Immigration and Language:
A Pakistani Perspective
By
Tariq Rahman Ph. D
Professor and Director, Chair on Quaid-i-Azam
and Freedom Movement
National Institute of Pakistan Studies
Quaid-i-Azam University
Islamabad
Immigration and Language: A Pakistani Perspective
The image which the term ‘immigrant’ conjures up is that of a person in an alien environment where his culture, his cuisine, his appearance, his values and, above all, his language is under threat. This image is true for most countries of the world but not necessarily for all.
Pakistan, for instance, is a country whose national language and the most widely used language at least in the urban areas-Urdu-is the mother tongue of immigrants from the Hindi belt of India-similarly, the immigrants from European countries made Afrikaans (a variant of Dutch) and English the official languages of the Union of South Africa. And even now, when the African languages are national languages, the European languages---especially English---reign supreme.
The significant variable, then, is not immigration but power. If the immigrant community is powerful (as in South Africa) or its language is patronized by powerful elites (as in Pakistan), then its language will be used in the domains of power (government, bureaucracy, media, education, commerce etc) and will be desiderated by individuals and groups for their own empowerment.
Objective
The objective of this paper is to trace out the distribution of linguistic power in Pakistan with a view to determining which immigrant languages are powerful in the country.
The Number of Languages in Pakistan:
Box 1 |
|
Pakistani Languages |
|
|
Languages |
Percentage of speakers |
|
Punjabi |
44.15 |
|
Pashto |
15.42 |
|
Sindhi |
14.10 |
|
Siraiki |
10.53 |
|
Urdu |
7.57 |
|
Balochi |
3.57 |
|
Others |
4.66 |
|
Source: Census 2001: 107 |
|
There are also over fifty other languages, some of them on the verge of extinction, which are given in Annexure-1. These are weak languages because they are not used in the domains of power i.e. government, administration, judiciary, media, military, education, commerce, research etc. The term ‘weak’ can be understood with reference to power which will be explained in the next section. What is important is that a language is weak because of the small size of the community which speaks it and, even more importantly, because the community may be large but the language is not used in the domains of power and so people do not give priority to it nor do they learn it in the formal system of education. Since using a language in the domains of power is part of government policy, this paper begins by looking at language policy in some detail before going on to study the effects of this policy on the weaker languages of Pakistan.
As the issue of power is central to policy and defines weakness and strength of languages, let us consider it first.
Power
Power is that quality which enables the users of that language to obtain more means of gratification than the speakers of other languages. These gratification may be tangible goods: houses, cars, good food etc. or, they may be intangibles like pleasure, ego boosting, self-esteem etc (for full explanation see Rahman 2002: 38-42). A powerful language is one which makes it possible for its speakers and writers to obtain a higher share of these gratifications than others.
This is mostly possible in settled, modernizing or modern societies where there are domains such as religion, education, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the military, commerce, the media, research and so on. In primitive tribes the manipulation of language matters less; in agricultural societies it emerges and becomes pervasive but is not the only passport to power; in industrial, modern societies it becomes vitally important. Indeed, one simply cannot enter the domains of power without being able to manipulate language for entry into these domains. It is the language of employment (Rahman 2000: 41-42), and without employment one cannot possess much power in modern societies.
In short the weak language is one which does not qualify one for employment and also carries less prestige than another language which gives both these advantages. Thus, English is the strongest language in Pakistan. After English comes Urdu and then Sindhi. Pashto, Balochi and Brahvi are strong only as identity symbols but do not give advantages in public life. Punjabi is an example of a major language which is held in affectionate contempt by its own speakers and is, therefore, a weak language. The other languages of the country, especially those which are spoken by small communities, are weak on both counts: being small in size and not being used in the domains of power.
There have been statements about language policy in various documents in Pakistan---the different versions of the constitution, statements by governmental authorities in the legislative assembly debates, and, above all, in the various documents relating to education policy which have been issued almost by every government. These are stated in the 1973 constitution as follows:
(1) The National language of Pakistan is Urdu, and arrangements shall be made for its being used for official and other purposes within fifteen years from the commencing day.
