| January 27, 2009 | Tuesday | Muharram 29, 1430 |
There is social malaise behind the tragedies in our midst
The origin and genesis of Urdu has always been a subject of animated discussion — and a source of unending controversy — among linguists. There is a wide range of theories about how Urdu originated and developed. The most common among them is the one that links Urdu’s birth with the advent of the Muslims in the sub-continent. This theory, however, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Experts agree that Urdu had begun taking root in the subcontinent before the arrival of the Muslims in the 8th century AD. However, there is no denying the fact that the Muslims played a vital role in Urdu’s early development and its subsequent shaping. Their arrival became for local dialects a catalyst for unhindered growth. To put it in the words of renowned linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1890-1977), had the Muslims not arrived in India, the beginning and development of modern Indo-Aryan languages would have been delayed by a few hundred years.
Another theory which does not hold water is that Urdu is a so-called ‘lashkari zaban’ or ‘camp-language’ that originated in the Mughal military camps where troops speaking different languages interacted. It has long been proved that Urdu is neither a camp language nor did it originate in the Mughal era. A language, as every student of linguistics knows, is not formed as a result of intermingling of the speakers of different languages, as the supporters of the ‘lashkari zaban theory’ would have us believe, and a confluence of two or more languages cannot create a new one.
Other linguistic assertions try to prove that Urdu was born in either Sindh or Punjab or Deccan or Delhi. Most linguists, however, agree that Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and has its roots in the local dialects that in turned had developed from Sanskrit. The difference of opinion in most cases arises when it comes to deciding which Prakrit, or an ancient or medieval vernacular dialect, developed into modern languages known as Urdu and Hindi. No doubt Urdu has a vocabulary that includes loan-words from languages as diverse and as alien as Malay, Portuguese and Turkish, not to mention Arabic and Persian, but it is the linguistic base and grammatical peculiarities, and not the word bank, that count while deciding the origin and family of a language. Almost all the linguists agree that the development of Indo-Aryan languages, including Urdu and Hindi, began circa 1500 BC when Aryans arrived in India.
There is but one linguist who believed differently and maintained that Urdu had its roots not in Aryan languages but in local Indian especially Dravidian languages and that linguist was Dr Suhail Bukhari.
Dr Suhail Bukhari, a linguist, teacher, research scholar, poet and critic, developed his premise over the years and though in the beginning he shared the view of other experts on the subject, in his later works he made a radical departure from his previous point-of-view and arrived at the conclusion that Urdu was not an Indo-Aryan language but a Dravidian one. He said Urdu was an independent language, quite separate from Sanskrit, whose origin was purely Indian and Dravidian. He thought that it existed at the time of the advent of the Aryans in India and it had undergone different forms and different scripts. Though his linguistic theories were not accepted and most linguists rejected them, Dr Bukhari is always quoted and discussed whenever different notions of Urdu’s genesis are evaluated. At least he had an original theory which he had developed after a deep study of linguistics. He knew Hindi and Sanskrit in addition to being acquainted with other languages and dialects and could read different scripts including Devanagari and Gurmukhi, which must have helped him read the primary sources in the original and draw his own independent conclusions.
Dr Suhail Bukhari’s real name was Syed Mahmood Naqvi and he was born in district Meenpuri, UP, on December 6, 1914. Though he had to join the UP government’s education department in 1939, he continued his education and did his BA in 1946 from Agra University and MA in Urdu from Nagpur University in 1950. Later, he migrated to Pakistan and joined PAF station school, Lahore, in 1952 as principal. In 1955, he joined PAF College, Sargodha, as head of the Urdu department where he served till 1974. From Punjab University, he earned a PhD in 1963 on his dissertation ‘Urdu dastaan’, which was later published by the National Language Authority.
Dr Bukhari wrote some 30 books, about a half of which are on linguistics and lexicography. His books ‘Urdu ka roop’, ‘Urdu ki kahani’, ‘Tashrihee lisaniyaat’ and ‘Urdu aur Dakani zaban ka taqabuli mutala’ deal with descriptive linguistics and historical linguistics while ‘Phonology of Urdu language’ and ‘Urdu zaban ka sauti nizam’ are on Urdu phonetics. Lexicography was his another field of expertise and excellence and besides serving the Urdu Dictionary Board as Assistant Editor from 1976 to 1979, he compiled an etymological dictionary of Urdu, serialised a book on loan-words in Urdu in quarterly ‘Urdu’ and compiled a couple of dictionaries of technical terms. His book ‘Nizamiyat-e-Urdu’ offers a different approach towards Urdu grammar.
