Saarc winds its way

IT is premature to suggest that the Saarc summit which ended in Dhaka on Sunday was a failure even though on superficial analysis it will be seen by many as having yielded little by way of positive results for the regional forum and even fewer for Indo-Pakistan relations. Such an analysis will question even the importance for the organization of the agreement reached on the admission of Afghanistan to SAARC and the agreement on joint efforts to combat terrorism.

It will also question Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s statement that his talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were productive because keeping the dialogue going was a bonus, and that “the India-Pakistan relationship is such that any extent of dialogue and discussion can only help”.

On the face of it the admission of Afghanistan was positive. There was Indo-Pakistan agreement and no reservations on the part of the other members. The problem arose because Nepal’s monarch, incensed by the adverse Indian reaction to his dissolution of parliament and assumption of all powers, sought to make Afghanistan’s admission conditional on the granting of observer status to China.

While the problem was resolved ultimately by an agreement that rules would need to be drawn up at a special session of the Saarc standing committee on how observer status could be granted, the Indians probably believed that Pakistan had egged on Nepal to take the position it did and that all Saarc members would welcome China’s association with the organization as a means of offsetting India’s weight. They would have seen in the same light Shaukat Aziz’s statement that Pakistan believed Saarc should be an inclusive organization.

The fact, however, is that the Chinese case for observer status is strong. After all observer status was granted to India, Pakistan and Iran in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) though India shares no borders with the SCO members, and even Pakistan, its ties to Central Asia notwithstanding, could make a case for admission only if Afghanistan became a member of the SCO. It is perhaps inevitable that China, Japan and perhaps other countries or organizations like the EU will in the coming years, become observers or dialogue partners of Saarc, and some Indians will view this in an unfavourable light.

In the long run, however, it is of benefit to all countries of the regions that Afghanistan, the bridge between South and Central Asia, is now a member, and that China will have observer status enabling a strengthening of bonds between Saarc and the SCO. It is noteworthy that now there will also be a greater bond between the ECO, the regional grouping that brings together Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian states and Saarc as both Pakistan and Afghanistan are members..

Similarly, putting a positive spin on the Manmohan Singh-Shaukat Aziz dialogue and projecting it as progress on the peace process seems overly optimistic, given the rejection of Pakistan’s proposal for the demilitarization of some districts of Kashmir and Manmohan Singh’s reiteration of the Indian contention that Pakistan has not lived up to its promise to prevent the use of the territory it controls for terrorist activity against India.

The bridging of the gap between the two sides was probably not helped by Mr Aziz’s reported statement to the Indian prime minister that Pakistan believed in free trade with India but this was not possible unless there was progress on the Kashmir issue. This would appear to indicate that Pakistan was opposed to the conclusion of the Safta and that blame for the failure to reach a final agreement at Dhaka on this subject could be laid at Pakistan’s door.

It seems, however, that apprehensions among the smaller Saarc members, rather than Pakistan’s reservations, blocked Safta and that an agreement has been reached to try and resolve these problems through intensified negotiations in the coming months and to set the new deadline of July 1, 2006, for bringing Safta into force. Shaukat Aziz has also secured, it seems, Manmohan Singh’s agreement that India will look into and eliminate the non-tariff barriers which have restricted Pakistan’s access to the Indian market. Despite the absence of an agreement at Dhaka, regional trade, and therefore Indo-Pakistan trade, could become freer in the next few months.

The programme for signing the agreement on shipping and port services is on track, with talks on the subject being scheduled for December 9 and 10. Siachen and Sir Creek are to be the lead items for discussions between the two sides in January. It is India rather than Pakistan that has been the obstacle in the past to the resolution of these two problems.

On Kashmir itself the disagreement on what Pakistan has or has not done, and the rejection of the demilitarization proposal is a negative development that was to be expected. Manmohan Singh had come from New Delhi where only a few days earlier a horrendous terrorist attack had devastated two large shopping areas and caused many deaths. Indian newspapers were full of reports on the external linkages of the perpetrators of the attack. The climate was hardly propitious for acknowledging a diminution in cross border movement. The day the conference ended the Indian public was reminded of the dangers that India faces elsewhere. The Naxalite attack on the jail in Jahanabad — a city in the troubled state of Bihar — was probably successful only because security forces had been deployed for election duty elsewhere in the state but that did not detract from the seriousness of the incident in which no external hand could be discerned. But there is hope that if there is no repetition of the Delhi tragedy forward movement is possible.

The new chief minister in Indian-held Kashmir has spoken of the fact that he would insist on the reduction of the Indian military presence in Kashmir but only after violence has ceased. There appeared to be a hint in his statement that he would be prepared to talk to the “separatists” to secure such an end to violence.

