The language conundrum

I HAVE seen two news items in recent weeks, one of them a bit amusing, and the other worrisome. Punjabi enthusiasts have periodically offered plans to promote their language. While works in Punjabi, more in the nature of poetry than serious prose, do exist, Punjabis in Pakistan have not used it for written expression in personal correspondence, as a medium of instruction in schools, or as the language of record in government establishments.

It is not a required subject in elementary or middle schools. Yet, departments of Punjabi language and literature have been set up in some universities that prepare students for the master’s and doctoral degrees.

Mr Fakhar Zaman and his friends in the World Punjabi Conference, which met in Lahore recently, want to make Punjabi the medium of instruction in schools and propose to establish a Punjabi university in Lahore that will teach the humanities and social sciences, to begin with, and eventually the hard sciences as well.

In assessing his proposal, it should be helpful to see how Urdu has fared as a medium of instruction. During visits to Lahore and other cities in Punjab, I have found that students in the Urdu-medium sector have less of a grasp of their respective disciplines than do students in the English-medium group. The reason being that the Urdu-medium students cannot reach the huge store of reading material in English on their subject of study. Relevant reading material in Urdu, by contrast, is altogether inadequate.

Books and journals in various academic disciplines written in Punjabi simply do not exist and, unless our young people learn the Gurmukhi script and import materials from Indian Punjab, they will have nothing to read. Any degrees that the proposed Punjabi university awards will be worthless.

Consider now another aspect of this matter. Jobs that pay well are located in those sectors of public and private establishments where the medium of communication is English. The wealthy and upper-middle class parents send their kids to English-medium institutions from the primary school to the university. They, and not the Urdu-medium graduates, will get the well-paying jobs. Thus, the class divisions in the country will harden; the rich will grow richer, and the poor will have nowhere to go. Needless to say, the graduates of a Punjabi university will be even worse off. Let us now turn to the worrisome news. I saw a report in this newspaper (October 28), saying that the Sindh National Front activists in Khairpur were agitated because, contrary to a provision in the relevant law, Sindhi was not being taught as a required subject in classes 11 and 12. This provision, made in 1972, has never been implemented.

I have received several messages from readers in Sindh conveying the same grievance. I have also heard from Mr Aziz Narejo, president of the Sindhi Association of North America (SANA), who stresses the following points: (1) the MQM representatives in the Sindh government and assembly want to “water down” the language settlement made in 1972; (2) they aim to reduce the native Sindhis to the status of the “Red Indians”; (3) the only way to peace and amity in the province is for the “immigrants” (Mohajirs) to accept the language and culture of the land and the people that had given them refuge; (4) the government of Sindh must not offer anyone a job unless he/she has learned Sindhi; (5) Punjabi, Seraiki, Sindhi, Pushto, and Balochi (in addition to Urdu) must all be made national languages.

We shall return to Mr Narejo’s advocacy shortly, but let us first see what happened in 1972. The NAP-JUI government in Balochistan declared, within a few days of its installation, that Urdu would be the official language of that province. The same ruling coalition in the NWFP issued a similar declaration the next day. The Punjab government followed suit a week or two later. But the situation in Sindh turned out to be volatile.

With the PPP, headed by a fellow-Sindhi (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto), in power both at the centre and in the province, the native Sindhis felt the time had finally come for their honour to be restored, their inferior position vis-a-vis the Mohajirs to be rectified, and for them to be the arbiters of affairs in their own province. In March 1972, some 2,000 of them marched to the governor’s mansion in Karachi and demanded, among numerous other things, that Sindhi be made one of the country’s national languages and the official language of Sindh. Rasool Bakhsh Talpur, the governor, assured them that this would soon be done. As one might have expected, the Mohajirs resented it. Incidents of violence, initiated by Sindhi enthusiasts in some instances, ensued and went on during the next several months.

Mr Bhutto found himself in a difficult situation. There was a great deal of pro-Urdu, and therefore pro-Mohajir, sentiment in Punjab, which was then his party’s great citadel. At the same time, he could not alienate his home base in Sindh. In a speech in Sanghar on March 31, he urged peace and a reasonable settlement, but he also chose to admonish that the natives of Sindh must not be made to accept the fate that had befallen the Red Indians in America (the metaphor that Mr Aziz Narejo is now using).

