Poetry as Resistance

Islam and Ethnicity in Postcolonial Pakistan

Nukhbah Taj Langah

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000365818
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Focusing on the culturally and historically rich Siraiki-speaking region, often tagged as 'South Punjab', this book discusses the ways in which Siraiki creative writers have transformed into political activists, resisting the self-imposed domination of the Punjabi– Mohajir ruling elite. Influenced by Sufi poets, their poetry takes the shape of both protest and dialogue. This book reflects upon the politics of identity and the political complications which are a result of colonisation and later, neo-colonisation of Pakistan. It challenges the philosophy of Pakistan — a state created for Muslims — which is now taking the shape of religious fanaticism, while disregarding ethnic and linguistic issues such as that of Siraiki.

PART I
Colonial and Post-colonial Treatment of Siraiki Language

1
A Journey from ‘Proto-Siraiki’ to ‘Siraiki’

Colonial Era and ‘Proto-Siraiki’: An Overview

The complex process of British colonisation in India did not involve only the coloniser’s interest in learning Indian languages but also turned language into a symbol of empowerment for some and resistance for others.¹ The linguistic policies implemented by the British rulers created a linguistic pyramid which involved research, language planning, printing and publishing in some Indian languages and by placing English, symbolising the ruling elite, at the top of this pyramid.² The other languages, while adding to the large list of languages enumerated by rulers, remained at the lower end of the pyramid and were regarded as ‘vernaculars’ or ‘regional languages’. In fact, the terms ‘vernaculars’, ‘regional languages’ and ‘dialects’ were also complicated because these tags had created linguistic hierarchies amongst the local languages of India which remained under the overall domination of English.³ The ‘vernacular’ languages were those which were recognised by the British colonialists and used as a medium of instruction, such as Persian, Bengali, Urdu, Sindhi and one or two others as opposed to dozens of other classical and rich languages such as Siraiki and even Punjabi, which were neither recognised nor used as a medium of instruction. Consequently, in the postcolonial era, scholars such as Veena Naregal and Francesca Orsini have only focused on languages like Hindi, Urdu or Marathi which were already empowered by the colonisers through incorporation into a print culture in colonial India.⁴ Equally, the tradition represented most recently by writers like Salman Rushdie, of categorising South Asian literature into ‘Anglo-Indian’ (meaning, local languages patronised by British colonial rulers) and ‘vernacular’, in which the vernacular group still remains inferior or invisible, also reflects the impact of the linguistic policies implemented in the colonial era.⁵ Such a domination of English is misleadingly reinforced by using the term ‘vernacular’ to create a distinction between literature in English and literature in Indian languages or translated from Indian languages to English, thus continuing the tradition of linguistic hierarchies. In this competition of linguistic hierarchies, both colonial and postcolonial writers have generally disregarded the deeper affective connotations of the mother languages. The main objective of this book, therefore, is to trace the significance of the mother language and its impact on political identity, focusing specifically on the problematic clash of identities within the context of Pakistani Punjab.

¹ For the discussion that I have found useful in relation to languages as a symbol of power in colonial India, see Bernard Cohn, ‘The Command of Language and the Language of Command’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies IV: Writings on South Asian History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 276–329. Another noteworthy work is Guha’s discussion about the colonial efforts at translating Indian languages or treating them as a reconstruction of the Indian history. See, Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 176–84.

² English still maintains this status in Pakistan, an issue discussed at length in the next chapter. For a discussion on linguistic hierarchies created by the colonisers and the role of vernaculars which further elaborates the colonial treatment of Siraiki, see Veena Naregal, Language, Politics, Elites and the Public Sphere, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001, pp. 101–44. For the English and vernacular divide which continued in postcolonial Pakistan, see Tariq Rahman, Language and Politics in Pakistan, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 39–58. For a very important colonial document which reflects the emphasis given to English language by colonial rulers, see Lord Macaulay, Minutes on Indian Education, http://www.vvv03.com/Minutes.pdf, accessed on 18 August 2010.

³ On the standardisation of Indian vernaculars for the use of East India Company and the colonial policies of differentiating between language and dialect, see Joshua A. Fishman, Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 436–37. For the socio-linguistic definition of language hierarchies and how they are created, as I have discussed here through the examples of Punjabi, Urdu and Siraiki, see Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Robert Phillipson and Mart Rannut, ‘Introduction’ in Skutnabb-Kangas et al (ed.), Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, p. 10.

