The Wheels of Time

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Sameer:
You are indeed correct regarding Alexander. I merely misread your statement. He did die of complications of typhoid fever as I had previously mentioned (my medical training forces me to do so!)
On the other hand, the Greek version of the Alexander/Porus affair seems more accurate, and I have always believed it to be so.
Thanks for keeping alive this debate regarding our common language.

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Pardesi Ji:
I think the discussion here has completed its natural course and came back to where it began, which happens to be most important thing to note for the sake of promotion and development of Panjabi language.

It is good to know history as precisely as possible by trying to be a passive observer. It is not easy but not impossible. The second thing is that when a discipline or an area starts upward momemtum, looking back too much actually slows down momentum. All one need is to be cautious not to fall victim to the mistakes of the past. Lessening importance to past also helps heeling the wounds of the past because our history really is a history of wounds after wounds for at least 1000 years. We have the option to continue it to 1100, 1200,.....years or find some commonalities and magnify them, even if it means turning few myths into virtual reality.

Panjabi language is a patch also to be placed on wounds for heeling. We should try to enlarge this patch to cover more wounds - to become an umbrella ultimately. Both religions and nationalisms have their own place. They are here to stay and so in Panjabi language. Islam is commonality to around 400 million people, Indian nationalism about a billion, Pakistani nationalism about 130 million, Hindi about 450 million and Panjabi about 130 million. None of these can be denied by using one against the other.

Then comes priorities. I tend to put culture above nationalism and religion but that is very personal. It has much to do with diasporic influence, scientific background leading to atheistic mind and worldwide beating my other two identities are taking. Without going further, I would definitely put religion last because Panjabis are divided into three major religions with little hope of religious tolerance and almost no chance of reconciliation towards respecting each other`s religion. That is why, I strongly oppose to bring Sufism as commonality between Sikhs and Muslims and Upanishads as commonality between Sikhs and Hindus. These commonalities, in my opinion, though real but easily manipulated from vested interests in the nationalism 1940s style. I have definite reasons to believe that Sufism is being used as a tool by an interest group.

I like it as secular and liberal and forward looking as possible. In order to do this, importance of history and blame game has to be reduced if not eliminated. I do not blame my mother for speaking and teachng Urdu, nor do I resent Hindus chosing Hindi and Muslims siding with Urdu at times in the past. One has to be in that environment to analyze why something happened the way it did. I do not see Panjabi had gone anywhere, if accepted by all, spoken by all but Muslims sticking with Sufi literature, Sikhs with Sikh liturgy and Hindus with somewhere in between. Just right to speak or more mothers speaking Panjabi to their children mean nothing. The language has to be developed, literature created, taught in schools, respected equally along with the rest, media in Panjabi, Panjabis taking pride and backing Panjabi and then if mother do not teach Panjabi, ask them why.

My mother right now has actually stronger case than me. All she has to ask me to show Panjabi newspapers, magazines, books, literature - given every mother would like her children to survive best in a particular environment. It has to be top down and not bottom up at least in P-Panjab.

Once mothers see the benefit of speaking Panjabi, all the way to lessening chances of his son being killed in nationalism causes, they will. The assumption of irreversibility of language trend is not true. Within one generation, Jews coming from all over the world to Israel accepted learned, created necessary media, literature, books etc in Hebrew.

Our lamentation at the plight of Panjabi language and anger at various historical developments in this field stem from the feeling of irreversibility. No such thing! It took me less than a month to reverse this trend of two generations and that too without proper backing or systematic learning. Everything I say here came really easy for me. It was not like getting Ph.D. in chemistry and almost 16/7 working in lab for 4 years.

Actually once a critical mass is created, its momentum accelerates things. I have seen meteoric rise of Panjabi music during last 15 years from AS Kang to lord knows how many now. The language part is really not foing to take long once awareness and determination is there. What else would come with it is what we had been discussing with Sadna. The ramifications at this stage can not even be somprehended. It could possibly be the most important stepping stone in undoing of many things in that region.

The ramifications of it wold have to take into account the beating Islam is taking and retreating. I seriously believe that the current state of it would last only another 15-20 years and Pakistan will be back at the level of 1960s and early 1970s. A solution to Palestine problem and fall of Iranian Islamic experiment would ring the end of this phase. The BJP phase in India might end sooner than that. The vacuum will be filled by exactly the opposite forces. That is where Panjabi language could play very important role. This is just a personal opinion and no need to be critical of it.

