The recently held Urdu Conference in Karachi was a commendable effort, indeed, to infuse some literary vitality in this culturally starved city. However, the one question that has been haunting my mind for quite some time remained untouched. How long is Urdu going to survive in this country as a language of literature?
Recently, a week long Urdu Conference was held in Karachi under the auspices of the Arts Council of Pakistan in which delegates from all over the country and India participated.
During its proceedings, scholarly papers were read on various topics related to Urdu literature and on personalities who have made valuable contributions to it. The sessions were often followed by mushairas or a music programme.
It was a commendable effort indeed to infuse some literary vitality in this culturally starved city. However, the one question that has been haunting my mind for quite some time remained untouched. How long is Urdu going to survive in this country as a language of literature?
That is not a hypothetical question. Only a few generations back, Persian was considered to be the language of culture and literature in our part of the world.
Most of the literary works of prose, such as the Tazkiras, were written in Persian. Urdu poets often composed some poetry in Persian as well, perhaps to establish their credentials. Ghalib (d.1869), who even today remains one of the most popular poets in our region, used to take pride in his Persian poetry.
But his Persian poetry has now been thrown completely into the oblivion and he lives today only because of his work in Urdu. A later poet and thinker, Muhammad Iqbal (d.1932), also composed poetry in both languages but his Persian poetry too has met with the same fate.
There must be other reasons as well for the decline of Urdu, but in my view the most serious threat comes to it from our education system. When I was a school student in the 1950s, and even for more than a decade later, the government-run schools were generally considered to be the best.
They had well educated and adequately trained teachers on the staff, properly equipped science laboratories and well-maintained classrooms and buildings. In most cases those schools also had attached to them libraries and sports grounds.
The schools were known as `Anglo-vernacular schools` and, therefore use of the mother tongue was permitted along with English as the medium of instruction. Persian and Arabic were taught as optional subjects.
The situation began to change gradually. Government schools became the victims of neglect. Scarcity of funds neither helped them engage good teachers nor enabled them to provide and maintain the necessary facilities.
On the other hand, privately owned schools, charging high fees, began to attract students from better off families. In due course, private schools developed into prestigious chains having branches not only in the city but also all over the country.
The situation today is that the government schools, now contemptuously known as `peela schools` (yellow schools), draw students only from the lowest rung of society and impart an education and training that hardly enables the student to become a useful citizen.
On the other hand, private schools provide good education under an excellent environment and many facilities are available to the students for their grooming.
These schools are enormously expensive yet even those who cannot afford them often sacrifice their other needs to get their children admitted to these schools in the hope of ensuring a good future for them.
This situation prevailing in our education sector has harmed society in several ways. But here I would mention only one great damage. Although Urdu is taught as a subject in private schools, English remains the only medium of instruction — even for a subject like Islamiyat.
Not only that, no child is permitted to speak any other language except English while in school. And overzealous parents make it a point to speak to their children in English even at home.
Libraries of such schools have a good stock of books, but there are hardly any Urdu books among them. Some time ago all the copies of the final installment in the Harry Potter series were sold out in Karachi in only one day.
Besides J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, another favourite author with our children is Enid Blyton. On the other hand, few if any of these students have never heard the names of Sufi Tabassum or Ibne Insha who have written beautiful poems for children in Urdu. Their school libraries too do not stock any of their works.
It is true that knowledge of English has become very important in today`s world. English has not only become a global lingua franca but also a necessity for advanced studies in science and technology.
But the learning of English should not have been done at the cost of our own language. Many countries including China, Japan, Germany and France have made tremendous scientific and technological progress. Yet they have not packed up their own languages in the same fashion as we have done.
Coming back to the point, the system of education that has overtaken our country has completely alienated our children from Urdu. They hardly read any Urdu books although their bookshelves are full of classics and bestsellers in English.
They converse among themselves in English, using Urdu only while talking to elders in the family or to domestic servants. Under these circumstances Urdu might survive as a spoken language, but how can one hope for literature to be created in it and read in the future?
On the other hand, we are often told by those who know that good quality literature is being produced in regional languages, particularly in Sindhi, Saraiki and Pushto. Perhaps this is so because the writers in these languages still have strong links with their culture.
It appears that the literary scenario in Pakistan in the coming decades hardly has a respectable place for Urdu. Good literature might be created in regional languages, but those not having command of these languages or those craving a wider readership will write in English.
The process has already begun. In the past we had only an occasional expatriate of Pakistani origin writing fiction in English, such as Zulfikar Ghose or Bapsi Sidhwa. But now they are coming in much quicker succession Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed Hanif and others.
Some of them have even won awards for their work. So, by all indications, Urdu literature is doomed to meet the same fate as did the Persian literature of Indian origin. Unless our education system is reformed drastically, there is little hope for the future of Urdu.
