Still it is incumbent upon the immigrants to realise that it is their obligation to learn the language of the hosts and not vice versa. It is also the immigrants' duty to ascertain that their children set their roots deep in the new soil, draw their nourishment from it and become accepted in the local flora; rather than take the characteris­tics of the weeds — always inch deep, always a nuisance, always removable.

Besides many smaller fractions there are five major linguistic groups in Pakistan: Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Balochis and Kashmiris. Each of these groups has a linguistic history and culture which is rich in its contents. Unfortunately, all of these languages are mostly in spoken form. Some half-hearted¹ attempts were made to document their heritage but without the backing of the central government — which was run by the Urdu speaking or neo-Urdu bureaucracy — not much progress is possible. Strangely enough, each of these groups consists of millions of people who continue to accept the rape of their mother¹ tongue with indifference and an alarming lack of con­cern for its future protection. During my last visit to Pakistan in 1982, I talked with many people from different social backgrounds. They ranged from peddlers at the road side to university teachers. All of them suffered from the same sickness — 'Chronic Lingual Invalidity'. The least ill were the peddlers and the uneducated because they were not strained by their inability to express themselves or comprehend others fully in reading or writing — they could neither read nor write. The suffering became obvious as I reached the primary level educated group, more evident among matriculates and rather acute at the higher level of studies. In other words, the awareness of a person’s inability to express himself satisfactorily in linguistic terms is, generally speaking, directly proportional to the level of education a person has reached. In Lahore which boasts a literacy of 50% — the population in the larger towns has a much higher literacy rate than the average figure for the country — most of the educated believed that they could express themselves very well in Urdu. On further probe I discovered that their belief was not always supported by the degree of their command over Urdu. The syntax was often deplorable, meanings of the words were wrongly used, and the same idea expressed in Punjabi was far more assertive and satisfying. Excepting a few students from the English medium schools, English taught and spoken in Pakistan is Victorian; if not still more primitive. The expression and syntax used is not self composed in relation to the situation at hand, but is read directly from picture memory of the pages written and printed many years ago but, perhaps, memorised recently.

Thus the vast majority of the Pakistanis, today, are mentally handi­capped by a persistent denial in letting them develop their own languages. There are further indications that some traitor Mullas are on their way to make things worse by enforcing Arabic on the already strained minds. A wicked thought.

What the Pakistanis need is an unrestrained possibility of the application of their mental abilities; and that can only be achieved if they were to think and express themselves in their own languages. I protested above against the selfish interest of the Urdu speaking minority group in maintaining Urdu as the national language, and now I warn against the intentions of the Mullas, a group far more evil and demonic, who shall use Arabic in further degeneration of the Pakistani mind. The very thought that forty three million Punjabis, eighteen million Sindhis, eleven million Pathans and three million Balochis, along with a few million other minority groups, shall go around babbling in the dialects of some distant desert Bedouins is so very repulsive. It will definitely guarantee Hulva for the Mullas but at the same time cause a famine in the Pakistani mind. This must not happen.

The sensible approach will be to elevate the status of the local language to the level of Urdu and English, and far above Arabic. It shall be unwise, however, to degrade Urdu or English from their present status. English is indispensable for international communi­cation and the Pakistanis are lucky to have their basic instruction system in English which can be improved upon. Urdu, although it shall take a few generations before it can impart substantial emotional-colour to the people, serves the vital purpose of intercommunication between different ethnic groups within Pakistan and, therefore, ought to be kept. Besides, it does have a very rich collection of prose and poetry which should be judged on its own excellence and not disgraced because some egoists made a misapplication of it. The urgent most effort required just now is to develop systems of trans­cription for the native languages and their introduction in the schools from the very early stages and at least up to the matriculation level. A further step is to document and preserve the old poetry and prose in its original form as quickly as possible. When I conversed with the young Punjabis in 1982, I was astonished to learn that they lacked the knowledge of words which were so very common only twenty years ago. This pattern, as I found out from other sources, is ap­plicable to the other local languages as well. I understand that a language does not have a static vocabulary. Words emerge or go out of fashion along with the passage of time, but in a space of only twenty years the complete disappearance of so many words of common use is a process too hasty. If this disregard of the native languages continues and their vocabularies keep on diminishing then perhaps Urdu or Arabic will become the prevalent means of com­munication — but it shall be a very insipid, artificial and emotionally poor communication, requiring many decades to form the rudiments of the emotional content of the population's psyche. Perhaps, although I personally consider it as an impossibility, it is feasible to translate all the worthy material from the native languages into Urdu or Arabic. But the question is "For whom all this change is made?" Certainly not for the Pakistanis, who already possess some very rich languages of their own. The honest answer is "It is the despotic wish of the few who dictate upon the millions to demonstrate the difference between the rulers and the ruled".

