity. The successive ruling elites in the country dubbed the demand by the provinces for the restitution of their legitimate rights a betrayal of the Islamic ideology and a conspiracy to undo Pakistan.
They did not, however, realize that to hold the country together it was necessary to address the causes of grievances, which generate a sense of frustration, particularly among the smaller provinces. Needless to say, if left unresolved the country will continue to face the caldron of ethnic feelings with much more intensity.
Under the inauspicious circumstances that followed the secession of the eastern wing from Pakistan the present Constitution was drawn up in 1973, which was designed to prevent further disintegration of the country. Accordingly, it envisaged strong federal government; at the same time granting a large degree of autonomy to the federating units.
However, it soon became increasing clear that Islamabad gradually tampered with the quantum of autonomy that was granted to the provinces and thus it departed sharply from the agreed constitutional provision in this regard.
The existing alienation between the smaller provinces in Pakistan and the Centre, which is basically rooted in the economic sphere, has sharpened the cleavage owing to Islamabad's continued callous insensitivity towards the economic woes of these provinces.
As a result of this, these provinces are clamouring for the restoration of the autonomy that was envisaged in the 1973 Constitution. This is a perfectly legitimate demand and must be conceded without ado.
Astonishingly, however, some elements in the country are also advocating the grant of sovereign powers to the provinces, which they assert was stipulated in the Lahore Resolution.
This is undoubtedly a perverse interpretation of that Resolution which envisaged Pakistan to be an independent and sovereign state rather than an amalgam of several sovereign states.
It may also be pertinent to mention that the supreme authority that a state exercises over its territory suggests that on one and the same territory there can exist only one full sovereign state and that two or more full sovereign states on one and the same territory was an impossibility. The international law also recognizes the exclusiveness of a single sovereignty over the same territory.
In any case, owing to its peculiar circumstances, notably the fragility of the eastern and western borders, unresolved Kashmir dispute, the growing incidence of terrorist activities in the country, which did not spare even the most protected functionaries of the state, and the perilous sectarian strife these many years, Pakistan needs to have a strong federal government to protect the collective interests of the country. This does not, however, mean to suggest that the legitimate interests of the federating units, which are equally important and sacrosanct, can be sacrificed.
Today, Pakistan is faced with the daunting challenge of maintaining its territorial integrity threatened by its incessant ethnic disputes, particularly the continued rumblings of discontent from Balochistan where, it must be conceded, no worthwhile economic or industrial development has taken place as a result of which the masses there are living in grinding poverty.
Recently, some half-hearted efforts have been made, on behalf of the federal government, to assuage the grievances of Balochistan. Regrettably, however, these efforts remained focused on wooing those very regional leaders who are also responsible for the economic woes of the Baluchi people.
To remove the causes of unrest in Balochistan it is absolutely necessary to alleviate the sufferings of the poor masses there rather than mollifying those elements that stir the parochial feelings purposely to gain cheap ethnic popularity in order to promote their personal interests. One only hopes that the federal government would adopt a pragmatic approach to remove the sense of deprivation in Balochistan and other provinces.
Pakistan is also besieged with numerous other serious problems, which can be resolved only by forging national unity. The government as well as the patriotic and loyal citizens of Pakistan must, therefore, work relentlessly for the creation of national harmony and reconciliation.
The heterogeneity or linguistic dissimilarities should not be allowed to undermine the national integration. However, to attain this goal the principle of pluralism, which recognizes diversity, shall have to be applied, in earnest, to safeguard the legitimate interests of all the federating units in Pakistan.
The writer is a former ambassador.
Tracking the Taliban
The US-led hunt for the Taliban continues relentlessly in Afghanistan. Three years after invading, 18,000 soldiers wield a battery of hi-tech weapons; stealth aircraft crowd the skies; satellites spin overhead; and special forces creep across remote mountains in a billion-dollar mission. Yet finding the insurgents is a far easier task in neighbouring Pakistan: you just stroll down to the shops.