(2) Subject to clause (1) the English language may be used for official purposes until arrangements are made for its replacement by Urdu.
(3) Without prejudice to the status of the National language, a Provincial Assembly may by law prescribe measures for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national language (Article 251).
The national language is Urdu (it was Urdu and Bengali from 1955 till 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh) though it is, and has always been, the mother-tongue of a minority of the population of Pakistan.
The rationale for this privileging
of Urdu, as given by the government of Pakistan, is that Urdu is so widely
spread that it is almost like the first language of all Pakistanis. Moreover,
since most jobs are available through Urdu, it is only just that all children
should be given access to it. Above all, it is a symbol of unity and helps in
creating a unified ‘Pakistani’ identity. In this symbolic role, it serves the
political purpose of resisting ethnicity which would otherwise break the
federation.
The Consequences of the Privileging of
Urdu.
Urdu is the mother tongue of Muslim immigrants (Mohajirs) from North India. The total number of migrants from India between 1947 to 1951 were 7.25 million constituting 10 per cent of the population in united Pakistan. The Urdu speaking Mohajirs settled down mostly in the cities of Sindh creating the potential of polarization along linguistic lines in that province.
In Bengal too the Urdu speakers, called ‘Biharis’ as they were mostly from the Indian State of Bihar, became an urbanized elite. As their language was patronized by the state for political reasons and as they were more unlanized than the indigenous people of the country of their choice, they tended to look down upon the local people. The local people, in turn, held the Urdu speakers in contempt. This ill will led to clashes between Bengalis and Biharis in East Pakistan as well as Sindhis and Mohajirs in (West) Pakistan later (see Rahman 1996: Chapter 7).
The major consequence is that Urdu has spread very widely in Pakistan and is understood by all literate people and even by many illiterate ones. Those who watch T.V, Urdu films, listen to the radio or come in contact with educated people pick up Urdu. This means that small language communities, especially ones with school-going children, are undergoing a language shift. As Urdu is a language of prestige and employment both, middle class Punjabi families often speak only in Urdu with their children rather than in their native Punjabi. This has been noted by Punjabi language activists whose appeals not to use Urdu fall on deaf ears.
In the Northern Areas, where Urdu has reached along with the new major road (the Karakorum Highway), Urdu words are fast replacing indigenous ones. Yet even the language activists of this area told the present author that they were prepared to pay the price of Urduization of their languages for development. Hence it was only natural that Urdu should be used in place of the ‘lesser’ languages. This has weakened the smaller languages of Pakistan as well as Punjabi and languages related to it (Siraiki and Hindko). The people speaking these languages internalized the values of Urdu speakers and the official media. They regard their own languages as fit only for private conversation, songs, jokes and so on.
Rather paradoxically the second major consequence of the privileging of Urdu has been ethnic resistance to it. This was because Urdu was the symbol of the central rule of the Punjabi ruling elite that it was opposed in the provinces. The use of Urdu as an ethnic symbol is given in detail in Rahman (1996).