Dost Mittar Ji # 129
Janab, the situation you described (Punjabis abandoning their language) is indeed very sad. What can a mother do if children tell her that they have found a more modern mummy and they do not need her anymore? All she can do is cry, blame her Kismet and wish them well.
Best regards.

sameerJB #137

``the paradigm based on the nationalism (one or two) politics of 1940s is becoming less and less important, although right now they are still in majority. Its influence on the literature is no longer dominating.``

Sameer, the paradigm based on nationalism is still important, if not so much in politics, very much so in economy. The economy of Indian Punjab is very much tied to that of the Indian nation and the economy of Pakistani Punjab is very much tied to that of the Pakistani nation. While googling for language-related links, I found that in India, the purchasing power of Punjabis in Punjab is the highest of all the Indian states - and obviously this is related being tied with the Indian economy.

I am sure Punjabis` purchasing power can be even higher, but to dismantle the strong Punjab-India economic relationships formed since Independence in favor of purely bhaichaara-logic based political/economic links between Indian Punjab- Pakistani Punjab will be extremely messy and risky for all concerned.

So the conclusion is that future Indo-Pak Punjabi cooperation will need to be win-win-win-win to make sense to Punjabis, ie, it logically must be based not on emotion but must make good political/economic sense for all, ie winning of all parties India, Pakistan, Indian Punjab and Pakistani Punjab.

Given this conclusion, IMO there is no inherent contradiction between Indian `nationalism` and increasing Punjabi cross-border links - except the case where a few Punjabis screw up things for the majority Punjabis in pursuit of personal power, personal profit and personal ideology by adopting an anti-India stance on the Indian side or an anti-Pakistani stance on the Pakistani side.

This is exactly what I explained with example back in post #47 and #52 but noone was listening!

PS #134
``a spoken language, which was local - then there was a different literary language which was written, which was often the administrative/official language of the rulers too. ``

A corollary is, it requires political awareness in the population for them to demand to be ruled in the same language they speak! So increasingly democratic govts. will help local languages including Punjabi in Pakistan.

sadna:
I agree with you about standardization of a language from a bunch of dalects. Most sikhs, before the partition, spoke mostly one or were capable of speaking one particular accent, no matter they lived in Rawalpindi, Amritsar or Multan. The reason was standardization through Gurmukhi script. Before Gurmukhi script, this accent was actually spoken by a minority of Panjabis around Lahore, Qasur, GujraNwala and Sheikhupura. Once it was standardized, rest of Panjabi started calling it east Panjabi accent, becuse of large concentration od Sikhs in that area.

Since Muslim religion can not be used for standardization of Panjabi language, it has to come from backing of state level or adopting it as medium of basic education, like primary education.

In the past, very few people were literate - less than 10 percent (mostly male). We may discuss historical developments in this field and Hindi/ Urdu/ Persian vs. Panjabi over last 200 years but in fact, it really did not matter much. On top of that, making any language official, standardization and promotion meant this small segment of society mostly centered around big cities. Even the big city concept has to be looked in that period. The largest Panjabi city, Lahore has a population of 175,000 at the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, 1820s and 1830s. This is not a guess but official census figure, whatever scientific census it was. What was possible, Persian or Urdu, in 1820s for 175,000 people, is not possible for 7-8 millions now living in Lahore.

The Panjabi paradigm has been shifted much more during the last 100-150 year period than many other ethnicities due to sharp rise in their nationalism, economic success from almost nowhere compared to UP or Bombay Presidency. Nationalism in Panjab for Panjab was exclusively Sikh thing 150 years ago, now it is no longer restricted to them. The Panjabs of today are much more different than even the Panjab of 1940s.

Isn`t this what started all this healthy debate when I pointed out a trend of no longer writing stories about the miseries and sufferings of displaced people? Becuse latest conditions, changing and fast evolving demanded it. It is a kind of market forces at work in literature and thinking. Now 2 percent of panjabis live outside subcontinent with economic muscle equivalent of perhaps 10 percent, if not more. Another 2-3 percent are spread all over subcontinent. A person communicating from Karachi or Mumbai to London or New York is no longer intersted in wasting expensive per minute telephone charges on talking about partition related issues. They might be wasting it on saying over and over, ``hor sunao, ki haal ae`` [so, how are you doing].