A wide variety of militant merchandise is on sale along Kusi Street in Quetta, 60 miles south of the mountainous Afghan border. Posters of Osama bin Laden brandishing a Kalashnikov hang from doors. Stickers of Taliban clerics are plastered on the walls.
The Talib Speeches Centre sells a range of cassettes for 25p each. Crackly recordings contain speeches and poems calling young men to join the jihad or mourning its martyrs.
Gory covers match the themes - crossed swords dripping with infidel blood, battle wagons loaded with black-turbaned fighters, and beatific images of bearded militants now detained in Guantanamo Bay.
The men sitting cross legged behind the counter describe themselves as staunch Taliban supporters. "We will not go home until there is an Islamic government in Afghanistan," says the shop owner, Muhammad Gul.
Others go much further. "I am a mujahid and I will fight to the end of my life," quietly declares Yar Muhammad, a 22-year-old Talib who says he has just completed guerrilla operations in Afghanistan.
Moving to the privacy of a car, he describes the insurgent life - being trained to fire rockets and plant roadside bombs; conducting night-time attacks against Americans; then flitting across the leaky border under the nose of three armies.
"We change our clothes and take off the turban to disguise ourselves. Some Taliban even shave." Now Muhammad has come to Quetta to vent his fundamentalist fury in one of the city's many madressahs. Later, he will return to continue the battle. "We are fighting for the will of God," he says solemnly.
The Taliban's failure to disrupt Afghanistan's election on October 9, which was won by President Hamid Karzai, sparked a flurry of predictions that the Islamists' demise was near. The US military suggested their troops were demoralized and their leaders divided. Reports of impending defections to the government side appeared in the press. But now the tempo of violence is quickening again. Only recent two US soldiers and four Afghans, three of them aid workers, have died in attacks. Meanwhile, thousands of American soldiers are preparing raids on the Taliban's winter sanctuaries.
They hope to stave off the Taliban's spring offensive which could endanger parliamentary elections scheduled for April. The Taliban are once again proving a slippery foe, partly thanks to its easy refuge in Pakistan.
As cities like Quetta offer a new home to the Taliban, officials at the old bases in Afghanistan are infuriated by the apparent ease with which they slip across the border.
The police chief in Kandahar, the former Taliban homeland 120 miles north of Quetta, says Pakistani support is stalling efforts to crush the rebellion. "Look, the top 10 Taliban leaders are still living in Pakistan.
How is that possible without assistance?" Mullah Naquib, a hardline religious leader and former Taliban commander in Kandahar, echoes the accusation. "That Pakistan supports the Taliban are obvious. We do not trust their promises." But the government vehemently denies the charges. Ever since President Pervez Musharraf dropped his support for the Taliban in 2001 and realigned his government with the US, he stood behind the new Afghan government and sent thousands of soldiers to the border in search of Al Qaeda militants and sympathetic locals.
Nevertheless, his officials argue that securing the long border is a near impossible task. Balochistan province has just six million inhabitants but covers 44 per cent of the country.
"The terrain is very favourable to the insurgents," says Shoukat Haider Changezi, director general of the Levies, a rural police force. "The state would need a phenomenal amount of resources to be effective." But Musharraf's Taliban policy has murky edges, say diplomats in Islamabad.
Some of Pakistan's powerful Islamist radicals - a mix of clerics, army generals and spies - have retained their Taliban links. Musharraf, mindful of potential upheaval, is careful not to crack down too heavily on them. As one western official says, "there seems to be a twin- track policy, even if it sometimes moves in opposite directions."
That policy means that, at the least, officials turn a blind eye to Taliban in centres such as Quetta, and the city's deputy police chief Muhammad Riaz, admits that the issue is a sensitive one.
Quetta remains a centre of fundamentalist learning. Madressahs run by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami, helped incubate a generation of Talib fighters in the 1990s. Today the schools are still open and their leaders are unapologetic.
"Yes we support the Taliban morally ... The Holy Quran teaches that jihad is the responsibility of every Muslim," says Maulana Noor Muhammad, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami leader in Quetta, as he fingers his wooden prayer beads. But he denies providing material support to the militants. "How can we? We have no military hardware and no money," he says, adding: "The Taliban will never be defeated."
