Current Events
The Urdu-isation Of West Punjab
ARSALAN ALTAF
Punjabi is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages today.
It has over a hundred million speakers. That is, more than German, French, Persian or Urdu.
Unfortunately though, it has also been one of the most neglected lingos, in its own home and by its own people. West Punjab’s elite first deserted it for Urdu and then for English. There has been a virtual ban on education in Punjabi in the province (which is now, since the 1947 Partition of Punjab, within the nation of Pakistan) for 150 years now, ever since the fall of the Sikh empire in 1849.
In the Punjab Legislative Assembly, a member cannot speak Punjabi without the Speaker’s permission.
The land which is today Pakistan was home to the Harappa and Gandhara civilisations -- the Indus Valley Civilization, the earliest known to Man -- as well as to some of the oldest extant texts such as the Rigveda and Arthshastra. It has had its own traditions and languages thousands of years old. The Punjabi language itself has a written literary history of almost a thousand years. Its first poet, Baba Farid, belonged to the 12th and 13th centuries.
The decline and suppression, so to speak, of the Punjabi language and literature started with the British East India Company’s annexation of Punjab in 1849. The British found that education in Punjab under the Sikh empire was far superior to what they had introduced in the rest of conquered India.
Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, first principal of Government College, Lahore, and founder of the University of the Punjab, writes in his “History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab” that at annexation, “the true education of the Punjab was crippled, checked, and nearly destroyed”.
Our system, he wrote, “stands convicted of worse than official failure”.
Under Sikh rulers, Punjabi qaidas (primers) were supplied to all villages. Its study was compulsory for women. Thus, almost every woman could read and write the Lundee form of Gurmukhi.
To subdue their new subjects, the British planned to cut them off from their language and tradition, and set forth to collect and burn all Punjabi qaidas. They searched homes for qaidas and announced the prize of one anna (a coin) for anyone who returned their sword but six annas if they returned a Punjabi qaida.
Thus, the language which once had the backing of an empire was now neglected and suppressed.
After Pakistan was created a century later, our policymakers considered cultural and linguistic diversity a threat to national security and tried to impose a monolithic faith-based ideology on the people. They declared Urdu the national language at the expense of Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Brahui, Pashto and others.
Urdu was a language that was never spoken in the regions that made up Pakistan in 1947.
Bengalis rose up in arms against this and got their language recognised as a state language alongside Urdu in 1956. [Under further oppression, they seceded from Pakistan and thus East Pakistan became Bangla Desh.]
The struggle for recognition of languages other than Urdu continues to date in Pakistan. One of the things nationalists in Balochistan complain about is the suppression of their language and culture.
In Lahore, thousands gather every year on Mother Language Day seeking an end to the 150-year-old ban on education in Punjabi.
It’s time we reconnected with our past because the state of denial we are in today will lead us nowhere.
[Courtesy: The Express Tribune. Edited for sikhchic.com]
May 7, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Kaala Singh (Punjab), May 07, 2015, 12:44 PM.
The surest way to wipe out a people with a distinct identity is not through physical annihilation but by killing their language, culture and customs and other attributes that make them distinct and "absorb" them in the dominant culture. The Sikhs should never fall in this trap and no matter where they live, they should preserve their language, culture and appearance. Latin America is a case in point. The invading Spanish and Portuguese made it a point to destroy the culture of the original inhabitants and imposed their own culture on them as they could not have wiped them out completely. As a result, they retain those lands to this day. The Sikhs should understand that what happened to them in 1984 was something similar to what happened to the indigenous people in Latin America. 1984 was designed to terrorize the Sikhs to abandon their identity and assimilate and many did to save their lives. As I understand it, the very fact that you still see Sikhs moving around with their turbans means that we have NOT been subjugated, like Latin America.
2: Kaala Singh (Punjab), May 07, 2015, 2:14 PM.
Further to my post above: Sikhs should aim to have a quality population of at least 50 million or more from the present 30 million and that will change many things. To make sense of this, let us consider how the Hindus survived more than 800 years of Islamic rule. Simply because their numbers were so big that the Islamic invaders must have gotten exhausted chopping them and just let them go, and not because any resistance was offered. So, numbers definitely work to your advantage.
3: Gurinder Singh (Stockton, California, USA), May 07, 2015, 4:34 PM.
