Language Policy – Pakistan

Language Policy in Pakistan

By: Faizullah Jan

Introduction
Pakistan is a multilingual and multiethnic country with six major and over 57 small languages. However, the languages of the domains of power—government, corporate sector, media, and education etc.—are Urdu and English (Rahman 1996). Urdu, which is spoken by just 7% of the population, is the national language, while English is the official language. The small languages are under tremendous pressure, some of which have become extinct, while others are about to extinct because of the state’s favoring Urdu and English at the expense of others.

Urdu is spoken by the people who migrated from India to Pakistan at the time of partition. They are called Mohajirs, which itself is an Urdu word meaning ‘refugees’ or ‘settlers’. Almost all of them settled in urban Sindh, southern province of Pakistan. Since they were educated, they dominated the bureaucracy of Pakistan despite their numerical weakness: they were just 3% of the total population of Pakistan.

Now that Urdu has become the language of domain of power, indigenous people have to learn Urdu and English, which is the official language, to get a job in public and private sectors. Thus indigenous languages lost their vitality for their own people for pragmatic reasons. Rahman (2003: 4) says members of the elite class had a stake in the continuation of English because it differentiated them from the masses and constituted a class-identity marker. Thus Urdu and English relegated the indigenous languages to a lower status where they became a stigma instead of repertoires of local knowledge.

Historical Background
Pakistan emerged as an independent Muslim state in 1947 when India was partitioned after the British left the sub-continent as their colony. The major ethnic groups that comprised the newly-created state were Bengali, Punjabi, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Balochs. Bengalis were more than 50% of the total population, who in 1971 seceded from Pakistan to become Bangladesh.
Privileging Urdu at the expense of their language, Bangla, was one of the grievances that led to the division of Pakistan on ethnic and linguistic lines. The imposition of Urdu as a national language served to denigrate the role of every other language which alienated other language groups throughout the country (Ayres 2003: 57). In their zeal to build a nation state out of different nationalities, the different constitutions of Pakistan have waived aside as insignificant all the ethnic, racial, linguistic and cultural differences. As a result there is an almost total disregard for the existence of the various ethnic and linguistic groups.

Pakistan is home to four major ethnic groups with their own distinct languages, cultures, histories and geography. However, they share common religion of Islam. Almost all the ethnic groups constitute a majority in their area of origin and are indigenous to it, but constitute a minority in comparison to the entire population of the country.

Languages of Pakistan

Language	% of speakers
Punjabi	44.15
Pashto	15.42
Sindhi	14.1
Siraiki	10.53
Urdu	7.57
Balochi	3.57
Other	4.0

Source: Census 2001

Punjabi is a major language which is spoken both in Indian and Pakistani Punjabs. In the Indian Punjab it is used in many domains of power. It is the language of songs, jokes, intimacy and informality in both Pakistan and India, which makes it the language of private pleasure. Pushto is the second largest tongue in Pakistan and a majority language in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [formerly N.W.F.P] province, in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, it is also used in the domain of power. Sindhi and Balochi are the two other major languages that give a different ethnic and racial identity to the people who speak them.

Language Policy in Pakistan
Language policies have far-reaching educational, economic, and political effects. In multiethnic countries, like Pakistan, language policies can determine who has access to schools, who has opportunities for economic advancement, who participates in political decisions and who has access to jobs etc. Ayres (2003: 51-52) says that despite the great diversity of languages and ethnicity in Pakistan, the government has paid little attention to language as policy because of which some ethnic groups are disproportionately powerful and advantage. Though only 7% people speak Urdu, it has been privileged to cement the distinct ethnic groups into a nation.

Language policy in Pakistan is meant to strengthen the state by promoting Urdu as a national language. The language policy also claims to modernize the state through English as official language. There is an element of cultural imperialism about privileging Urdu i.e. the dominant language and aspects of its culture are passed on to people of other languages. Literate people of other cultures, especially those serving in the armed forces, speak Urdu with their children even at home to identify themselves with people of power. It alienates them from people of their own culture who stick to their mother tongue. This policy, however, boomeranged when Pakistan experienced its first language in riots in 1953, which culminated in the division of Pakistan on ethnic and linguistic lines in 1971.

