KARACHI: A scholar from the North Carolina Central University on Saturday gave a thought-provoking lecture discussing the “politics” surrounding the formulation of the Sindhi script 170 years ago, a few years after Sir Charles Napier conquered Sindh against the wishes of most of the bigwigs of the British Empire.

Dr Matthew A. Cook, a professor of NCCU, USA, gave the international lecture on the third day of the four-day arts and ideas festival being organised by the Sindh Madressatul Islam University (SMIU) on its campus.

Dr Cook, an expert on Asian studies and languages, gave his lecture on the ‘Origins of the Sindhi language’.

He focused chiefly on the issues that arose when the time came to decide on the standard script for the language.

He said there were four theories about the origins of Sindhi, three of which explored its roots in the Indo-Aryan system. However, the remaining one insisted that today’s modern Sindhi was derived from the Proto-Dravidian system with other Dravidian languages and the Indo-Aryan system as a whole as its sisters.

“I personally have issues accepting this fourth theory,” said the professor. “This model is hard to sustain.”

He, however, said there were different answers about the origins of the Sindhi language. There was certain amusing information available in the records, which gave fascinating debate and intellectual argument between two British officers, also eminent linguists, when it came to decide the script for modern Sindhi.

Captain George Stack and Richard Francis Burton — the two officers of the British Empire — were poles apart when they made recommendations for the scripts for Sindhi in late 1840s. The former endorsed and campaigned for the Khudawadi or Khudabadi system, with which Bhaibands, the financiers of the colonial empire, were at ease with.

Richard Burton had extensive interaction with the Sindhi Muslims who believed that the Arabic Naskh system would be much more convenient and fluent for writing Sindhi. Both officers had given their recommendations in writing.

Before that, surveys of various officers working in Sindh showed most recommended Sindhi against those who recommended Persian and Hindustani for school language. Another survey for the standard script showed two votes for Naskh, and three each for Khudawadi and others.

Lord Falkland, the Governor of Bombay Presidency, first decided for the Khudawadi script, said Dr Cook. However, he added, the decision was reverted for Naskh purely on political grounds when the British decided to rule Sindh like the rest of India by engaging Hindu Amils, who were best at administering the region and collecting revenues.

“It was just Charles Napier who decided to conquer Sindh for the imperial grandeur, though most other British officers had other ideas. Sindh was a country with debt at first, but, when it was given to Amils the British decided to keep it.” Both the British officers, Stack and Burton, left Sindh in 1849 for different reasons. Stack came in 1853 and died the same year.

Dr. Cook said Stack himself had not used the Khudawadi script for Sindhi when he compiled Sindhi grammar and English-Sindhi dictionary.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2017