Across the border in Singesar, the dusty village near Kandahar where the Taliban movement was born a decade ago, there is less certainty. Standing outside a ruined seminary where Mullah Mohammed Omar once taught, a grape farmer, Muhammad Ewaz, remembers the one-eyed leader as a "good, religious man".
"At least we had security then," he says, recalling how the Taliban imposed discipline by hanging thieves from tank barrels. In contrast, he says, the government-allied militia forces are untrustworthy.
"You see soldiers taking small boys to abuse them, engaging in dog fighting and smoking hashish. How can we trust them?" The Taliban fled Singesar long ago, some across the border to Pakistan. But whether they are gone for good is impossible to know, Ewaz says. "It depends on the new government," he shrugs. "For now, nobody knows." - Dawn/The Guardian News Service
The language controversy
One doesn't usually come across the Urdu-English controversy in the media these days. With the increasing use of the computer, and the general acceptance of English as the universal language, the controversy has more or less died down.
But that hoary old chestnut, nevertheless, makes a brief, occasional appearance, and recently popped up in a section of the press. A letter writer had decided to have one more grating fling.
There was a time, however, when stirring nationalist voices were regularly raised, and it wasn't certain if the flagship of the Empire would be able to continue ploughing its way through what looked like highly threatening seas. The fundamental question was: should English be made compulsory in government primary schools in this country?
Angry letters appeared in this and other newspapers, condemning the promotion of English at what was believed to be at the expense of Urdu. It was insinuated that the use of English not only encourages elitism, snobbery and a sense of superiority, but also gives the holder a distinctive advantage in the job market and access to the best clubs.
One cannot deny the fact that a thorough knowledge of spoken and written English is a tremendous asset in this country, and somebody who doesn't know the language would be at a distinct disadvantage when he enters a world programmed for competition.
The chap, who passes his examination in Urdu in the first division in his MA in economics from Peshawar University, doesn't really have much of a chance of getting an assignment in a foreign bank.
Unless, of course, he has formidable connections in the government or the military, or an uncle in the tribal area that doesn't know where to park the millions of greenbacks stashed under his mattress.
The English language is itself a German transplant from Europe in the fifth century. There are so many kinds of English spoken today, that linguists have lost count. There's British English, Welsh English, Scottish English and Irish English.
Migrations from the mother country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries subsequently produced such transplanted varieties as American English and Australian English.
Furthermore, British colonial interests in Africa, Asia and the Americas led to the birth of so-called non-native Englishes such as Ghanian English, Singaporean English, Caribbean English and Indian and Pakistani English.
Each new variety of English, whether native or non-native, embodies linguistic features which are the result of contact with indigenous languages spoken in areas where English takes root.
The charge that local schools and colleges, which clung rigidly to the use English as a medium of instruction, were creating centres of elitism in this country, is more difficult to fob off.
It started to surface in the mid-fifties, around the time when Nancy Mitford's assemblage of snobberies contained in her Noblesse Oblige, was seen in the bookstalls in Saddar.
While the book provoked resentful anger in class conscious Britain, it created considerable interest among a clutch of Oxbridge Pakistanis who used the research to endorse their antecedents.
Mitford's identifiable characteristics of the British aristocracy were based on a paper that Alan Ross, professor of linguistics at Birmingham University published in the bulletin of the Neo-Philological Society of Helsinki, where the subject of the research had been upper class English usage.
His classifications of what was U (upper class) and what was non-U (lower class) are no longer relevant. But interestingly enough, members of the bourgeoisie in Pakistan still use all the non-U words like toilet, spectacles, dentures, lounge, dessert and perfume, in the mistaken belief that they were upper class. Instead of lavatory, glasses, false teeth sitting room, pudding and scent.
Coming back to the controversy, what I have never been able to understand is why the two languages are treated as if they had, through a dispensation of providence, a life of their own and were competing against one another. Language is a vehicle of communication through which people try to understand one another.