During my recently concluded visit to India for a conference I had the opportunity to discuss the issue with retired but influential members of the Indian establishment who grudgingly acknowledged that the erection of the fence along the LoC and the installation of sensors had led to a sharp decline in cross LoC movement. While there were some who were willing to give credence to reports that 15,000 infiltrators were poised to come across, most did not question the fact that most of the “insurgents/militants” were Kashmiris.

Given the Delhi terrorist attack it would have been foolhardy to expect that the momentum on “softening of borders”, one of the subjects of the conference, would not be affected but overall it did seem that while making all the right noises about the need for dismantling the “infrastructure of terrorism” that existed on Pakistan or Pakistan-controlled territory many Indians felt that this was an idea that needed to be pursued.

There continued to be scepticism about the degree to which the Pakistan government was willing or able to control or eliminate the jihadi groups. The attitude seemed to be that Pakistan was right is saying that such groups posed a problem for Pakistan’s own internal stability and that Pakistan was, therefore, determined to eliminate them but this determination was not being reflected in the actions on the ground. Nevertheless one could detect a willingness to move ahead on the idea of the “softening of borders” and therefore, as a necessary corollary, the thinning out of troops in Indian-held Kashmir.

It should be noted by our policymakers that while the demand for reducing Indian troops is justified, the Kashmiris would most benefit from such a reduction if it were to take place in the urban areas rather than in the districts where the Indian security establishment claims risk of infiltration and militant activity is greatest.

While advocating to our own policymakers a modification of the changes within Indian-held Kashmir that they should be seeking from the Indians I would also advocate a change of stance by the Indians on Siachen and Sir Creek. I got the impression that the present rigid stance on Siachen — an agreement on redeployment of forces in the area must be accompanied by signed maps showing the present position of the forces — was being dictated by the Indian armed forces.

Ostensibly, the justification was that Pakistan could not be trusted and may seek to occupy the posts that India withdrew from if there was not a signed agreement on the present positions but in reality their stance flowed from the desire to have something to show for the enormous wastage of resources in the 11 years that have passed since the Indians moved into Siachen.

An Indian friend seemed to agree that if Pakistan and India were to move forward, it would only happen if such arguments could be set aside by political leaders who looked beyond the immediate situation. He suggested that “likely possibilities” rather than “hypothetical possibilities” should guide policymaking.

In the present instance there was a hypothetical possibility that Pakistan would occupy posts vacated by India but the “likely possibility” of this happening was virtually non-existent. In fact the likely possibility was that both sides would be able to move forward to making the area a zone of peace. My own view suggested that an unconditional redeployment would in fact move both countries closer to the vision of making boundaries irrelevant in the entire disputed region.

If indeed India wishes to inspire confidence in its neighbours and to overcome the “trust deficit” in Indo-Pakistan relations of which Shaukat Aziz has spoken and which Manmohan Singh has acknowledged, it is for India to take the “leap of faith”. It is the larger country, the less vulnerable country and has by all accounts the resources to reverse course if things go wrong.

This applies in a somewhat different fashion to the Sir Creek as well. There India should make it clear that it will be guided in its actions towards its neighbours by the rule of law. Current Indian insistence that the boundary in this area should be the middle of the Sir Creek is justified on the international law principle of “thalweg”. But the thalweg principle which calls for the middle of the navigable channel to be the boundary wherever a waterway divides two countries requires that the waterway be navigable and is based on the idea that both countries should be able to avail themselves of the use of the navigable channel for shipping traffic.

The fact is that Sir Creek is not and has never been a navigable channel and on this there is no disagreement. If the Sir Creek is not a navigable channel there is no case to be made for the application of the thalweg principle to determine the boundary and no reason to question the validity of the agreement reached between the Gujarat and Sindh provinces of British India to treat the eastern bank of the creek as the boundary.

To sum up, the Saarc summit was not a landmark event but it was not as bad as it could have been. Indo-Pakistan relations have not moved forward as they should have but they have not deteriorated. Forward movement will need not only the overcoming of the psychological “trust deficit” but concrete measures on India’s part when the negotiations on Siachen and Sir Creek resume in January. In the meanwhile, we should welcome small moves even while pressing for troop reductions which bring a greater interchange between the Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC.

Dying languages

THOSE who are keen to preserve the English language should take heart from the pronouncement of Professor Peter Muhlhaulser of Australia’s Adelaide Foundation of Linguistics, as reported in a London daily some time ago, that while thousands of big and small languages in the world are destined to die off, English will continue to rule the roost along with a few others. So there’s no need to worry.

Which reminds me that some years ago that the US House of Representatives passed a bill to declare English as the country’s official language “in order to safeguard American unity.” The bill excited considerable comment in Britain where newspapers asked how Americans could do this when English was already the language of the United States for more than 200 years. These newspapers forgot that in a democracy there is always another viewpoint about everything — even about democracy itself.

