Above: Punjabi writers at a shrine to poet Waris Shah.
Current Events
Punjabi Language & The Politics of Division:
A Pakistani Perspective
MAHMOOD AWAN
Any language that becomes part of a communal framework or a religious narrative not only creates complexities of mistrust among its multi-religious communities but also breeds an unending crisis of identity and politics.
In Colonial Punjab, there were four major religious communities whose mother tongue was Punjabi.
In the census report of 1901, as per the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908), out of a total population of around 24 million Punjabis, 49 per cent were Muslims, 41 per cent Hindus, 9 per cent Sikhs and 0.27 per cent Christians.
By 2014, we mainly see Sikhs and Muslims in the Punjabi language ownership debates while Hindu Punjabis who were the second largest majority of the Punjab are almost in absentia. What happened after the Partition of Punjab and during the last decades of the colonial Raj needs a full scrutiny.
However, as most of us (Punjabis of West Punjab, now in Pakistan) don’t even know the statistical self-dilution of Hindu Punjabis and how easily and systematically Hindi became their mother tongue, I will try to make sense of the whole narrative in this limited space as there are some serious lessons to be learnt in a fragile environment of the West Punjabi politics where another division of the land and language has become bread and butter of the few.
In a globalised world where people are busy creating synergies, we are hell bent on dividing ourselves further into insignificant pieces.
Although Punjabi language historically never provided its speakers the much needed political national identity, surprisingly our language and literature continued to thrive in spite of all the communal differences and colonial onslaught.
British colonialists and their embedded researchers associated Punjabi language with the Sikhs. The linguist/scholar Christopher Shackle continues this by referring to Punjabi as the “sacred language of the Sikhs” and, at the same time, presents Saraiki and Pothohari as linguistic entities of note. Then, the Sikh religious leadership also propagates the reductionist narrative by default, the language having been abandoned by the rest to the Sikhs.
Sikh games, Sikh dances, Sikh sacred music, Sikhs and the World Wars and all other Punjabi events and cultural symbols being marketed under Sikhism even today spearheaded primarily by the post 1984 Sikh diaspora unfortunately confirm impressions of that communal game.
Indian state’s brutal attack on the Golden Temple and Sikhs as a community in the 1980s has furthered this thought of ‘separateness’ among many East Punjabis (in India).
After partition another division within division unfolded as almost all the Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab had migrated to India. The Sikh population was, however, concentrated in many districts of the then Indian state of Punjab but they still remained one-third of Punjab’s total population, with majority being Hindus.
Akali Dal, the political wing of the Sikh reformist organisation, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC estd. in 1920) demanded a separate state for Sikhs on religious grounds immediately after partition in 1949.
When Nehru and the Union Government of India refused and agitations didn’t work either, Akali Dal approached the States Reorganisation Commission for a “Punjabi Suba” based on linguistic rather than religious grounds in 1953.
Hindu Punjabis should have supported that approach but due to other factors coupled with Singh Sabha and Akali Dal’s previous claims to associate Punjabi language specifically with Sikhs, Hindu Punjabi leaders decided to play their own game.
Under the influence of Hindu right wing organisations like the RSS and Arya Samaj, Hindu Punjabis started declaring Hindi as their mother tongue and in the census of 1951 and 1961 they became ‘non-Punjabis’.
The most saddening part is that the community which provided Punjabi literature with legends like Damodar Das, Peelu, Shardha Ram Phillauri, Bihari Lal Puri, Bishan Das Puri, Dhani Ram Chatrik, Ishwar Chander (IC) Nanda, Bawa Balwant, Balwant Gargi, Balraj Sahni, Davider Sathyarthi, Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Prem Parkash, Raghubir Dhand, Mohan Bhandari, Sati Kumar, Amitoj and Bhooshan, presented no dissenting voices against this lingual apartheid.
A lone Hindu voice was that of Vishwanath Tiwari, who was dismissed by many as a self-publicist.
Tiwari was father of ex-Union Minister of India, Manish Tiwari. He was married into a Sikh family and was head chair of Bhai Vir Singh Studies (in Punjabi) in Panjab University, Chandigarh when he was shot dead by ‘militants’ on April 3, 1984.
He wrote a statement ‘PunjabiãN dey nãm Appeal’ (An Appeal to the Punjabis) with his blood to plead for the cause of Punjabi. He wrote in his blood: “MaiN Punjab Wich Punjabiyyat tay BoliãN Lai Sohirdata paida karran lai sãhaeeta chahonda haaN (I need your support to create good will for Punjabiyyat and Punjabi dialects in the Punajb; V N Tiwari: 1.1.1961).
However, the influence of Swami Dayanand’s Arya Samaj (which since 1880s had been promoting Hindi as the language of Hindus in the region) worked and with the death of Jawaharlal Nehru [who was against “Punjabi Suba”] in 1964 and Indo Pak War of 1965 that highlighted the sensitivity and stability of East Punjab for the centre, Akali Dal’s demand for a separate province was accepted.
In 1966, Punjab state was trifurcated. Its eastern hill districts were merged into Himachal Pradesh. The southern districts became the new state of Haryana and the remaining districts constituted the new Punjabi Suba that we now know as East Punjab that constitutes just 15 per cent area of the undivided pre-1947 Punjab.
PaRhni hai tãN paRho Gurmukhi /NahiN tãN jã kay baitho ghar (If you want to read then read Gurmukhi (Punjabi)/ Otherwise stay at home) Bihari Lal Puri , a Hindu Punjabi poet of late 19th century wrote this grief-stricken verse for his fellow religious hawks but no one listened to him then.