The fact is that English has, contrary to popular belief, been grossly neglected in Pakistan, in spite of the missionary schools and institutions like LUMS. There is no getting away from the fact that in 1947, a far greater percentage of the population spoke and wrote correct English than can be found in the country today.
It is time people realized the fact that the two languages are complementary. President Musharraf and other functionaries who address the nation on television have ably demonstrated this.
Their example of switching from English to Urdu and back again, has been emulated by every television talk show host and guest and by every telephone-marketing executive anxious to sell a customer a credit card. But, and here is the nub. In spite of attempts by scholars to retain the purity of the language in which Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz have crafted some of the most beautiful poetry ever written, echoes of which can still be heard in the occasional esoteric lecture, the Urdu that one comes across in the media, the stock exchange, the super market and in daily conversation, is a curious hybrid, which has almost as many English as vernacular words.
A foreigner living in this country who reads English newspapers, nevertheless has to become familiar with words like goonda, Iqra, jirga, katchi abadi, maund, kanoon, mazar mohtasib, auqaf, nikah nama, Hudood, namaz, Quran khwani, zakat and sifarish to name a few. There are also the hybrids, words composed of one part English and one part Urdu like lathi-charge, rickshaw-wallah, double-roti, and paan-shop.
English usage has on occasion evoked a chuckle. An American on a brief visit to Karachi once made the astonishing observation that all crimes appeared to be committed by journalists. He pointed to two sensational headlines in a local newspaper: 'Four girls raped - By our Staff Reporter.' And 'Old woman robbed and killed - By our Staff Reporter.'
But the finest bit of gobbled-ygook this writer has come across was when he tried to identify a young man at a wedding who looked awfully familiar. His answer was: mother and father are first cousins, that's why I look so much alike.' Then, by way of asking if he could take his leave, asked for permission to 'pass away.'
Language change is not necessarily tantamount to linguistic decay, in spite of what the purists say. Nor is it a lowering of language standards. The English language in Pakistan, now used by a relatively small but influential portion of the country's population, primarily in the domain of government administration, law, medicine, the military, pockets of higher education and sections of the media, has also assumed a linguistic and cultural identity of its own which manifests itself at the word level, the phrase level and the sentence level.
An excellent example is the combination of English prefixes and suffixes with words of English origin, which have produced a vibrant new vocabulary. One of the most productive prefixes is "de" which appears in words like de-notify, de-recognize, de-load and de-shape.
There is also a number of productive suffixes such as "er", "ee" and "ism." As, for example, in eveninger and history sheeter. Shoplifter has given rise to child lifter and motorcycle or car lifter.
Previously, unattested words have been formed with the suffix "ee," such as shiftee and affectee. The suffix 'ism' also has its devotees, like adhocism, stop-gapism and Ziaism.
Linguists point to the use of vocabulary in Pakistan, which is no longer in use in present-day English, like botheration (bother) conveyance (means of transport) dickey (boot in England and trunk in the United States) There is also a propensity to use polite forms in speech and correspondence, too much phrase mongering, indulgence in cliches, duplication and repetition, the use of a moralistic tone and the formality and old fashioned correctitude of officials.
In a brilliant article published over 20 years ago, the columnist Kaleem Omar writing in the Star, asked: why should millions always be teeming? Why are dacoits always nabbed, instead of caught? Why are blunders always Himalayan? Why are political parties always bagging seats, instead of winning them? Why is a topic always discussed threadbare? Why is a girl always meted out step-motherly treatment? Why is a slogan always raised? Why indeed?
So those fervent nationalists who hurl the occasional missile at how English is getting the better of Urdu in Pakistan should not worry. The Urdu of Ghalib and Mir is sacrosanct and in no danger of being replaced. And the Urdu of the marketplace is also safe, as it sniffs at, selects and absorbs an increasing number of words from Pakistani English.
A great classic in superb Urdu
Now that George Bush can confess to getting "teared up" and win an election, I can make my own confession. I am a total sap for movies like Mughal-e-Azam, the wondrous classic about Emperor Akbar, his son Salim, and the dancing girl, Anarkali.