The market forces in language politics in P-Panjab do not ahve level playing field. It can slow it but the momentum and necessity can not stop for long from P-Panjab coming at par with I-panjab in terms of accetance of language. The establishment fears it because of its ramifications beyond language. Well, if it can not be stopped for long, why not prepare better to deal with the ramifications? Why not give democracy, justice, freedom, respect, equality to all to make them feel more attached to current nationhoods.

I know it hurts you, but the paradigm based on the nationalism (one or two) politics of 1940s is becoming less and less important, although right now they are still in majority. Its influence on the literature is no longer dominating. Since partition effected Panjab more in many destructive ways, the challenge to offset the losses of partition after the shock of 50 years of coming to term with and licking the wounds should be and could be aggressively constructive - for Panjabis, Panjabi language, I-Panjab, P-Panjab, India and Pakistan.

jaggadaku:
I said, ``almost killed`` meaning wounded. This is well known fact from both Greek historians who wrote details of Alexander`s history. he was wounded below his armpit at the roof of the citadel of Multan. The citadel, though rebuilt, still stands and attraccts many visitors and tourists to the top where it happened. The Greek Historian wrot that he recovered from the wound in 2 weeks and continued moving south and then passing through Balochistan to Iran and dying in Babylon. However, local pride in Multan and many nationalists believe that hhe never fully recovered from the wound, immune system weakened and became susceptable to viral infection. Same pride in Panjabi nationalism is also behind the reviosionist view of his war with Raja Poros at the banks of river Jhelum. Greeks say, Poros surrendered but some desi intelligentia believe that it was a draw and matters settled at table between both, and actually tripling the area under Poros rule - adding area between chenab and ravi. Greeks say that Alexander was impressed by Poros replies to his questions and granted that area and his original empire back to Poros.

12-head #132
I heard somewhere(but didnot verify for myself) that even the ethnic troubles in Rwanda can be traced to British policy towards ethnicities when they were there. Secondly, donot forget electoral power plays havoc with the traditional equilibrium of multi-ethnic societies.



Sameer #131

Thanks for the references, they were informative. In the first one, this was interesting:

``The British annexed the Punjab in I 849. The official language used by the Sikhs, whom they had defeated, was Persian, though religious schools did teach Punjab in the Gurmukhi script (Adm Rep-P 1853:98). The question of a language policy became evident as the vernacular terms used by the officers in correspondence were often unintelligible to their superiors (Letter of the Secretary, Board of Administration to Commissioners under the Board, I April 1849 in Chaudhry 1977; I). The Board proposed that Urdu should be used as the official language of the Punjab, since it was already being used in Northern India where they were established (Chaudhry 1977:3). The Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan said that, whereas the ‘Moonshees, Moolahs, and other educated persons write Persian’, not a man out of his ‘sudder establishment understands Oordoo’ (Letter to the Commissioner of Leiah, 24 July 1849 in Chaudhry 17). The Assistant Commissioner of Muzaffargarh also argued that ‘the native officers, both Sudder and Mofussil, composed chiefly of Mooltanee are unable to write Oordoo while with Persian they are familiar’ ``


The whole story began with Sikhs preferring Persian:)!

Sameer, I believe that the situation all over India, was that there was a spoken language, which was local - then there was a different literary language which was written, which was often the administrative/official language of the rulers too.

This makes sense because most of the population didnot go to school so didnot learn a standard language and had its own local language. So Punjabi and its dialects were prob. the spoken languages while the literary language of the educated in the later period was Persian first/then Urdu - depending on who was ruling.

In a similar situation, my grandfather(in a princely state ruled by a Hindu raja) used Urdu as official/business language, though the language he spoke was KhaDi Boli (Hindi) perhaps influenced by the local dialect Brajbhasha. In the next generation of my parents, they didnot learn any Urdu(pre/postIndependence) and learned standardized Hindi instead while Brajbhasha remains just a neglected dialect local to the region- though it has contributed words to standardized Hindi and was a language of literature in the time of Surdas and Kabir.


Someone pointed out that in the 1991 Indian census, data was collected for 48 different dialects of Hindi alone! This distinction between literal and spoken, I remember being told by friends, existed for other languages like Tamil too - perhaps until the modern age when public education and increase in literacy required both spoken and written/literal versions to be reconciled and some standardization to be imposed. Thus for example though Tamil probably has/had a number of local dialects - but there would now be one version taken as the standard. Literacy is taking away variety!