⁴ For this incorporation of languages into print culture, education and publishing in case of Marathi and Hindi, see Naregal, Language, Politics, Elites, pp. 145–200; for the link between national consciousness and print languages which is useful in understanding the case of Siraiki in Pakistan as discussed in later chapters, see Partha Chatterjee, ‘Nationalism as a Problem’, in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (eds), The Postcolonial Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 164–66 (p. 164).

⁵ Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–91, London: Granta Books, 1991, pp. 61–81 (p. 63); for Rushdie’s major focus on the works of Indian writers writing in English, also see, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West (eds), The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947–97, London: Vintage, 1977. See also, Cohn ‘The Command of Language’.

Through the example of the language known today as Siraiki, this book argues how colonial policies influenced, complicated and politicised the linguistic and ethnic identities in the newly-formed state of Pakistan. ‘Proto-Siraiki’ was the language which caught the attention of British colonisers who were on official postings in different locations where this language was spoken, today identified broadly as South Punjab. As there were various different names used for this language in the colonial era, I will use the term ‘proto-Siraiki’ for any references made to this language before the postcolonial emergence of the term ‘Siraiki’ around the 1960s.⁶ Depending on where British officials were based, these officials proposed different names for this language, including ‘Wuch’ or ‘Mooltani’ (William Carey, 1761–1834), ‘Jatki’ or ‘Jagdali’ (Andrew Jukes, 1847–1931), ‘Western Punjabi’ (Rev. Tevor Bomford 1849–1929) and ‘Southern Lahnda’ (George Grierson, 1851–1941).⁷ Due to the fact that during the colonial era, ‘neither the need nor the circumstances for a collectivised identity existed’, consequently there was no ‘concept of linguistic uniformity’ and hence no standardised name given to this language.⁸ Colonial interest in what was later identified as the Siraiki language generally became documented through their translations of Bible in the nineteenth century, compilations of glossaries and their ‘gradual discovery’ of its territorial limits by conducting linguistic surveys in the areas of Multan, Muzafargarh and Dera Ghazi Khan.⁹ However, despite identifying the linguistic and cultural differences between ‘proto-Siraiki’, Punjabi or Sindhi languages, the officials like Grierson vaguely commented on the territorial limits of this language as follows: ‘It is impossible to fix any dividing line’ between the two’ (Lahnda and Punjabi) and therefore had to draw a ‘conventional line’ for his survey.¹⁰ His ‘conventional line’ was ‘running north and south through the east Central Panjab and …[he called] everything to the east of it Panjabi and everything to the west of it Lahnda’.¹¹ This division is today described much more intricately as ‘South Punjab’ and ‘Upper Punjab’.

⁶ Following Christopher Shackle, a British linguist working on this language, I use the spelling ‘Siraiki’ rather than ‘Seraiki’ or ‘Saraiki’ used by various other researchers. My personal communication with various Siraiki academics, writers and intellectuals also indicates that ‘Siraiki’ is the standard spelling used in English. I have therefore opted for this spelling throughout this book. Various researchers have used different spelling versions for this term. For instance, see the following works: Shaikh Khurshid Hasan, ‘Pakistan: Its Seraiki Style of Tomb Architecture’, East and West, 51, no. 1–2, 2001, pp. 167–78; Zamaan Jafery, Saraiki, Sindh and Baluchistan: SSB and National Question, Multan: Melluha Publications, 1985; Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie (eds), The Handbook of Bilingualism, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, p. 796.

⁷ Some of these colonial documents are as follows: George A. Grierson, The Linguistic Survey of India, Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1903–22. I particularly refer to the following section of this survey: ‘Vol. VIII, Part I, Indo-Aryan Family, North Western Group, Specimen of Sindhi and Lahnda’ which was published in 1919; Edward O’Brien, Glossary of the Multani Language Compared with Punjabi and Sindhi, Lahore: Printed at the Punjab Government Civil Secretariat Press, 1881. The references made in Linguistic Survey of India that I use are from the original copy available at SOAS (University of London), whereas the colonial dictionaries discussed here were not easily accessible and I, therefore used the later published versions of these dictionaries or glossaries. These republished editions are: Edward O’ Brien, Glossary of the Multani Language, ed. by Shaukat Mughal, Multan: Siraiki Adbi Board, 2002; Andrew Jukes, Siraiki English Dictionary, ed. by Shaukat Mughal, Multan: Siraiki Adbi Board, 2003; Andrew Jukes, Dictionary of the Jatki or Western Punjabi, ed. by Shaukat Mughal, Multan: Jhoke Publishers, 2003. In hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Maps and Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Part I: Colonial and Post-colonial Treatment of Siraiki Language
• Part II: Analysis of Poetry
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• Index