In short, the privileging of Urdu by the state has created ethnic opposition to it. However, as people learn languages for pragmatic reasons (Rahman 2002: 36), they are giving less importance to their languages and are learning Urdu. This phenomenon, sometimes called ‘voluntary shift’, is not really ‘voluntary’ as the case of the native Hawaiians, narrated by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine, illustrates (Nettle and Romaine 2000: 94-97). What happens is that market conditions are such that one’s language becomes deficit on what Bierre Bourdieu, the French Sociologist, would call cultural ‘capital’ (Bourdieu 1991: 230-231). Instead of being an asset it becomes a liability. It prevents one from rising in society. In short, it is ghettoizing. Then, people become ashamed of it as the Punjabis, otherwise a powerful majority in Pakistan, are observed to be by the present author and others (for a survey of the attitude of Punjabi students towards their language see Mansoor 1993: 49-54). Or, even if language movements and ethnic pride does not make them ashamed of their languages, they do not want to teach them to their children because that would be overburdening the children with far too many languages. For instance, Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan (1864-1937) reported in 1932 that the Pashtuns wanted their children to be instructed in Urdu rather than Pashto (LAD-F 12 October 1932: 132). And even this year (2003), the MMA government has chosen Urdu, not Pashto, as the language of the domains of power, including education, in the N.W.F.P. In Baluchistan too the same phenomenon was noticed. Balochi, Brahvi and Pashto were introduced as the compulsory medium of instruction in government schools in 1990 (LAD-Bal 21 June and 15 April 1990). The language activists enthusiastically prepared instructional material but on 8 November 1992, these languages were made optional and parents switched back to Urdu (Rahman 1996: 169). Such decisions amount to endangering the survival of minor languages and they devalue even major ones but they are precisely the kind of policies which have created what is often called ‘Urdu imperialism’ in Pakistan.
In short, the state’s use of Urdu as a symbol of national integration has had two consequences. First, it has made Urdu the obvious force to be resisted by ethnic groups. This resistance makes them strengthen their languages by corpus planning (writing books, dictionaries, grammars, orthographies etc) and acquisition planning (teaching languages, pressurizing the state to each them, using them in the media) (for these terms see Cooper 1989). But second, it has jeopardized additive multilingualism recommended by UNESCO (2003) and, of course, by many eminent linguists and educationists (Edwards 1994) as Urdu spreads through schooling, media and urbanization, pragmatic pressures make the other Pakistani languages retreat. In short, the consequence of privileging Urdu strengthens ethnicity while, at the same time and paradoxically, threatens linguistic and cultural diversity in the country.
As movements for the preservation of minor (or weaker) languages in Europe tell us, if a child is told that his or her language is inferior, the message being conveyed is that he/she is inferior. In short, one is giving a negative image to a child by telling him or her that the ‘cultural capital’ they possess is not capital at all but a stigma and a handicap. This makes the child reject an aspect, and an essential one at that, of his or her legacy, history, culture and identity. What is created is ‘culture shame’ ---being ashamed of one’s own true identity.
Incidentally, the poor and less powerful classes, gender and communities have always been ashamed of aspects of their identity. In South Asia, the caste system forced manual workers to live miserable lives. This was unjust enough but the worst form of injustice is perpetrated by the fact that the lower castes/or ajlaf, kammis, outcastes, Sudras etc) not only accept lower social status but look down upon people lower in the social scale and even upon themselves. That is why when people became literate and rose in affluence and power, they left their communities and even started using names of groups with higher social respect. Here, ‘the number of Shaikhs and the other categories’ ---Syed, Mughal and Pathan---increased phenomenally, while the occupational “caste” groups registered a sharp decline’ (Ahmad, R. 1981: 115).
Moreover, there are many literary works in Urdu and other languages---not to mention one’s own observation---showing how embarrassed the poor are by their houses, their clothes, their food, their means of transportation and, of course, their languages. In short, the reality constructed by the rich and the poor alike conspires to degrade, embarrass and oppress the less powerful, the less affluent, the less gifted of the human race. This relates to language-shame---being embarrassed about one’s language---and hence to possible language death.
The year 2000 saw three excellent books on language death. David Crystal’s, Language Death; Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine’s Vanishing Voices and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas’s, Linguistic Genocide in Education or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights. These books have made linguists conscious that, with the standardization created by the modern state and the corporate sector, the smaller languages of the world are dying. Either the speakers die or, which is more often the case, they voluntarily shift to a powerful language which helps them survive but as members of another human group rather than their own.
In Pakistan, as brought out earlier, the linguistic hierarchy is as follows: English, Urdu and local language. Pakistan T.V plays use the term ‘Urdu-medium’ for lack of sophistication. The children of elitist English-medium schools are indifferent to Urdu and claim to be completely bored by its literature. They are proud to claim lack of competence in the subject even when they get ‘A’ grades in the O’ and A’ level examination. They read only English books and not Urdu ones nor those in other languages.