Anyway, back to Punjabi in Pakistan, the irony is that we Indians need to make urgent efforts to similarly revive Urdu in India. If you ask IK Gujral, he probably rues the loss of Urdu in India more than he rues the loss of Punjabi in Pakistan.

Dulla re# 128
Philadelphia is the city of ``brotherly love``.

Sameer re# 127
Alexander actually died of complications of typhoid fever, not in a war.

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sadna #130:
I agree with you and ready to retrieve that portion. I got carried away in writing that part. State was, in fact, involved in Urdu language promotion during British time.

The Panjabilok article does not give the clear picture. Isn`t it true that different time, different problems and different solutions just as jihadic Islamic solution is no longer acceptable.

Anyway, I suggest you to read more comprehensive article than Panjabilok one at:

www.apnaorg.com

and read articles by Tariq Rehman on the top or by Manzur Ejaz near the bottom. I give you link to Manzur Ejaz`s article. Both of these people also write articles for The News, daily.

http://www.apnaorg.com/articles/manzur/pstatus2.html

The part 2 might be more interesting for you but they are not long articles anyway. No conspiracy, no evil intent, just conditions then and conditions now make all the difference.

Sameer #127
``Before Partition, people had no difficulty in communicating to each other in any language they wished. When it was not a problem to begin with, then why make it a probelm and then try to solve it. There was no need to make any language official in India and Pakistan to begin with. People would have sorted it out as they have done it for millenia. ``

This paper seems to have been written before the Rajiv-Longowal accord,
http://www.punjabilok.com/misc/terrorism/1.htm

THE LANGUAGE DIVIDE IN PUNJAB


``Prior to Independence, Punjabi Hindus used Urdu as the language of administration, commerce and journalism. Urdu was also the major language of literary expression in British Punjab while Punjabi was the spoken language. As Punjabi Hindus were mainly a mercantile urban middle class, they were enthusiastic users of Urdu. They were also struggling to procure political status for Hindi which would displace Urdu. In their eagerness to achieve this objective, they began declaring Hindi rather than Punjabi as their mother tongue in the censuses with the intention of gaining numerical precedence over Muslims and Urdu. Like the Hindus, and swayed by their leaders, Punjabi Muslims--who mostly spoke regional varieties of Punjabi--fought to maintain Urdu`s official status on the lower and middle rungs of civil administration and education.``

It says ``Prior to Partition, the Muslims had a slight majority over the Hindus in the united Punjab. The British rulers made Urdu a medium of school instruction and administration at the lower and middle levels with this in view``

``The Simon Commission had [earlier] rejected the demand of making Hindi or Punjabi the medium of instruction at primary level in the schools of British Punjab.``

and etc
---

It seems that in Punjab it was first a Hindi-Urdu struggle which became a Hindi-Punjabi struggle in post Independence India. It seems that things are coming a full circle - Punjabi in India has survived this full circle via Gurmukhi and the Sikhs, while the reason it will survive in Pakistan is ...?

Pardesi:
I was not talking about the second/third generation Panjabis settled in non-panjabi speaking states. I was thinking more particularly of Delhi, which is dominated by Panjabis in culture, trade and commerce and where Panjabis play a leading role in the two major political parties, the Congress and the BJP, although their proportion in population has declined in recent decades due to the migration of labour from U.P, Haryana, Bihar, Bangladesh, etc. Even in the mohallas dominated by Panjabis, such as Panjabi Bagh and Karol Bagh, children of Panjabi parents do not speak Panjabi any more. They are not facing any forces of assimilation, rather a voluntary abandoning of their language, which they associate with backwardness and `paindoo` culture ( as if we did not all come from one pind or another a few generations ago!). I understand the historical background to this rejection, which was the almost exclusively sikh-demand for a panjabi suba which was viewed by hindus (and in my opinion, correctly) as a demand for a sikh-majority state. But this is now history and there is no need for clinging to the old notions.
Recently, my sister-in-law visited us from Kurukshetra and remarked in astonishment, ``Do you still speak Panjabi at home?`` . This association of Panjabi with backwardness is alienating Panjabis, especially Hindus, from their own language. I have a constant struggle in this respect with my own relatives but, unfortunately, am no more successful than is SameerJB with his family.
This is not a trivial matter. If we give up on our language, being a Panjabi will be reduced to nothing more than fusion bhangra, dhabas and wedding songs.