Aside from his thesis, Dr Bukhari wrote other books on Urdu’s classical fiction that include ‘Novel nigari’, ‘Sabras par aik nazar’ and ‘Bagh-o-bahar par aik nazar’. His other books include ‘Ghalib ke saat rang’, ‘Iqbal: Mujaddid-e-asr’, ‘Hindi shaeri mien musalmanon ka hissa’, ‘Iqbal aik soofi shaer’, ‘Lisani maqalat’ and ‘Urdu rasm-ul-khat ke bunyadi mabahis’.
Some of his books are still unpublished and their manuscripts are lying with different publishers. One such book is an Urdu dictionary of antonyms and synonyms which Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu intended to publish but the book has not seen light of day despite the fact that some 19 years have elapsed since its author’s death.
Dr Suhail Bukhari died in Karachi on January 29, 1990.
drraufparekh@yahoo.com
LAST WEEK a madly driven car knocked down young Mohammad Zaheer waiting to cross the Islamabad Highway to reach his college. His tragic death ignited a violent protest by the students that paralysed the city traffic for six hours and damaged scores of cars. Whom to blame for all the mayhem – the car driver, the traffic police that did not check his mad driving, the authorities who are ever widening the roads but don’t provide bridges for pedestrians to cross them, or the students for rioting?
Certainly poor Mohammad Zaheer could not be faulted for travelling by bus and standing by the roadside to cross over to his college in Sector H-8. His father, a fireman, must be finding it difficult even to finance his education much less to buy him a car, even a bike.
A madly driven Cultus car hit the second year student of the Federal Government Commerce College, H-8, whiles its driver overtaking other vehicles on the left side of the highway and sped away leaving behind the injured in a pool of blood.
The injured was taken to the hospital but doctors could not save his life. Hundreds of students poured out on the highway to protest when the tragic news reached the college. Students protesting the death of a colleague in the hit-and-run accident blocked the highway for six hours, throwing traffic in the city in a big mess. They demanded constructing a bus stop and a pedestrian bridge at the site for the students crossing the highway to reach their educational institutions in Sector H-8, and deploying traffic police to check traffic, particularly during school hours.
Islamabad Highway and all other major arteries, highways, and avenues lake pedestrian bridges and bus stops.
It is a negligence of the Capital Development Authority as before launching any new project or starting any extension work it does not take care of the need of ordinary people.
A day before the incident the Prime Minister inaugurated the Islamabad Expressway on January 20 from Faizabad to Kurral. On the occasion, he said, “We will bring revolution in Islamabad during next few months as new roads and bridges will be constructed and the condition of basic civic amenities would be improved.”
The prime Minister is frequent traveller on the highway, but maybe he never noticed the absence of bus stops and pedestrian bridges. Had he noticed the need for the pedestrian bridges and bus stops he would never have been “immensely pleased” to inaugurate the highway.
After the departure of the Prime Minister from the opening ceremony, hundreds of residents, living on both sides of the highway, poured at the highway and staged a protest against city managers for not constructing pedestrian bridges on it, putting their lives in danger.
The residents of Kuri Road also staged a protest demonstration against the CDA and demanded installation of pedestrian bridges there.
The Islamabad Highway is the busiest road as thousands of vehicles use it daily, and an equal number of pedestrians cross it. This is also a VVIP route.
From Zero Point to Kurral it has five traffic signals and 12 bus stops. Before the extension work, it had three pedestrian bridges and some bus stops. However, all the bridges and bus stops were demolished for the extension work on the expressway.
The facilities for the pedestrians and users of passenger vehicles are yet to be re-built.
The Islamabad Expressway serves as the main entry point to the capital through which thousands of vehicles transport over 100,000 people daily. It has five lanes on each side.
The pedestrians are compelled to cross the road daily putting their lives on risk.
The traffic police officials say that at least three to four non-fatal fatal accidents take place daily and three fatal accidents weekly on the expressway after the completion of the extension work.
The traffic police personnel write every day to the indifferent CDA to build nine pedestrian bridges and three bridges on the expressway to avoid the accidents and save human lives.
A committee constituted by the capital administration suggested that there was a need for eight pedestrian and seven overhead bridges on the expressway to reduce road accidents.
The CDA was also tasked to construct safe pathways on both sides of the expressway for pedestrian.
Since the construction of bridges will take time, it was decided to install pedestrian signals and paint zebra crossing at all the bus stops on the expressway within two days.
