Urdu, Muslim identity, and Pakistan: Islam and language both contributed to the creation of Pakistan, a state for the Muslims of British India, in 1947.
Islam was the principal identity symbol of the Indian Muslims who got mobilised to give a united opposition to the Hindu majority to obtain maximum political and economic advantages and then, under the leadership of Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), partitioned India to create Pakistan and Bharat (India). Urdu, which had become a symbol of Muslim identity during the 19th century, was the subsidiary symbol of the Indian Muslim identity which helped establish the new state. In short, South Asia is witness to the adoption of a local language, Urdu, as the language of Islam - both the identity symbol of the Muslim community and the medium of instruction, preaching publication of Islamic material - rather than Arabic.
This would not have occurred without the British intervention which brought modernity in South Asia. Indeed, the idea that numbers are politically significant - for quotas in jobs, admissions in educational institutions, government patronage - was created by the British who introduced modern concepts like representation of the people, equality before a secular legal system and the creation of an ubiquitous public service all over India. When the Indians experienced the census, they found that the category 'Mahomedan' (Muslim) could be disempowered or empowered, impoverished or enriched, deprived or benefited depending on a number of factors out of which the only ones they understood were numbers and loyalty to the rulers.
This game of numbers created the perception of a monolithic Muslim community - suppressing sectarian (Shia, Sunni, Aga Khani, Bohri etc); class (ashraf=gentlemen versus ajlaf = commoners) and linguistic or ethnic divisions- which was held together by Islam and Urdu. The mirror image of this was the constructions of the Hindu 'Other' hold together by Hindutva and Hindi. Besides investing political and economic significance in the categories of 'Muslim' and 'Hindu', modernity also made it possible to disseminate language much more widely than ever before.
The printing press, the schooling system, the textbooks, the political speech and pamphlet and later the radio all spread out standardised versions of languages - mostly Hindi and Urdu in north India and the areas now comprising Pakistan - which created communities (Muslims and Hindus) much as literacy created nationalistic identities in modern Europe in a process described by Benedict Anderson.
Almost a century - from the middle of the nineteenth century till the creation of Pakistan-of the Hindi-Urdu controversy, makes us realise how potent the symbolic value of language was in the creation of the politicised modern Muslim and Hindu identities. But these constructions came at the cost of suppressing aspects of the communal self which manifested themselves later as we shall touch upon in passing.
THE POLITICS OF URDU AND ISLAM IN PAKISTAN AND NORTH INDIA:
Both Urdu and Islam came to play different, and even opposing, roles in the power dynamics of post-partition Muslim communities in Pakistan and north India. In Pakistan the ruling elite, which was mostly Punjabi-speaking, continued to consolidate its dominance over the different ethnicities comprising Pakistan in the name of Islam and Urdu. The Bengalis, who were a majority in the new state, reacted to this dominance by mobilising the symbol of language to give a united front to the West Pakistanis.
This movement, the Bengali language movement, culminated in the deaths of protesting students on 21 February 1952 and laid the foundation for separatist nationalism. At last, after a bloody civil war in 1971, the state of Bangladesh was created. In West Pakistan, the Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns and Siraikis have all used their respective languages as ethnic identity symbols to procure power and a more equitable distribution of power and resources in the state. Thus, in Pakistan Urdu came to be associated with the ruling elite as far as its domination over the weaker ethnic groups was concerned. The strongest religious influence on the educated, urban lower-middle and middle classes is that of the Jama'at-i Islami which was a strong supporter of Urdu. According to Seyyed Vali Nasr:
The party [Jama'at]... much like the Muslim League had viewed Urdu as the linchpin of the two-nation theory and a cornerstone of Pakistani nationalism. Allegiance to Urdu was therefore an article of faith in the Jama'at. The rural and urban poor are as deeply rooted in vernaculars such as Baluchi, Pashto, Punjabi, Siraiki, and Sindhi. Outside of the Muhajir communities of Sindh, Urdu is not used below the lower-middle class.
Because of the religious right's support of Urdu, both the ethno-nationalists, using the identity symbols of the indigenous languages of he people as well as the Westernised elite using English oppose Urdu. The latter feel that this language would empower the religious lobby which, in their view, would suppress women and probably inhibit creativity, arts and research. Hence Khalid Ahmed, a well known liberal intellectual from Lahore, argues that Urdu is intrinsically not a progressive language while English is.