These attitudes are having a squeezing effect on Pakistani languages. Urdu is safe because of the huge pool of people very proficient in it and especially because it is used in lower level jobs, the media, education, courts, commerce and other domains in Pakistan. Punjabi is a huge language and will survive despite culture shame and neglect. It is used in the Indian Punjab in many domains of power and, what is even more significant, it is the language of songs, jokes, intimacy and informality in both Pakistan and India. This makes it the language of private pleasure and if so many people use it in this manner, it is not in real danger.
Sindhi, and Pashto are both big languages and their speakers are proud of them. Sindhi is also used in the domains of power and is the major language of education in rural Sindh. Pashto is not a major language of education nor is it used in the domains of power in Pakistan. However, its speakers see it as an identity marker and it is used in some domains of power in Afghanistan. It too will survive though Pakistani city Pashto is now much adulterated with Urdu words. Educated Pashtuns often code-switch between Pashto and Urdu or English. Thus, the language is under some pressure.
Balochi and Brahvi are small languages under much pressure from Urdu. However, there is awareness among educated Balochs that their languages must be preserved. As they are not used in the domains of power they will survive as informal languages in the private domain. However, the city varieties of these languages will become much Urdufied.
It is the over fifty small languages of Pakistan (Annexure 1), mostly in Northern Pakistan, which are under tremendous pressure. The Karakorum Highway which has linked these areas to the plains has put much pressure on these languages. The author visited Gilgit and Hunza in August 2002 and met local language activists among others. They all agree that their languages should be preserved but they are so appreciative of the advantages of the road that they accept the threat to their languages with equanimity. Urdu and English words have already entrenched themselves in Shina and Burushaski and, as people emigrate to the cities, they are shifting to Urdu.
Even in the city of Karachi the Gujrati language is being abandoned, at least in the written form, as young people seek to be literate in Urdu and English---the languages used in the domains of power.
Mobility and Language Erosion
The general rule in Pakistan is that if one moves from any language community except Urdu speakers to an area where one’s language is not spoken, one tends to speak Urdu or the dominant language leading to erosion of one’s mother tongue. This erosion occurs over a long time and is most obvious by the second generation. However, if the place one lives in is a tightly knit biradavi neighbourhood the mother tongue can remain powerful for generations even if Urdu on some other language is added on.
The Punjab, as a recent study points out, is an ‘out-migrant state’ (Talbot and Thandi 2004: 178). Britain alone has 5,00,000 Sikhs. At the partition of India the Punjab received 25.6 per cent of the total immigrants from India. However, as Mohammad Waseem points out,
The absence of linguistic barriers in Punjab greatly contributed to the process of assimilation. Migrants spoke along with kashmir, Urdu, and various dialects of Punjabi such as Riyasati and Pahari (Waseem 2004: 67).
However, Urdu had been established in the Punjab by the colonial rulers from 1851 onwards (Chaudhry ). Even before the Pakistani, Lahore was a major centre of publication of Urdu. The Muslim Punjabis, in order to emphasize their Muslim identity, identified with Urdu and the language of literacy and the lower domains of power in the Punjab was Urdu. Thus the Muslim Punjabi assimilated rapidly and joined the Urdu speakers in giving a united front to the Bengalis and other ethnic groups. Thus, the basically Punjabi dominated ruling elite of Pakistan---composed by the powerful institutions of the military and the bureaucracy---became a champion of Urdu---a language which was used to symbolize the unity of the nation and deny the other ethnic groups of the country the official use of their languages.
It was only later, basically because of the dispute over resources and power in Sindh, that the Urdu speakers of Sindh feel out and created a powerful group of its own controlled by the MQM (Mohajir Qaumi Movement). Even now the polities of Sindh, and a significant degree the whole country, is influenced by the Mohajirs (of Sindh) whereas the immigrants in the Punjab are almost completely assimilated in the urban culture of Punjabi cities which is urdufied to a degree probably unknown anywhere else in the world.