The casting is perfection. Prithviraj as emperor: no one has quivered quite like him. Dilip Kumar as Salim: no one has crossed a heart with his sword with his poetry. Madhubala as Anarkali: no beauty better deserved a prince.
Give me a map of my country rising above a plasticine mediaeval-Delhi-skyline on a large screen, a sonorous voice saying "Main Hindustan hoon," dollops of the sweetest language in the world, Urdu, and my eyes fill up like a river in the monsoon.
Thank God movie halls are dark. What I was not prepared for was the intensity of the rest of the audience. It was a late night show in the heart of Delhi and the hall was full for the colour version of black-and-white film first screened in 1960.
I thought that only sixties' groupies would turn up to relive their comparatively innocent youth. It was an age when virginal love was considered scandalous, so fantasy had a wonderful time. The sixtians were there, and looked frost bitten by reality. They had found husbands instead of Dilip Kumar, and wives instead of Madhubala.
The young people in the audience were clearly anthropologists who had come to check out what made the Neanderthals tick. They must have been shocked to discover that it was songs like "Pyar kiya to darna kya, jab pyar kiya to darna kya; Pyar kiya koi chori nahin ki, chup chup ke aahen bharna kya!" "(When I have loved, why should I fear? It is love, not theft, so why should I sigh from behind a curtain?)."
It would need a social historian better than I to convey how powerful, even revolutionary, the idea was that love transcended fear, for every father was an emperor then, demanding the destruction of love in the name of some higher social principle.
Emperor Akbar would not allow his son Salim - the future Emperor Jahangir - to marry Anarkali, a kaneez, a palace girl much above a courtesan but much below a princess because the honour of Timurid blood and the demands of empire would not permit a leap over social walls that held the establishment in place. In thousands of mohallas across India, millions of fathers would not permit a leap over the walls of caste and religion and language.
And just as Anarkali, played by Madhubala, accepted in the end, so did millions of women who dreamt of a brief moment of defiance and glory that they could call their own and take to their graves, secrets even from their children. All around me every Madhubala had become just another mother.
Sitting to my left was a lady who, midway through the movie, spoke very softly into her mobile, a transgression I forgave for she was talking to a hospital about a patient.
As in the last moments of the film a frozen Madhubala walked away to freedom and misery, bereft of a love she had been forced to betray, and the song in the background became a chorus of catharsis for us all, I could not help singing along with Lata Mangeshkar: "Khuda nigehbaan ho tumhara, dharakte dil ka payaam le lo, Tumhari duniya se jaa rahe hain, utho hamara salaam le lo."
"(God protect you, my love, take a message from a trembling heart; I leave your world, broken, but rise and take my last salute)." The lady next to me began to sing as well. I am sure that both of us wished, strangers as we were, that we had the courage to sing louder.
These are some of the things that could shock the young. In a film of 20 reels, unravelling over three and a half hours, there is not a single item number. There is no hint of cleavage.
Even the men are overdressed. The highest-paid playback singer in the movie is the classicist Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, who was given Rs 25,000 for Shubh din aayo and Prem jogan ban... at a time when Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi received about a thousand rupees per song. (Classical Indian music in a popular movie? Isn't that truly shocking?)
Bahar, Anarkali's competitor for Salim's affections, played by Nigar Sultana, arguably as beautiful as Madhubala, wears a light veil when she goes to meet a stranger. Madhubala says namaaz for the life of Durjan Singh, son of Man Singh, who has just rescued her at the cost of his life to keep the word of a Rajput.
The emperor prays to Allah, through the sufi divine Salim Chishti of Agra, for a son, and accepts prasad from his Hindu wife, Jodha Bai, after she has worshipped Lord Krishna on Janmaashtami.
I could hear the credulity of one youngish voice break down in the hall. The scene was set just before the epic battle between father and son (the battle itself is a masterpiece of fusion between K. Asif's direction and R.D. Mathur's camera).