Conclusion
Pakistan has a nationalistic approach to language policy. The reason is that Pakistan is not ethnically or linguistically a homogenous country. The early policy-makers wanted to create a nation on the basis of common language. The people who migrated from India to Pakistan in 1947 and afterwards were more educated than the indigenous people and they spoke Urdu.
During the campaign for an independent Muslim country Urdu was associated with the Muslims of India while Hindi was considered the language of Hindus. This is also one of the reasons that Urdu was declared the national language of Pakistan. English had been—and has been—the language of the elite, it was declared as official language of the country.
Urdu and English became the languages of education and the mass media. The mainstream mass media of Pakistan are dominated by these two languages. There are very few newspapers and magazines that are published in indigenous languages. Urdu and English were privileged which set indigenous languages on the back foot. A majority of people cannot read or write their mother tongue (native language). Therefore the common people consume the Urdu media, both print and electronic, while the elite class gets their news and views from the English media.
As the result of language policies of Pakistan, the country is losing its cultural and linguistic diversity which is alienating the young generation “from their ancestors, their roots, their culture and their essential self. They do not add useful skills; they subtract from existing skills” (Rahman 2003: 9).
Recommendations
Languages are repertoire of indigenous knowledge. When a language becomes extinct, humanity loses one storage of knowledge. Therefore, to reverse the language deficit Pakistan needs to adopt additive multilingualism as recommended by UNESCO. As recommended by several local parties and organizations, fundamental education should be imparted in mother tongue of the child. Since Urdu is the language of communication among the different ethnic groups, it can be taught as separate language. Not to be left behind in the knowledge of science and technology, English can be added to the curricula at secondary level.
Not surprisingly when a particular language is given no role to play in the education system, many parents respond by not encouraging the use of that language at home. “A very effective way of killing a language is to deny it any place in the education system; parents themselves will then tend to take the next step of marginalizing the local language within the family in favor of the educationally privileged language or languages” (OBE 2010).
The state-run Pakistan Television covers almost 95% landscape of Pakistan, more than any private media. This television service can be used for the promotion of indigenous languages by giving them proper representation in news, views and dramas. Private sector television channels concentrate mostly on urban areas because they are available only on cable and cables are limited to urban areas. Also, the private media are more commercial, like anywhere else. The state media are the only ones that have a duty beyond commercialism.
The state-run television does programming in indigenous languages, but they are too few as compared to programming in Urdu. Indigenous languages suffer from double jeopardy: 1) few programs of short duration, 2) they are not broadcast in prime time. This means indigenous language programs go on air at a time when few people have spare time to sit in front of TV or listen to radio. Television should produce more programs in indigenous languages and they should be aired in prime time. Languages also get their vitality by having its own film industry. Patronizing the production of films in indigenous languages and documenting local knowledge in local languages can also save the endangered languages from becoming extinct.
[1] A national language is a language that is spoken by the majority of the people within a nation. But in case of Pakistan, a language that is spoken by just 7% people is called national language. Presumably, the early leadership assumed that it could help build a nation out of different nationalities with their own distinct languages and cultures. Being a national language, Urdu is to be the medium of instruction in educational institutions and the different organs of the state would communicate with each other and with the public in Urdu. Also all the official documents, like constitution and legal documents, have to be produced in Urdu–which has not been materialized so far.
[2] An official language is a language that has been declared by a government to be the language of the governed nation. English, being an official language of Pakistan, means that this language will be used for official purposes–which again is communication among different state institutions. But, ironically, the constitution of Pakistan is in English, the language and education policies’ text is in English. Courts conduct their business in English. In short, Urdu is the language of the ‘nation’, which I think does not exist, while English is the language of the state.