Mr Mumtaz Bhutto, the chief minister, professing to prefer death to a betrayal of Sindhi interests, moved a language bill in the assembly on July 7, that would make Sindhi the official language of the province. In the absence of its Urdu-speaking members (who had walked out), the assembly passed it the same day. The governor signed it about three weeks later.

Delegations of Mohajirs and the native Sindhis met Z.A. Bhutto, at his invitation, on July 10, and then held several meetings with a committee that he had appointed (consisting of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Hayat Mohammad Sherpao, and Malik Meraj Khalid). After extended discussions, this committee proposed a settlement which the two sides accepted, albeit reluctantly. It provided that Sindhi would be the official language of the province, that Urdu would be honoured and promoted as the national language, and that during the next 12 years no one would be disadvantaged in public employment on the ground that he did not know Sindhi.

It should be understood that the language issue involved Sindhi “honour” only indirectly. The basic question was that of dominance: who would have more of the commanding positions in government and administration? It figured prominently in the charters of demands the two delegations presented to Mr Bhutto. The Mohajirs asked that 40 per cent of the posts in the provincial government be reserved for the “new” Sindhis, an equal number for native Sindhis, with the remaining 20 per cent to be filled on the basis of merit (most of which they thought would go to their people). They asked also that 50 per cent of all higher positions (secretaries to the government, department heads, etc.) be given to the new Sindhis.

The delegation representing the native Sindhis demanded that their people should have all of the higher positions in the provincial administration (down to deputy secretaries at the headquarters, and deputy commissioners and deputy superintendents of police out in the field).

The native Sindhis are not pressing these demands at this time. I gather that work at the upper levels in various government establishments is done in English, not Sindhi. The understanding in the settlement of 1972 — that, after a waiting period of 12 years, all applicants for jobs in the public sector must know Sindhi — is not being implemented. What exactly is then the issue at this time?

Sindhi is a required subject of study in all public schools from class four to class 10. Thus, all residents of the province, including the Mohajirs, learn Sindhi for as many as seven years in school. The law required Sindhi to be taught for two more years (classes 11 and 12), but this provision had not been implemented. The Sindhi protesters want it to be enforced forthwith, lest it be swept under the rug once again or even formally withdrawn.

I understand also that the Mohajirs do not acquire any real proficiency in Sindhi (speaking and writing ability) even after seven years of study. Will two more years of it make a substantial difference? I doubt it. American students study a foreign language for about eight years in school and two years in college. Most of them do not become proficient, mainly because they were never interested in learning it, and they did not anticipate having to use it. They went to language classes because they were required to attend. Mohajir students will not become proficient in Sindhi unless they see a compelling reason to learn it.

What then is the inner meaning, if any, of the present Sindhi concern? If it is not linked with the matter of jobs and the issues of dominance and control, as it was in 1972, it would seem to involve nothing more than a few hundred jobs for Sindhi language teachers in classes 11 and 12. If that is all, it is not worth the fuss and bother of mounting protest movements.

What will Mr Aziz Narejo’s proposal to give all provincial languages national status accomplish? Nothing that I can see. Urdu, currently the national language, is an optional, not required, medium of instruction in some colleges. In others, English remains the medium. At upper levels of the administration and judiciary, English, not Urdu, is the language of written expression.

Members of the national and provincial assemblies may speak in Urdu, and the Urdu text of their speeches is printed in the Official Record. If five regional languages, in addition, were made national languages, members of the National Assembly, and possibly even those of the provincial assemblies, would be free to speak in any one of them. Arrangements for simultaneous translation of all of them into all of them (as is the case in the United Nations) would then have to be made. That would be a terrible, and also unnecessary, nuisance.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the university of Massachusetts, Amherst, US. E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

National interest or ideology?

IN mourning the absence of democracy and fundamental rights, or the severe limitations imposed on both, we tend to forget that the foundation of it all was laid in the very initial years of independence when Pakistan was declared an ideological state and India considered its arch enemy.

That declaration placed the destiny of the country in the hands of the clerics and soldiers, though neither the army nor the clergy was involved in the struggle for the creation of Pakistan. The army was professional and loyal to the British to the end; and a vast majority of the ulema and their institutions, again right to the end, opposed the partition of the subcontinent.