However, with all the globalisation, interconnected economics and concept of soft borders, we still have time to reclaim our lost territory. Punjabi language and literature has the capacity to become the centre of gravity for all Punjabis, irrespective of their geographical locations and religious affiliation.
It will need a conscious effort and an all-inclusive mindset to own our roots.
We need a few cultural icons who are not ashamed of their Punjabiness and are intellectual enough to inspire our youth and children that can trigger a top down ownership of language and identity.
Only an unconditional love and longing for our land and heritage can heal those self-inflicted wounds: Daikh Farida Jo Th’ya, Shakkar Hoee Viss / SaeeN BajhuN ApNay, VeydaN Kahy’ay Kiss (See, Farid, What has happened: Sugar has become Poison / without my lord, who can I tell my sorrow).
The author is a Dublin (Ireland) based Punjabi poet.
[Courtesy: The News. Edited for sikhchic.com]
April 16, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Taran Singh (London, United Kingdom), April 16, 2015, 8:36 AM.
I like and appreciate what Mahmood Awan writes -- I have followed his writings from time to time. However, I do find that he is oftentimes bitter and angry, even resentful of the success that Sikhs have had in various spheres, which somewhat dilutes the impact of much that he has to say, valuable though it is. I suspect you have also edited from this piece his usual tirades against Sikhs. Wish he'd be more honest and recognize that Punjabi-Muslims in Pakistan too have done to their mother-tongue, Punjabi, what the Hindu-Punjabis have done in a self-destructive manner in India. In the absence of sober objectivity, Awan's insights may go to waste by falling on deaf ears.
2: Sarvjit Singh (Millis, Massachusetts, USA), April 16, 2015, 10:05 AM.
The writer is clearly well aware of the Indian Punjabi scene and its associated mess of Punjabi vs. Hindi, Haryana, Arya Samaj, and so forth. I can feel the poet's anger and pain in him. I have been told many times that Sikhs are standing as an entity due to Punjabi language and their faith. Gurumukhi is essential for this; without it, Punjabi -- given the circumstances, some of which have already been outline by the writer -- would've disappeared from the world. Until the creation of Haryana, Sikhs never have been in any majority anywhere. The truncation, with all of its problems, has also brought us close to our land. In West Punjab, though people speak Punjabi, they consider themselves as native Urdu speakers. Hindus too have departed from the Punjabi shared path. Sikhs are to be partially blamed for not retaining their historical connection with their Hindu-Punjabi brothers. Best we can do is promote Punjabi literature and culture. Even today there are about 100 million people who speak Punjabi in some form or the other.
3: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 16, 2015, 10:51 AM.
I agree with the author's assessment as to why the Hindus have abandoned their mother tongue. I don't agree that the claim to Punjabi is disputed between Sikhs and Muslims. Punjabi Muslims have abandoned their mother tongue for the same reasons as Punjabi Hindus.
4: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 16, 2015, 12:16 PM.
It is sad that many disowned or abandoned Punjabi as their mother tongue. This has got a lot to do with religion-based nationalism. After the creation of Muslim Pakistan whose national language was Urdu, the Punjabi Muslims chose Urdu over Punjabi and started identifying themselves with the Mughal-Islamic culture, and the same happened with Hindu India where the Punjabi Hindus abandoned Punjabi in favour of Hindi and started identifying with the Gangetic-Hindu culture of the Hindi heartland. The Sikhs can never abandon the Punjabi language because their religious texts are in Punjabi. The Sikh faith originated in Punjab and the Sikh culture is essentially Punjabi culture while the same cannot be said about Muslims and Hindus whose faiths were not born in Punjab, so these communities had no emotional qualms while abandoning Punjabi. Contrary to the opinion of the author, this is not the marketing of Punjabi culture exclusively as Sikh culture, as he claims. It would be no exaggeration to say that it is the Sikhs who have kept the Punjabi culture and language alive. These days it is hard to find Punjabi speakers among the young generation of Muslims and Hindus, they may enjoy the peppy Punjabi music but few understand what's being sung, while Punjabi is still the main language of Sikhs.
5: Sarvjit Singh (Millis, Massachusetts, USA), April 16, 2015, 1:36 PM.
1. There are various languages that have similarity to Punjabi, if you pay close attention: Pushtu, Seraiki, Darri, Balohi (Balochi), Kashmiri (Pahari), Dogri. All of the speakers of the above-mentioned will know Punjabi without issues (vocabulary might change somewhat).
6: R. Singh (Surrey, British Columbia, Canada), April 16, 2015, 6:23 PM.
Punjabi alone is not the language of Sikhs. All languages are from God, therefore all languages are Sikh languages. Gurbani is written in Gurmukhi alphabet but is in Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Marathi, Old Punjabi and a whole range of regional languages of the respective Bhagats and Bhatts and Gurus.
7: Ajit Singh Batra (Pennsville, New Jersey, USA), April 17, 2015, 10:52 AM.
I am a product of Khalsa Collegiate School, Amritsar. We had Hindus and Muslims in our school, attending "Dharam Vidyaa" (relgious instruction) classes. The teacher would converse in Punjabi. And when it came to 'writing' during the examination, Muslims would write in Urdu, Hindus in Hindi and Sikhs in Gurmukhi. I learnt then that even in Islamia schools and colleges, conversation-wise everybody spoke in Punjabi. So, basically, residents of Punjab (now and pre-partitioned), they converse in Punjabi, but when it comes to 'writing' they use their (religious) language: Hindi, Punjabi or Urdu. The problem in Punjab has always been the dichotomy between the spoken language and the script used to write it.