Language: A Status Symbol in Pakistan
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN
Just like the key to a hidden treasure, language unlocks our potential as human beings to explore the universe way beyond the solar system and way below the seafloor. Not only does it provide us a medium to share our feelings and express our thoughts, it also helps us to acquire knowledge, improve our skills, register our experiences and then pass them on to the next generation so that they perform even better.
Moreover, among all creatures, human beings are the only ones who possess the ability to read, write and speak, a characteristic that brings us in direct contact with the Divine. Notwithstanding these important attributes, language has multiple other and even more important tasks at hand to accomplish in Pakistan. It defines our ethnicity, shapes our political bias, uncovers our party associations, determines our financial status, reveals educational achievements, and is even bound to disclose our religious inklings.
In a nutshell, we can agree that the cornerstone of our intellectual development has become the source of conflict, fragmentation, discrimination and even embarrassment in Pakistan. Ibn-e-Insha explains this situation aptly through a small story in his book Urdu ki Akhri Kitab. In sum, he says when asked who lives in Iran, England or France, our response is simple: “Iranians, English and French, respectively.” But if the question is: “Who lives in Pakistan?” the typical response is: “Sindhi, Baloch, Punjabi and Pashtun.” Each of these identities, as you can see, is based on the language that we speak.
Realizing its power to divide, many Western states had reckoned these complications and had taken preventive measures to ensure unity. They allowed only one language as the medium of instruction in their countries. Decades later, it is evident that their policy worked and brought harmony and peace in their societies. That is why today most of them are economically stable and ideologically well anchored. However, this objective is difficult to accomplish in multiethnic societies like India where a consensus on one local language can never be reached peacefully. In these communities, a neutral and a more universal language like English, Spanish or Arabic can play the role of a unifying medium. As a result, English has become the language of choice in our neighboring country, and people from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu communicate with each other in it.
In Pakistan, since there has been no serious effort to promote Urdu as a national language and multiple other languages like English and Arabic are encouraged officially, the language we speak becomes extremely important for us to protect our identity. It also means that the choice of our language and the command over foreign languages would epitomize our educational, financial, religious and social status. If we are illiterate and impoverished, which may mean we have never attended a school in our lives, we will be able to speak and understand only our local language, be it Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi, Balochi or Pashto. If we have attended elementary school, we are in that case exposed to some Urdu and some Arabic, but we will still continue to communicate in our mother tongue predominantly. Other languages, although a little familiar, will largely remain foreign to us. In a government secondary school, we will eventually be exposed to English, but of course, we will not be able to enjoy all its charms and will still think of it as a source of intimidation and discrimination. But we would know enough to read some lines without understanding them. Collectively, this is the story of more than 90 percent of the people who live below or just above the poverty line and cannot afford college education.
For children born with a silver spoon, the exposure to all these languages starts at home from day one. Most likely, their parents talk to each other in their mother tongue. However, they prefer to communicate with their children in Urdu. They switch on the English channels on television for entertainment while the maulvi (priest) comes and teaches them the Qur’an in Arabic. These children are only allowed to speak in English with their friends at school until the time it becomes their second nature. After having mastered the English language in high school, they usually leave the country to obtain foreign education and settle down abroad. If they ever return to the motherland, they are even more intimidating than before and invariably consider themselves as the rulers over the uneducated and illiterate masses.
That is why from the bureaucracy to the military to the judiciary, every individual realizes its importance. They consider it as a tool to excel professionally and be recognized socially. Although, as a side note, I do not consider the language of the officers in the armed forces as English, however, it is obvious that they are not only proud of their linguistic skills; they also think it is grammatically perfect and syntactically ideal. But that is not the point; my first point is to acknowledge their ‘bloody’ hard work in trying their ‘very best’. And second, everyone in government institutions, particularly in the military, from the beginning knows that the ladder to success can only be climbed up to the top in English.
Finally, when it comes to God, we dialogue with Him in Arabic at least five times a day, not knowing the meaning of a single word, read the Qur’an in Arabic and turn pages after pages without understanding a single verse and without comprehending our own supplications. We pray to Him like a parrot who utters few syllables every few minutes. Looking at our hypocrisy, it seems like He, The Almighty, has refused to listen as well!
(The writer is a freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com )
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