We generally think of ‘education’ as something we get in schools, colleges and universities. In fact, it is the media which educates us more than any formal educational institution. It supplies us with information which enables us to decide what is going on in the world. Moreover, it also supplies us with ready made points of view through editorials, columns, letters to editors, discussions, dramas, films, documentaries, the way the news are structured and so on.
This being so, would it be a bad idea to formulate guidelines for the education of the media? Perhaps not I would think. This is what I had in mind when I suggested at the South Asia Editor’s Forum in Karachi on 07 April that a glossary of tension-decreasing language should be made. I did not know that such an idea had already been suggested by Qazi Mohammed Aslam, Editor-in-Chief of Kawish (Karachi). This, of course, strengthens my proposal as it puts me in excellent company. Let me now discuss the idea in the broader context of language planning.
Language Planning (or LP as it is called) is the deliberate manipulation of language for a social, political, educational or economic purpose. All states have language planning policies. For instance all of them decide which language is to be used in offices, schools, universities and so on. This decision about which language to use for what purpose is called ‘status planning’---it fixes the status of each language.
What is more relevant for our purposes is corpus planning. This refers to changes we make in the body of the language itself. For instance, we may change the way it is written or, if it was not written earlier, we may choose a script to write it. We may fix its spellings, puctuation rules and grammar. And, above all, we may invent new terms so that it can express new concepts. In short we standardize and modernize a language so as to enable it to function as a modern means of communication. Sometimes we can throw out words which are either not considered desirable for aesthetic or political reasons or simply because they have gone out of fashion. This process of ‘purging’ the vocabulary of languages goes on constantly though sometimes purists object to it simply because they equate change with deterioration. Some changes occur because of foreign influence or societal pressure. These may be called ‘natural’ or ‘spontaneous’ or ‘organic’. Others are introduced deliberately for some political or other reason. An obvious example of such change is the introduction of anti-sexist language.
The feminist movement claims that our languages are male dominated. Giving the example of English it points out that the use of ‘mankind’ for all humans including males and females; him for both him and her; chairman for both men and women make it appear as if the male was the norm while the female was an exception or aberration. Such language was androcentric i.e it centred upon men. To change this, feminists advocated a deliberate change of language. They wrote glossaries of words they found offensive and suggested neutral words instead of them. These terms were adopted by the American Psychological Association which issued instructions about avoiding the kind of language which reinforces society’s preconceived notions about males and females. For instance, if we use ‘doctor’ or ‘pilot’ the person who comes to our mind is always male. Of course this is so because, in the past and even now, males have dominated these occupations. However, the feminists argue that this should change to include the female doctor or pilot so that the idea that women should not join such professions should be eliminated. Casey Miller and Kate Swift wrote a book called The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing which tells us what kind of language should be used to avoid giving offence to women.
Such efforts did bear fruit. Robert Cooper, a linguist, analyzed a corpus of 525,000 words of American publications between 1971-1979 in 1980. He found that whereas in 1971 every 5,000 words had 12.3 offensive male-centred ones; in 1979 the rate was only 4.3 in 5000. This is quite remarkable considering that this change has taken only a few years. Whether this has actually improved the position of women is debatable but it has sensitized people towards male-centredness in language.
This being so I would like to suggest that we in India and Pakistan should develop a glossary of offensive words which should be taboo. These words draw their pejorative emotive force from the antagonistic history of the Hindus and the Muslims. Even medieval histories tell us that the Muslims were called melichhas (unclean) by the purist Hindus while the Muslims referred to Hindus as Kafirs (unbelievers). The existence of such words did not mean that Muslim-Hindu relations were always bad. They were often amicable but the potential for hostibilities breaking out was always there.
Indeed, the creation of modern Urdu and Hindi owe much to the identity politics of Muslims and Hindus. Because of the loss of political power and the dethroning of Persian, Muslim poets did an exercise in language planning in Urdu from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Shah Hatim wrote in his Divanzada (1755) that all ‘bhaka’ words should be eliminated. These were old familiar words like naina (eyes); sagar (sea), prem (love) and so on. Instead, he recommended the use of more Persian and Arabic. Others, such as the poets Nasikh and Khan-e-Arzu carried this Persianization (they called it ‘refinement’) to an extreme. Thus a Persianized Urdu was created which became the symbol of elitist Muslim identity. This Urdu obviously alienated identity-conscious Hindus though, of course, many of them spoke and wrote it.
The identity-conscious Hindus, in a separate and probably unrelated development, created Sankkritized Hindi written in the Devanagari Script and full of Sanskrit terms. Fort William College, with its emphasis on the vernaculars, gave an opportunity to Lalluji Lal and Sadal Misra---two practitioners of modern Hindi---to create a style which reflected consciousness of and pride in a new Hindu identity based upon Sanskritized Hindi among Hindus. This alienated the Muslims and fed into the long-standing dispute between Hindus and Muslims.
The point now is to forge a new idiom which will be sensitive to the susceptibilities of Indians (especially Indian Hindus) and Muslims (especially Pakistani Muslims). This idiom should be culture-sensitive, identity-sensitive, religion-sensitive and nationality-sensitive. For instance the following words should be banned:
Kafir means unbeliever and is found offensive by non-Muslims who perceive that it is used pejoratively in reference to them.
Musla is a distorted form of Musalman which Muslims find insulting.
Bania A person belonging to the trade and money-lending caste in India. It is used pejoratively for Hindus and they find it offensive.
Gora A Caucasian or person of European origin. It is used pejoratively.
The list can be multiplied. There are insulting words, sterotypical images, hate words, disparaging innuendoes and ego-shattering images which the press, especially the press in the indigenous languages of South Asia, does use. The point is to educate the media not to use such words; not to use sterotypes; not to support the dissemination of negative images and hatred.
It is, of course, true that as long as the roots of the conflict do not end this glossary of politically correct language will not make a very significant difference. However, anyone who reads the Urdu and Hindi newspapers will realize that in a crisis situation some of these newspapers actually increase the tension. The negative images in Pakistani childrens’ textbooks (for details see my book Language Ideology and Power, OUP, 2002) predisposes children to hatred. The BJP is trying to change Indian children’s textbooks so as to strengthen the Hindu identity which will further increase the cleavage between the two religious groups. The PTV and the Door Darshan indulge in much propaganda against each other. These things make the public so prejudiced that governments become the prisoners of the public mind. This is not the road to peace. This is not the way any conflict can be solved because conflict-resolutions need compromises and flexibility. South Asian leaders, hemmed in as they are by the Frankensteinian monstor of public opinion, cannot budge from their rigid position. To change this we must not give offence to each other.
This is where educating the media comes in. If South Asian editors decide that they will ban certain words and not use certain sterotyped images it will be a first, small, but significant, step to reduce tension. If this happens I will be doubly indebted to the editor-participants of the SAEF conference, and especially to the indefatigable Javed Jabbar, for having given me the chance to present my idea of language planning for peace.