A maulvi ties a taveez on the right arm of the emperor with the famous victory verse of the Holy Quran. Then a Hindu priest blesses the emperor as well with a saffron mark on the forehead. "Arrey," asked a querulous voice, "yeh Hindu hai ke Mussalman hai? The times are more liberal now, and the understanding is much less.
Why hasn't a chain of Mughal-e-Azam boutiques opened up? K. Asif brought master tailors from Delhi, and specialists in zari from Surat to create an exquisite array of clothes. But the piece de resistance is the jewellery, made by goldsmiths from Hyderabad and craftsmen from Kolhapur. It was the most expensive, as well as the slowest, film made till then, and the passion shows in every intricate detail.
The clothes may not find takers in a culture of pace, but the jewellery that Bahar wears would lead to competitive bidding in any elite environment. It could even be called the Bahar line.
I visualize a jewellery fashion show ablaze with Mughal gold, ruby, sapphire, emerald, diamond and baskets of pearl. The models would wear jewellery and nothing else, of course. That would put their pictures in every newspaper and magazine around the world.
Bahar's high moments come during two qawwalis in which she is matched against Anarkali. The first, "Teri mahfil mein kismat aazman ke ham bhi dekhenge, Ghari bhar to tere nazdeek aakar ham bhi dekhenge." "(Let me test my fortune in your presence, Let me spend a moment near you)," establishes the interplay of character, ambition, opportunity, love and tragedy.
Prince Salim judges the two women. The rose goes to the upbeat Bahar, the thorn to Anarkali, who knows that tears are so often the price of love. She accepts the thorn, and tells the prince, "Kanton ko murjhanein ka gham nahi hota..." Thorns never have to face the sorrow of decay."
It is a line that gets derailed in English. With the ebb of Urdu a civilisation has diminished. Urdu is utterly civil, rooted in values and anchored in two words that supersede translation: tehzeeb and akhlaq.
A "practical" Urdu-English dictionary defines tehzeeb as civilisation, etiquette, manners, politeness, courtesy, polish, refinement, instruction, education, discipline, culture.
It is all this and much more, including that very delicate wit that nuances an idea or a sentiment with a sensitivity that becomes a bridge between lovers and a gulf between antagonists. Akhlaq is the practice of tehzeeb.
I wondered about the Urdu-deficit in the Delhi theatre hall. Forty five years ago, a film could be made in superb Urdu for an India-wide audience. Mughal-e-Azam also made marketing history in 1960 when it was released in 150 theatres simultaneously.
Today film language is a pidgin patois bred outside known cultures. This does not make it good or bad. To state a fact is not to pass judgment. The relevant point is that the Mughal-e-Azam audience of 2004 seemed entranced by the music of words, and in the music lay the meaning. Urdu lives.
The denouement is marked by a qawwali that Bahar sings alone, for the conflict with Anarkali is over. Love has been defeated by power. There is pyrrhic victory for both women.
Anarkali is permitted to become queen for one night, not because - as the emperor taunts, because a laundi (slave girl) cannot give up the dream of a crown - but because, as Anarkali retorts, she does not want a future emperor of Hindustan to be remembered as a man who could not keep his word to a slave.
In return, she must drug the prince to sleep while she is led away by guards to death (in the legend) and desolate freedom (in the film). Bahar has won the night, but lost the future, for she does not replace Anarkali in the prince's affections. But she is permitted her final taunt, and she sings:
Yeh dil ki lagi kam kya hogi, yeh ishq bhala kam kya hoga Jab raat hai aisi matwali phir subah ka aalam kya hoga!
(How will this passion ever diminish, this love ever wither? When the night is so delirious, imagine what morning will bring!)
I have rarely come across a more startling and poignant metaphor for power. This is the story of every government, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Everyone in power is permitted the luxury of just one night, and no one ever believes that the night will come to an end.
Deceivers promise a dawn filled with wine, when the truth is that with dawn will bring a drug that will put the miracle to sleep. And you will wake up with nothing around you except loss; the mind swooning with the memory of what was, and the mouth bitter with the ash of what might have been.
The writer is editor-in-chief, The Asian Age, New Delhi.