Prof Muhlhaulser is actually out to save dying languages and counts moral, scientific and economic benefits to preserve the world’s diversive languages, as he calls them. His research has shown that members of communities in which two or more languages are spoken are more intelligent than mono-lingual people. This should make us Punjabis, who speak Urdu, English and Punjabi with equal ease, more intelligent than Americans and Englishmen. Are we?

That is the trouble with professors like Peter Muhlhaulser who will try to prove their theories in scientific terms that nobody understands. In reply to my query he might insist that Punjabis are really more intelligent than the people who speak only one language, as in Germany and Japan, and may be awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz if he ever comes here. At the same time he may be tarred and feathered by the people of the two countries for rating them lower than Paki Punjabis.

The professor believes that between 6,000 and 10,000 languages are spoken in the world today and out of them 95 per cent will cease to exist. He bases this estimate on “changing social factors needed to support linguistic diversity.” It is strange that he has completely ignored the social factors that control language other than the spoken ones, the metaphorical languages that impart strength to moral values.

If I had the money I would have invited Prof Muhlhaulser to Pakistan and requested him to conduct a study in the languages of brotherhood, patience, tolerance, decency, respect for women and the old-fashioned regard for parents, elders and teachers. I would ask him to give a report on how long these languages are going to survive in our society, that is if they are not already dead like the language of chivalry and that of duelling.

Among countries there used to be a language of diplomacy which was employed to express sentiments of hostility in polite expressions, but has now been replaced by national hatred on one side and the language of hegemony on the other. You can’t find a better example of this than in the relationship between India and Pakistan, or between India and its smaller neighbours.

For Prof Muhlhaulser the most topical study in Pakistan would be the death of the language of tolerance which has given rise to the prevailing sectarian enmity, and within a few years has developed into terrorism and murder. Not since the persecution of the Huguenots in France in the 16th and 17th century has the world seen such religious hatred and the world of Islam perhaps never before. Where our ulema have failed to make the common Muslim comprehend that language, the professor may succeed.

He may also be able to tell us why the language of patience, an integral part of democracy which we Muslims claim is only a second name of Islam, is all but disappearing from our body politic. Parties, both religious and political, tend to go off like impetuous rockets as soon as they are confronted with even a slightly critical statement from the opposite side. The words “We are studying the statement,” seem to have been lost to them.

And it is politicians again who have forgotten the word brotherhood and, in its place, have adopted ummah with an ostensibly international connotation, though without its intrinsic outlook. Brotherhood was part of a purely Muslim language. As a non-Muslim the professor may not be able to appreciate that, but then, as an expert who talks about a universal language he must surely have heard of universal brotherhood. When he can say, “If a language dies, thousands of years of experience dies with it,” he is bound to be sensitive to a feeling of human affinity at the world level.

Another language facing extinction — in Pakistan at least — pertains to decency of personal conduct and respect for women. There was a time when women were not teased or molested the way it is being done now, what to say of being dishonoured in public, and the dopatta was taken as a sign of the purity that Islam accorded her. But nowadays, with Nawabpurs being staged so often, one doesn’t know whether one is living in a so-called Muslim society or in Bacchanalian times. Even the word love has come to mean sex and nothing more.

You will of course not be surprised at all if I were to tell you that regard for one’s elders, one’s parents and the good old hand-to-mouth teacher who possibly gave one a caning in school for not remembering one’s lesson, is a thing of the past. It certainly is. If you employ the language pertaining to these relationships in everyday conversation, you may be laughed at and asked, “I say, old chap, what world are you living in?”

Professor Peter Muhlhaulser too may laugh at my invitation to come to Pakistan to see how the above-mentioned languages are faring, whether they are really dying or are already dead.

Debate on medium of instruction

A QUESTION we are still grappling with in Pakistan after 58 years is, what should be the language of instruction in our schools? Given all the scientific research that has gone into the language and literacy issues worldwide — but surprisingly not enough in Pakistan — one would have thought we would have found the answer by now. Unfortunately, we haven’t.

Those who have studied the psycholinguistic development of a child are very clear about their findings. They say that language and cognitive development are intimately related. According to them, a child learns best in his mother tongue because he is not doubly burdened with the task of acquiring literacy skills simultaneously with learning another language not his own. That is why very often the student taught in a non-mother tongue learns to read syllable by syllable with very little comprehension.

Thus Prof Mujib, the renowned academic from Jamia Millia (Delhi), used to say that it takes 17 seconds for the child’s brain to translate a word from an unfamiliar language into his own and then another 17 seconds to re-translate a word from his mother tongue into the ‘foreign’ language he is being instructed in.

That would give one an idea of how much time and effort is involved in learning in a language not your own.

