THE significance of language in individual and societal
lives is vital. It’s one of the important cultural expressions that act
as an identity marker. With the passage of time the socio-political
aspects of language were brought to light by linguists, anthropologists
and social thinkers.
Now language is considered a linguistics phenomenon and a highly
socio-political concept that is linked to power.
Language is no more viewed as merely a neutral and passive tool of
communication but a powerful constituent of social reality. In a number
of imperialist adventures language was used as a weapon to gain and
sustain control over the colonised nations. The cultural hegemony is
generally facilitated and made possible with the help of language. Power
groups consider their language and culture as supreme and take on the
job of civilising others by imposing their language and culture on them.
No language is inherently superior or inferior but its speakers’ status
lends to social prestige to the language. Powerful groups consider their
language supreme and view others’ as substandard. Terms such as
‘dialect’ and ‘vernacular’ were used to downgrade a language. The
contemporary view, however, suggests that all languages are equally
respectable. That is why the term ‘dialect’ that had a negative
connotation, is no more in vogue and linguists prefer the term ‘variety’
instead.
During the imperial rule in pre-independence India, English was used as
a tool to create a class of people who could act as a liaison between
the colonisers and the Indian masses. Macaulay’s Minute on Indian
Education was a typical example of the imperialistic technique of
glorifying one’s own language and culture and stigmatising others’.
Comparing the superiority of English over Sanskrit and Arabic, the two
languages so dear to Hindus and Muslim, Macaulay’s view was sweeping and
judgmental, “A single shelf of a good European library was worth the
whole native literature in India and Arabia.”
The imposition of English was made possible in a strategic manner by
attaching benefits and perks to it which included government jobs in the
British Empire and a relatively elevated social status. These pragmatic
benefits persuaded people to learn English.
Some religious groups in India opposed English as a symbol of imperial
rule but very soon Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his colleagues realised that
closing the doors to English would simply mean giving up opportunities
for an improved life during British rule. During the Pakistan Movement
language emerged as an important factor to fight the case of an
independent country on the basis of the two-nation theory. Urdu was
adopted by Muslims as their language as compared to Hindi associated
with the Hindus.
In 1947 when India was divided and Pakistan came into being, Urdu was
declared the national language of the new state. We see three major
trends in deciding the national language of a country. The first is that
the mother tongue of the majority is given the status of national
language as in the case of the US and UK where English is the mother
tongue of the majority of people and thus the national language. The
second trend is that liberated colonies decided to keep the language of
their masters as the national language as happened in Africa. The third
is that instead of one language certain countries declared more than one
language as their national languages as in Canada where they have
English and French.
In Pakistan we see that none of these trends were kept in view while
deciding about the national language. Urdu was not the mother tongue of
the majority. The majority comprised Bengalis followed by Punjabis,
Sindhis, etc. There was not much resistance against Urdu from Punjab on
two major counts: First because of the close affinity between Urdu and
Punjabi at the grammar and lexicon levels; second, because Punjabis were
in the army and in the bureaucracy and thus were close to the centres of
power. This was not the case with the Bengalis as there was no affinity
between the two languages and Bengalis, having minimum representation in
the army and bureaucracy, were not present in the centres of power.
This sense of deprivation coupled with the centre’s insistence on having
one national language led to historical protests. The demand was to
declare Bangla, besides Urdu, as a national language. By the time centre
was forced to declare Bangla as the second national language it was
already too late. The death of Bengali students at Dhaka University gave
impetus to the movement of freedom that culminated in the shape of
Bangladesh.
In the recent past a group of scholars raised the issue of replacing
English with Urdu. But this proposal is abstract in nature and not
practicable in the absence of political will at the state level. The use
of the mother tongue at an early level, however, needs serious
consideration as there is ample research to suggest the usefulness of
the mother tongue during the early phase of education for concept
formation among children.Language choice should not be an either/or
question. We need to expose our children to different languages,
including English. But learning English should not mean sidelining our
mother tongue and indigenous languages.
The writer is director of Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences at
Lahore School of Economics and author of Rethinking Education in
Pakistan.
shahidksiddiqui@yahoo.com