In retrospect, neither the ulema can be criticized for opposing the partition nor the army for staying aloof. Both had their own reasons and commitments. The ulema-led parties thought the rights and future of the Muslims as a community would be safeguarded better in a united rather than in a divided India. The army was bound by its command and oath of loyalty to the crown.

The Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly at a time when it should have been making a constitution enabled the dejected religious elements to find a foothold in the politics of Pakistan. The war with India on Kashmir did the same for the army. Both have since then progressively overshadowed the political leadership which represented Jinnah’s ideas of statecraft.

The sectarian agitation in Lahore in 1953 and the martial law imposed to suppress it marked the beginning of the ascendancy of both the religious and military forces in Pakistan’s public life which remains unabated since then. Though the clerics and soldiers were at times in conflict with each other and sometimes seen as collaborators, the political and civil institutions, in the course of time, all but succumbed to the power and influence of both. Whether opposing each other or joining hands in the background or in the forefront, they have ruled Pakistan since the years of the Objectives Resolution and the first martial law — 1949 and 1953.

There is more to the separation of East Pakistan than the role of the army and the armed religious outfits assisting it in that crisis, but it is certain that East Pakistan wouldn’t have gone the way it did had Jinnah’s ideas and institutions not been superseded by bigotry and martial law. It also cannot be denied that discontent in East Pakistan would not have been as widespread as it was at the time of the 1970 elections but for the huge expense (at that time said to be one-third of the budget) on the armed forces which the people of that wing perceived as leaving little money for their flood protection works. But the defence expenditure had to be large because Pakistan and India had fought a war in 1965and since then had been confronting each other.

Z.A. Bhutto, who headed the first elected and full-blooded political government after the separation, amended the Constitution to make the legislature an arbiter of the people’s faith, which Jinnah told the legislators of his time had “nothing to do with the business of the state,” only to placate the agitating clerics (Bhutto himself subscribed to Jinnah’s view).

With Bhutto executed and martial law proclaimed for the third time, the armed forces and religious rabble rousers agreed to act in unison under Ziaul Haq’s command to extend, and then jointly defend, the country’s national and ideological frontiers. In the glow of that exalted mission, the mundane issues like democracy, civil rights and freedom of conscience faded away and remain clouded till today. That frightful era ended almost two decades ago but its legacy of extremist violence persists and is aggravating.

After a bumbling and burdensome decade of democracy shared by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif (which hardly anyone but their cronies cherish) commanders and clerics once again strut the national stage. Whether they work in unison or at variance with one another is decided only between them. The mainstream political forces, liberal or secular if you like, have neither the organization nor the popular support to dislodge or divide them. Nawaz Sharif tried it on the army when he was in power and is still paying the price for his antics. Benazir in her turn pampered the priests without avail but lost the goodwill of the progressive elements in the process.

There have been no military coups in India because the prime minister there has never interfered with the military command. Here, Nawaz Sharif dismissed an army chief and in his place appointed a general who headed the ISI and whom the superior army command didn’t approve. Nawaz Sharif would have been wiser had he known what Gen Maneckshaw had told Indira Gandhi when in the wake of widespread bloody riots she feared he would take over power. “You don’t poke your nose in my affairs and I wouldn’t mine in yours,” Maneckshaw told Indira, and went on to convey a serious message in jest: “Prime Minister! my nose is much longer than yours”.

Likewise, Benazir should have known that if the maulanas could be won over to a secular cause her father wouldn’t have gone to the gallows. The two prime ministers couldn’t stay in office by challenging the army or pampering the priests. Now that they are out of office they cannot wrest power from them by using those very means.

The religious parties and their militant subsidiaries have gained fresh ground by exaggerating their relief activity in the earthquake disaster zone. The services of hundreds of local and international voluntary organizations who worked tirelessly but silently, on the other hand, have received much less recognition. The mainstream PPP and Muslim League, both ‘N’ and ‘Q’, too were seen only voicing sympathy or praising the role of the army.

The prime minister, too, on his part made no effort to work closely with India to relieve the sufferings of the victims which was the loudly expressed desire of the Kashmiris on both sides. The extremists won here too. Though united in sentiment and struggle, the Kashmiris seem destined to remain torn apart by an imaginary line and haunted by troops and terrorists’.