We come across quite a few Punjabis from West Punjab in California. They speak much better Punjabi than us. It is not sanskritized Punjabi as is happening in East (Indian) Punjab.
4: R Singh (Surrey, British Columbia, Canada), May 07, 2015, 6:53 PM.
Balochistan wishes to be independent of Pakistan since they don't like the "Punjabi" controlled army and implementation of Urdu, according to one media commentator.
5: Kaala Singh (Punjab), May 07, 2015, 11:44 PM.
@3: Being from a West Punjab origin myself, I feel terrible when people today speak Punjabi and mix a lot of Hindi words in it. This may be because people here are constantly bombarded by the Hindi media. If people can't find equivalent words in Punjabi, they should use English words instead of those tongue-twisting Hindi words ... which no one, not even Hindi-speakers, recognize or comprehend.
6: Kulvinder Jit Kaur (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada), May 08, 2015, 12:32 PM.
I agree with all the other commentators above. #1. Population does count. There can be no quality without quantity in this context. Dwindling numbers will not support culture, language and identity. First of all, one needs sufficient numbers to be really COUNTED. #2. The horrid sanskritized version of Punjabi that has taken over the media has to be discouraged. At least here in the Western countries, where there is no pressure on what kind of Punjabi is used. Somehow, the Punjabi media thinks they are using a more literary form of Punjabi if they use more Hindi/Sanskrit words. On the contrary, they are hurting the language by this. Pure "thhetth" Punjabi is what we want to preserve, not this mongrel version. Ironically, people fasted unto death to preserve Punjabi and now we are mutilating the language ourselves. We totally have the freedom to use our language in its most pure form and perhaps if enough complaints go to the Punjabi media (at least in the West)to stop using Sanskrit/Hindi words, so they might change the practice. Especially if they are warned with the prospect of people boycotting their programmes. #3. As for the Qaidas (primers), again, we can encourage this practice by mailing it out to all Sikh families in the Punjab, free of cost. SGPC can easily do it. Then let the families teach their children at home. A little effort can go along way. Cuba succeeded in overcoming illiteracy by motivating the youth to teach the older generation to read and write (free of cost)and by also helping the farmers on their farms on a volunteer basis so that they could take time out to educate themselves. Keeping Punjabi alive is not an impossible task but it needs planning and perseverance.
7: Kulvinder Jit Kaur (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada), May 08, 2015, 12:48 PM.
Can this be the Summer of Punjabi? That is, each Punjabi, from East and West Punjab, Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, teach another Punjabi to read and write in Punjabi (I say Punjabi instead of Gurmukhi here as our scripts are different but the language is the same, whether it is in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi). Also, the ones who are already well-versed in the language, to read three Punjabi books during the summer months. Local libraries will oblige you with the books if you make a request for them. Let this Summer be the Punjabi revolution in your own circle ... and then see it spread!
8: Gobinder Singh (USA), May 09, 2015, 1:22 PM.
Kulvinder ji: What a great idea and call for action! I was already telling my two young kids that this summer they will be spending time reading Sikh history and Punjabi. Now I will be using this catch phrase; 'Summer of Punjabi'. Indeed doing something is much better than just talking about the 'sad state of affairs.'
9: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), May 09, 2015, 11:10 PM.
How does one distinguish between Hindi and Punjabi words when speaking? How would one increase one's vocabulary for speaking pure Punjabi? I hope to begin learning to read and write Punjabi this summer and I would like to learn it in its purest form. The problem however is that there will be words that are commonly used and others which are particular to Punjabi.
10: Roop Dhillon (London, United Kingdom), May 10, 2015, 9:33 AM.
Sunny ji: step 1, just learn the alphabet (I assume you already can speak the language). Parents will be source of vocal version. 2) Watch older than 1965 Punjabi films on you tube. 3) Go to the Patiala University website's Gurmukhi-English dictionary (I am western born and raised and self-taught, I use this dictionary to help me write novels in Punjabi. So, if I can do it, anyone from the West can).
11: Manjit Singh Bara Pindia (Canada), May 10, 2015, 3:51 PM.
I think Roop Dhillon meant to say Punjabi University, Patiala. (There is no Patiala University). However, if you search on Google by typing Patiala University Dictionary, it will still take you to the Punjabi University Dictionary website.