SameerJB:
Yaar, aye kee nawaan kissa chherh ditta aie. This division into potohari, seraiki, etc. is almost certainly a recent phenomenon. I have talked to older panjabi immigrants from Pakistan both here and in India and none of them ever heard the words seraiki and potohari. They did use geographic terms like Multani, Jhangi, Lahori to denote local dialects but never had a separate linguistic identity. I am not so sure if dividing Panjabis along the lines of dialects (and there could be several on this side, like Majha, doaba, etc.) is any better than dividing them along religious lines.

stuka:
To me both Saraiki and Potowari are Panjabi accents and so are hindko and hazarvi, all the way to chinese border. I have traveled in those areas and communicated in Panjabi with them without any difficulty of understanding. But I do not determine who is called a Panjabi. If a person does not want to be called Panjabi, nothing I can do. There are some people and organizations, mostly headed and supported by former military officers in Potowar region who demand separate suba or at least some official recognition of Potwari as separate language.

Additionally, the tribal (or caste) make up of Potowar region is much different than Panjabis of central Panjab. They are more Rajput and Gujjars than Jats whereas Jatts dominate central Panjab. Within Rajput and Gujjars, the subtribal identities of Potowaris are different than same tribes in central Panjab, for example Janjua or Kiyani or gakkhar etc. Historically Potowar was more in limelight than Panjab with names like Taxila and Gandhara. The rise of Panjab owes it to more clearing of vegetation from the lands between rivers. Once land was cleared, it was now more prized than arid Potowar because of high water table, more rainfall and fertile land. Since Jats played leading role in clearing Panjab for agriculture and settlements, they became dominant in this region. Moving further south Saraiki belt is again desert and arid, so people did not have to clear as much land and had sizeable population even during Alexander invasion. Alexander was almost killed in a war in Multan on his way back. This is all very old history. With the arrival of foreign Muslim invaders, both Potowar and Panjab eclipsed by Afghans and Turks and small settlements along the road from Kabul to Delhi became more important. For next 700 years, they were mainly interested in Lahore and Multan but never created a decent road link between these two cities until British did it along with many other improvements and cities and city governments. Therefore the Potowars historical political association with Panjab is relatively short - since partition, during Maharaja Ranjit singh`s rule and British Raj. But not having any difficult barrier like mountains to separate, both areas had plenty of interaction as the common language suggests.

All languages start as accent of an existing one and create momemtum as in the case of romance languages to become Spanish, Portugese, Italian, French,........Similarly it is upto people, if they like to call it Panjabi or call it Potowari. Under democratic governments it is very unlikely to happen for the fear of losing panjabi votes but with the clean and honest military administrations after delivering justice to Okara villagers and amending the constitution in national interest, who knows what they do in their stupidity.

sadna:
That information is the result of reading variety of material from books, magazines and newspapers from Pakistan. Foreign press goes according to rule. If an area or a language falls within the borders of Panjab suba, it will be Panjab and Panjabi. They have no demand from their customers for such insight details about local level interest.

Take for example two major components of MMA or Islamists/ fundamentalists. Most of the cadre of JUI of Maulana Fazloo diesel is Pashtun or Pathan. The Jamaat-e-Islami of Qazi Hussain Ahmed has disproportionately more Urdu speaking. It used to be even more before MQM took away most of the Urdu speaking vote from them. Look at the individuals and parties who regularly win in the areas bordering India along almost north-south 1000 miles in Panjab and Sindh. You would not find a single MMA candidate winning except in Lahore and that because of support from NS in order to beat pro government Quisling league.

MMA government has passed or about to pass a bill making Urdu official language of NWFP - for people half Pashtun, half Hindko. While Urdu speaking are no more anti India than others and their liberal seculars are really liberal secular, Urdu language has been perceived to be tied to Islam, TNT and independence movement and that is why MMA is for it in NWFP. I guess, official media, Islamists and establishment use this linkage without the approval of people who speak it. Otherwise people of Karachi would not approve of it and no benefit to them by making it official language in NWFP.

And what is national or provincial language anyway if all official business is carried out in English. All what is left for official backing is to back it on government cotrolled media and public schools. Why can`t governments leave it alone? Before Partition, people had no difficulty in communicating to each other in any language they wished. When it was not a problem to begin with, then why make it a probelm and then try to solve it. There was no need to make any language official in India and Pakistan to begin with. People would have sorted it out as they have done it for millenia.