The Weaker Language Communities is Immigrants
If one belongs to a weak language group and moves to an area where one is not embedded in one’s own community, language less is fast and irreversible. While Pashtuns can retain Pashto in Karachi, speakers of Wakhi or Ormuri---both being very small languages---cannot. One reason for this is that the state does not have any policies for the support of the indigenous languages of the country and immigrants stand to lose their languages more than embedded communities with local roots.
In the smaller languages of Pakistan the state or the private sector schools do not produce any reading material nor are there any trained teachers to teach in them. However, teachers do tend to explain lessons in the language of the children if it happens to be their own language also. In some languages, given in annexure 2, there are primers and other reading material created by native speakers or other Pakistani writers. There are also primers, dictionaries and collections of oral literature by foreign linguists which have been the only means of preserving these languages till the emergence of local language activists who value their languages and want to preserve them. The names of some such language activists are given in annexure 3.
In short, while only the remotest and smallest of the languages of Pakistan are in danger of dying in their own environment, all languages of immigrants from weak language communities are in danger of death within one generation. The undue prestige of English and Urdu has made all other languages burdens rather than assets.
The question then is whether the weak languages of Pakistan can be saved from further weakening and death? The answer given by Joshua Fishman to that question in the context of the world is as follows:
Yes, more of them can be saved than has been the case in the past, but only by following careful strategies that focus on priorities and on strong linkages to them, and only if the true complexity of local human identity, linguistic competence and global interdependence are fully recognized (Fishman 2001: 481).
In the case of Pakistan the strategy should be to strengthen the weak languages. This can be done as follows:
1. Employment in communities with a majority of a certain languages should be given to people who can read and write that language. This means that people will have to learn even small languages formally in order to gain employment. This will strengthen the weak languages and make people interact with the lower bureaucracy from a position of equality and strength rather than weakness and subordination.
2. The government should teach children in their mother tongue. To begin with language communities living close to each other and having over 20,000 speakers should be given this facility as a right.
3. There should be radio, T.V, stories, songs and dramas in all languages spoken by over 10,000 speakers. These should be distributed at very little cost to the language communities in question.
4. Efforts should be made to make computer software, including e-mail, games and the internet available in as many languages of Pakistan as possible.
5. Reading material, including primers and story books, should be available in all the languages of Pakistan.
6. Adult literacy centers should teach both the mother tongue and a link language like Urdu.
We have seen that the language policies of Pakistan, declared and undeclared, have increased both ethnic and class conflict in the country. Moreover, our Westernized elites, in their own interests, are helping the forces of globalization and threatening cultural and linguistic diversity. In this process they are impoverishing the already poor and creating much resentment against the oppression and injustice of the system.
We have also seen how some languages of immigrants attain power and dominance while most others do not. The significant variable, as we have seen, is power and not the fact of immigration. The indigenous languages of the country, whether in their traditional locale or in the process of immigration, lack certain rights which only certain changes in overall policy can give them.
There are tolerance-related and promotion-oriented rights. In Pakistan we have the former but not the latter. This means that, while we keep paying lip service to our indigenous languages, we create such market conditions that it becomes impossible to gain power, wealth or prestige in any language except English and, to a lesser extent, Urdu. It is this which must be changed and the change must come by changing the market conditions. This is what they did in the case of Catalan, a language while had been banned by General Franco of Spain, and which has been revived. Since they made Catalan the language of jobs and the government of Catalonia (Hall 2001), it changed the power equation and people started learning Catalan.
What we need in Pakistan are such promotion-oriented rights for our languages. What will go with such rights is a good but fair system of schooling which will teach the mother tongue, English and Urdu equally to all children. English should be taught but not as it is done now---very well to the elite and very badly to all others (for details see Rahman 2002: Conclusion). Such steps might save us from the more harmful linguistic effects of policies which are weakening the languages of our people and threaten them with extinction if they are forced to move to other areas of their country---and sometimes even when they do not!
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