PukhtunWomen

On a second reading, I realize that perhaps Fasi Zaka was perhaps referring to taking pride in being non-conformist, but long after I had put away last week’s issue of the Friday Times ( where his column appeared) it is his exchange with a young student being chided for speaking in a language she is comfortable with that stayed with me.

Sadly the Pakistani citizen’s relationship with language remains convoluted and reflective of how schizophrenic we all are when we come to dealing with a "Pakistani identity". I realized very soon that what I spoke at home did not fit in with the Holy Trinity (English, Urdu et Arabic) therefore it had no place in the class room. And if I were to forget and let a word slip in, it would lead to serious rebukes from the teachers and ridicule from class mates.

For Fairclough, and others in the academia language exists not only for the coordination of social activity but “(functioning) as the medium in which identity is constituted, in which we understand and define ourselves”. And when we get into analysing the conversations we enter into we can further deconstruct the ways in which we communicate (or are not allowed to). We might conclude that these are constrained by the structures and forces of the very social institutions which are essential to how we live and function. Similarly the language employed in the state discourse is also an instrument of control as well as of communication. Feminists have critiqued language by taking into account the relationships between masculinist authority and language, and as Gerda Lerner concludes “demonstrated the ways in which women have been subsumed by generic masculine, trivialized and degraded through derogatory metaphors, deprived of access to sacred languages, or silenced altogether”.

Coming to Pakistan, it is ironic that though this year marks the International Year of Language we continue to be as others have labelled us as "illiterate in more than one language". If I were to put myself under the microscope per se I realise I speak Pushto but cannot write it. I can read and offer my prayer in Arabic but with no conversational skills. Pakistani students also sit in for the infamous Persian class in BA where we only have to swot one book and answer in Urdu to get good grades. Then there is the "foreign" language that all good Convent girls should be taking up (German in my case, but I speak German as I would Pushto! ). This as my Urdu and English require major help when it comes to grammar. So where does that leave me? I frequently question myself what do I know of the languages of Pakistan? In fact what does anyone who is not Seriaki or Sindhi or Balauchi know of the language? A "sadkey deeva" we get from an Asghar Nadeem Syed play, singing along to Sheiki and Alan Faqir’s "Humma Humma" or the ubiquitious Rajhasthani tapestry on our walls does not a language make.

I admit that I rejected Urdu as a "colonizing" language growing up. Perhaps some of this came courtesy PTV dramas that would drum in every evening that being "Urdu speaking" and quoting Mir Taqi Mir was a sign of being sophisticated and any Pushto or Punjabi was left to the character playing the servant or the village bumpkin. I regret my aversion tactics now when I come across a snatch of Ghalib and realise the beauty of the words and promise myself to get back to it one day.
In addition to the aversion that the Pakistani government has towards the language of its people it has also complicated matters by looking towards the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in particular for “affirmation” and taken its cues from the region whether it is regarding its foreign policy, political and economic support, and even culture (which has added to its schizophrenia regarding its national identity). So circa the late 1970s we have seen the introduction of an Arabic news bulletin on state television, the introduction of Arabic as a compulsory subject in certain public schools and the increasing “Arabization” of the Urdu language and purging all that sounds “South Asian.” Ayesha Jalal in her work has also pointed out how it was right and proper for even the most liberal urban families to employ a maulvi for their children’s religious education which involved a compulsory reading of the Quran from beginning to end in Arabic, usually without a translation. She is of the opinion that “Exposed to Arabic while speaking in a regional language or dialect at home and learning English and Urdu in schools, and in Balauchistan also Persian, most of the first generation of upper-and middle class Pakistanis grew up being literate not in one language but practically illiterate in at least four”

Zia Mohyuddin puts it best when he speaks about his relationship with languages. I am quoting from his interview with Zameen “What does language mean to me? I think essentially, language means to me...culture. Language is nothing but culture. When you use language accurately and when you are able to appreciate a language correctly, you become at ease with that culture. Once you feel that you have acquired not just the rudiments of that language but the expression of that language, then its misuse is a travesty”.

Words to remember and live by, especially in Pakistan with all its trouble of a populace living with a multiplicity of belongings, whether its culture or religion or our diverse ethnicities. It is only when we are at ease with difference and appreciate the rich tapestry of colours, sounds and languages of our beautiful that any silly digs of how a particular language sounds or reprimanding a student would be as Mohyuddin identifies it—a "travesty".