The military and militants thus continue to drive Pakistan’s policies as they have for the last half a century. Both are in the government and in the opposition at the same time but always in agreement to keep the liberal, democratic elements on the run.

The only option available to the liberal parties to break the military-militant stranglehold on politics and public life is to proclaim unambiguously that their ideology is to pursue and protect Pakistan’s national interests, and fighting with India is not in their interest.

Mad as hell

“I’M mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” said Hadley.

“You say that every week,” I told him.

“This time I’m serious. Did you see that all the oil companies made billions of dollars this quarter?”

I said, “Why does that surprise you? Oil is the mother’s milk of capitalism. We shouldn’t begrudge them an opportunity to make a few bucks when they have a chance.”

Hadley said, “I’m not talking about gas for my car — I’m talking about oil for my furnace. Every time I turn on the television, someone tells me I am going to freeze to death this winter.”

“They only tell you that to get your attention. The president of the United States isn’t going to let anyone freeze to death. That’s why he’s the president. He has a plan to make sure all Americans are warm.”

Hadley said, “I know I shouldn’t say bad things about the president because people will think I’m a Democrat. But he has no control over the oil companies. They’re a monopoly, and if they decide you have to turn down your thermostats you’d better well turn them down. The only alternative is to buy all sweaters you can afford.

“I’m not a communist,” he went on, “but can you tell me why, when one oil supplier raises its price the other companies raise theirs on the very same day?”

“It is accidental,” I said. “The one thing our government assures us is that the oil companies are not in collusion. We have antitrust lawyers who see that they compete against each other.”

“Balderdash,” Hadley said. “When it comes to fixing oil and gas prices, the Justice Department is out to lunch.”

“All right, Hadley, I’ll tell you why the companies want to make so much money. It’s to spread cheer among the stockholders. If you own a piece of an oil company, you want the companies to make as much money as they possibly can.”

Hadley said, “Don’t give me that widows and orphans line. Most of the stock is owned by mutual funds, pension plans and institutions. The only thing the stockholders demand is profits, and if they don’t make obscene ones, the executives are thrown out the window with golden parachutes.”

I said, “Despite what they say, Hadley, you are not going to freeze this winter. There is even a safety net for poor people. If they can prove they are really cold (frostbite is a good test), they’ll be entitled to oil stamps.”

Hadley said, “All right, as long as we’re discussing profits, let’s talk about bird flu. When they aren’t warning about you freezing to death, they’re talking about flu from Asia. If it hits the country, it can cause a pandemic.”

“You scare too easily.”

“Suppose you’re freezing because you don’t have enough oil. Won’t that make it easier to get sick from a chicken?”

“It has to be an infected one.”

“Once again it’s all about profits. They tell us there’s not enough vaccine to go around. You know why? The drug companies can’t make enough money. If they can’t sell it for three times what it cost them to produce, they’re not interested.”

I said, “We may not have enough vaccine now, but someday we will. Will you still be mad as hell?”

“Of course.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Nuclear help to India

AMERICAN Congress is understandably upset that nearly four months after the Bush administration reversed long-standing policy and announced that it would provide nuclear assistance to India, the State Department has given lawmakers little information on the deal.

In this case, the silence is golden; if the proposal falls through, so much the better. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, who chairs the House International Relations Committee, said recently that India knows more about the proposal than Congress. He said leaders of both houses had asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to change that.

Despite India’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998 and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, President Bush agreed with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July that the United States would supply India with nuclear fuel, technology and equipment. In exchange, India must strengthen nuclear safeguards, separate its civilian and military nuclear programmes and allow international inspections of the civilian part.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar correctly noted during hearings last week of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, that the nonproliferation treaty is the foundation of international efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The United States should hardly be rewarding nations that fail to take part. In addition, India violated agreements with the US and Canada not to use nuclear material for weapons in 1974, when it conducted what it called a “peaceful nuclear explosion.”

India and the US are natural allies, and in recent years they have bridged differences that too often divided them during the Cold War. But helping India expand its civilian nuclear power programme — despite its failure to sign both the nonproliferation treaty and the treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons — penalizes other nations that agreed to sign treaties, and to submit to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, in exchange for receiving nuclear supplies.

The US-India arrangement also undercuts the administration’s important campaigns against North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programmes.

—Los Angeles Times