There are several ways to test the validity of the above given contention. A common observance is that in a classy restaurant a group of guests could be engaged in conversation in any of the local languages but an order to the waiter is always placed in Urdu — some­times in English. This very shift from a native language to one of the elites is what separates a master from the servant. An objection to this observation could be that people place the order in Urdu because it eliminates the risk that the waiter may not understand one of the other languages. This is a valid objection — but only in very few cases. Educated persons who have Punjabi as their mother tongue placed their orders in Urdu, even when the waiter was an obvious Punjabi speaker. This attitude is uncommon among the Pathans and the Balochs, but the main habit for the Punjabis. There are special reasons for it. The Punjabis suffer from a rare sickness called 'The Order Complex'. Over many centuries the Punjabis as the far­mers and the soldiers, have taken and given orders to each other and today it has become an integral part of their thought process that another person is either superior or inferior, but never equal. As most of the rulers in the past were non-Punjabi speakers, extra­ordinary efforts are made to escape the native identity through expres­sion in any but their own language — a kind of pseudo affinity with (he rulers of bygone times. The most humiliating example of this language-flight is that the national poet of Pakistan —Iqbal — com­posed his poetry in Urdu, and when he felt hyper-elated, he chose to write in Persian. Born, raised and educated in the Punjab he has no renowned, if any at all, composition in his mother tongue, not even in the verbal form. Apologists have tried to mute the objec­tions by pleading that he wrote in Persian because he intended to reach the vast majority in the world. It is ridiculous — Persian never was, nor is, a major international language. As a matter of fact against thirty-five million Persian speakers there are at least eighty million Punjabi speakers in the world. Even if I were to retreat to Iqbal's era_; the number of speakers in Persian and Punjabi has changed but not the proportions. The birth and the death rates in Persia and Pakistan (India) are, and were, quite similar. Iqbal's escape from Urdu to Persian was not an attempt to reach the majority. On the contrary he was, consciously or subconsciously, writing, for the selected minority which comprehended Persian.

That the non-Urdu speaking persons had an induced inferiority com­plex could be openly observed in the daily life in the years after the partition; which in turn rebounded in an attitude of general hostility towards Urdu speakers. On a confrontation between two persons where one of them was an Urdu speaker and the other, let us say a Punjabi speaker of more or less equal social status, the non-Urdu speaker often had to yield to the Urdu speaker by attempting to express himself in a medium he was ill at ease. That put the Urdu speaker in a dominant position which lead to internal conflict in the opponent. He was made to feel awkward and invalid in his natal town, bitterly resentful of the privilege given to a foreigner and a foreign language. This yeasted group hostility and further cleavage between the two groups. The situation has improved in the later years but it shall continue to cause friction as long as the natives are burdened by unwanted imports.

I can not see any wisdom in a leader who addresses his nation in a language where the majority does not understand it. The leader knows this, nevertheless he expects people to follow the guidelines which he is laying before them — all in good faith that he has reached the ears, if not the mind of his people. Eventually the national message gets translated into the local languages by the local leaders; but seldom without the addition of self-oriented ingredient to meet the interests of the local leaders.

Let us look at the situation a bit more comprehensively: Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Balochis, Kashmiris and remaining linguistic groups are led and ruled by a handful of men who employ mostly Urdu, and when appropriate to their needs 'English', in marking down the unlucky subordinates. Invariably the voice is raised for the preserva­tion and development of the indigenous languages. On such occasions a little understanding is extended, a few paper projects are sketched, to satisfy the most angry. Yet this extension of understanding has always been a diversion, at least so far. The primary education, to the children is given in Urdu and later English is taught. In other words millions of fresh young brains are deprived of the most nourish­ing ingredient — the   emotional content — in their   linguistic feed. They learn Urdu in the schools and speak another language at home. This not only hinders a fluent conversation within the family but also sets sentimental   barriers between the younger and the older generations. Besides, because of the importance given to Urdu and its status as the national language the young minds may find their non-Urdu speaking parents rather deficient in their obligation to the nation. The mind at that age is too young to apprehend the tyranny of the ruling class. It is also at its most fertile stage and may either be used for the cultivation of ethical thinking, a positive realistic approach towards life, a sense of individual integrity balanced with belief in collective well-being and a pride in the national identity coupled with faith in international brotherhood or it may be im­planted with seeds of obligatory obedience, a servile individuality, a distrust of the others, a fear of uncertain -present and an unpromising-future. In the daily school life of Pakistani children, the Persians are acclaimed, the Arabs are extolled, the Moguls are glorified, ex-robbers from Afghanistan are lauded as the keepers of Islam, rape of India by the non-Indians is applauded, the Hindus are cursed, the Sikhs are defamed and ridiculed incessantly, but there are no echoes of praise sung for the contributions towards their improvements by some indi­genous Pakistani. From their very childhood the youth is infected with all the praise bestowed upon the outsiders, while only aid and mercy is asked for the Pakistanis.

I can say with confidence that this approach to life by the political and religious leaders of Pakistan entails no 'wisdom of the East' nor some master plan by inscrutable Orientals. It is a straightforward execution of a scheme of personal gains by these groups of asinine, evil-minded anti-People opportunists who have continuously collabo­rated with external masters against their own people.

To me the inability of the majority of the Pakistanis to participate directly in discussions on policy making about solving the problems of the nation is one of the root causes which has contributed to the misery there.