Hence researchers, who have tested children who are taught in their mother tongue and those whose medium of learning is a language that is alien to them, have found the first group to have a better understanding of what is taught to them and better verbal skills. In fact, when they move on to learn a second or even a third language at a later stage after the lateralization of the brain has taken place these children do so with ease and proficiency.

One researcher at the University of Toronto is of the view that to reject a child’s language in the school where he goes to study amounts to rejecting the child himself. He at once senses this rejection and is less likely to participate confidently in classroom activities.

Why is the medium of instruction question still such a hotly debated issue in Pakistan? We want to teach our primary school students in Urdu because it is the national language (and not in Punjabi, Balochi, Pushto or Sindhi), or in English because it is the international language that matters today. That would also explain why our education system is so stagnant and why the standards are falling so drastically.

We have politicized the language question in education to such an extent that now we don’t know how, when and where to teach a language. We can’t decide which languages should be taught as the core subject or which language should be used to teach a student other subjects. We have ethnicized the language question that learning or not learning a language is now taken to be a political statement.

The fact is that a child should be taught in his first language in the primary school — that is until the age of 9 or ten. Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, managing director of the Sindh Education Foundation and a well-known educationist, has a rule of the thumb for deciding what is a child’s first language. “It is the language he dreams in,” she says.

Then one wonders why our eminent policymakers and educationists are so confused and ill-advised in taking a conclusive decision on the medium question. This is partly because there are many factors relating to education interwoven into the medium of instruction question. To name a few, the quality of education (that includes the standards of textbooks and teachers), the applicability and need of the language he learns in the life of the child when he becomes an adult, and the social and political accessibility provided by a language that is taught in school.

There is also the misconception that the only way of making a child fluent in a language is to use it as the medium of instruction.

But from our own experience and that of other countries we know that these are separate issues that must be dealt with in their own right and not be confused with the language issue. Thus it is widely believed that English medium schools in Pakistan are doing a better job of educating the child and their products are faring better in life.

Hence to be successful and well educated a child must be taught in English in school from day one. And so the anomaly of corner schools in slum areas with boards declaring them to be English-medium written in the Urdu script! Needless to say they teach in Urdu while striving to use some form of broken English as the medium.

A look at the school education sector reveals a lot about what is going on. The schools which are teaching in English are predominantly the private schools that are charging exorbitant fees from their clientele who come from the elite and affluent classes. They have the resources to get the best teachers and the best books (of course foreign produced in English). If they are doing a good job should it surprise us?

A true comparison can only be made if these schools were to use their pedagogical expertise and some of the excellent textbooks being locally produced in the indigenous languages (mainly Urdu) to teach students in their mother tongue.

Such an example does exist. The Montessori Teachers Training Centre in Karachi which trains Montessori directresses is bilingual in the medium it employs. Students can enrol for the English/Urdu class and both sections are provided equally good education — Maria Montessori’s famous books having been translated into Urdu by Dr Ismail Saad and the teachers are fluent in both languages. It has been observed that the students in the Urdu section who come from Urdu medium schools do better in their diploma course because of their better comprehension of the subjects taught.

If the quality of our schools were to be improved in every way and they were to teach in the mother tongue of the majority of students enrolled in them, the academic skills of the children would automatically go up. In fact one even feels that the high dropout rate would also come down.

One does not deny that for our people to get on in life, especially in the globalized world of today, English is indispensable. There is need to teach English and also Urdu (to the many

children whose mother tongue is not Urdu) as a second language. It is time we learnt that teaching any language as a second language is a specialized field. This has been highly developed by the countries which try to disseminate their language and culture abroad as a tool of diplomacy.

Be it the Goethe-Institut, the Alliance Francaise, the British Council or the Farhang-i-Iran, each of them teaches or has taught German, French, English and Persian respectively as a foreign language to Pakistanis. We would do well to learn from them and also from the Society of Pakistan’s English Language Teachers the methodology of teaching English to our children. This process should ideally begin in secondary school so that when he reaches high school and college the child would be bilingual with mastery over English and thus have access to the treasure of knowledge stored in books in English and many other languages.

Another very important reason why the people want their children to learn English is that it is tacitly recognized as the language of power, as termed by the linguist Dr Tariq Rahman. Even the illiterate labourer who sends his children to school knows that their prospects in life will improve immensely if they study English.

The misfortune is that our failure to teach English as a second language in which children can communicate correctly - verbally as well as in writing — has stratified society between the brown sahibs and the desis. The former speak English fluently — even with an acquired Cambridge accent — and know Shakespeare better than Ghalib or Shah Latif.

They come from the wealthy classes who send their children to the elite private schools. This generation is gradually speaking English as its first language at home.

The others learn English from their teachers in the low-fee schools who never really acquired proficiency in the English language. They are ghettoized in the job market and never reach the lucrative jobs at the top. Language — because it is so pathetically taught in most schools — is becoming a big dividing factor in society today.