While in Pakistan Urdu is pro-establishment and right wing, in India it is anti-establishment and stands for the autonomy, identity and rights of the Muslim community. Though spoken only in parts of north India, and that too in the urban areas, it is a symbol of the Muslim identity. Because the Hindus are in a huge majority the Muslims feel that the fight to preserve Urdu is part of keeping India a pluralistic democracy. Apart from writings by scholars and Muslim politicians in India, the clergy regards Urdu as a language of Muslims. J.S. Gandhi, who heard a mullah pontificating to that effect in 1996, feels that Urdu is not the property of Muslims. That feeling, though linguistically, historically and culturally correct, does nothing to change the perception that Urdu is associated with the Muslim identity in India both among Muslims and Hindus.
THE POLITICAL USES OF LANGUAGE PLANNING OF URDU IN PAKISTAN:
Since the state used Urdu as a symbol of Islamic identity, its language planning activities revolved around it. One instance of legitimising West Pakistani domination of Pakistan was the Islamization of Bengali. The central government established adult education centers to teach Bengali through the Arabic script. The Language Committee set up in 1950 recommended non-Sanskritized Bengali and the teaching of Urdu. At this period, because Bengali ethnic identity was expressed through the Bengali language, Urdu was seen as an imposition by the West Pakistani elite to dominate and exploit East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was then called).
However, Urdu had a presence in the madrassa and the link with Deoband, which East Bengal shared along with other parts of Muslim South Asia, remained. Because of this link a number of Muslim clerics learnt Urdu and read Islamic literature in that language. Even quite recently in Bangladesh, Urdu remains associated with Islam in the madrassa and in the minds of those who see themselves as members of a South Asian Islamic community. Thus Farhad Mazhar, a writer of Urdu in Bangladesh, told the Pakistani writer Asif Farrukhi in 1988 'Urdu should be reclaimed as an integral part of the sub-continent's Islamic culture'.
Another area in which the Islamic identity was associated with Urdu and its script was in neologism - the coining of new terms to express modern concepts in the languages of Pakistan. Here, to begin with, Urdu itself was purged of Persian and Hindi elements (Allah Hafiz replaced Khuda Hafiz during Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization [1977-1988] because Khuda is the Persian word for God whereas Islamic purism required the Arabic equivalent.
The Urdu script was considered the desiderated script for languages without an old established script such as Punjabi, Siraiki, Balochi, Brahvi and of course, the unwritten languages of the country. In Balochistan, the convention on the Balochi script held in September 1972, become a battle ground between the left-leaning ethno-nationalists and the right-leaning Pakistani nationalists. The former rejected the Urdu script even preferring the Roman one to it while the latter insisted upon it.
This horizontal (ethnic) conflict is not the only one in which Urdu plays a political role. It is also part of the vertical (socio-economic class) conflict in the country. In this role it favours the mostly Urdu-educated lower middle class against the English-educated upper-middle and upper classes (the middle class falls unevenly in both divides). While the elites of wealth and power can buy English schooling, the masses are educated either in Urdu (in interior Sindh also in Sindhi) or not at all. While English-medium schooling tends to disseminate liberal views making students more tolerant of religious minorities and sensitive towards women's rights, it also alienates students from their culture and makes them look down upon their compatriots who are not as Westernised as themselves. In short, Urdu and Islam are used to subordinate the ethnic elites in favour of the Punjabi elite but, ironically enough, both are in fact subordinated to the interests of the Westernised, English-using, urban elite.
The political uses of Urdu as a part of the Islamic and Pakistani nationalist identity are, therefore, complex and contradictory.
POLITICAL VOCABULARY IN URDU:
Although this is not the place to undertake a study of the political vocabulary of Urdu a la Bernard Lewis, it is possible to point out the religious and political implications of some of this vocabulary. This vocabulary borrows extensively, self-consciously, from Arabic and Persian rather than the indigenous tradition. Thus words like 'chunao' (election), 'raj' (rule), common between Urdu and Hindi, are studiously avoided and their Perso-Arabic equivalents 'intikhabat' and 'hukoomat' are used. Sometimes there is no term corresponding to the one used in English. A notorious case in point is 'secular' for which the one in use in Urdu is 'la-din' (without religion).
In this context Bernard Lewis tells us that such a term did not exist in Arabic or Turkish either. In Turkish, as in Urdu, the nedogism used was ladini. This term, coined by Zia Gokalp (1875/76-1924), was often taken to mean 'irreligious' or even 'antireligious', and these interpretations further increased the hostility with which the notion was received'. This is exactly what has happened where Urdu is used for the same purpose.
Modern Turkey does, however, have the word Layik, 'a loanword from the French'. Arabic has a more satisfactory term, first used by Christian Arabs, alamiani from alam (= the world). Urdu could use the word duniyavi from duniya (the world) with the same meaning. It would be far less biased than the term la-din which, in effect, implies that those who support secular democracy are apostates.
THE INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES OF PAKISTAN AND ISLAM:
Although Urdu emerged as the major language of Islam in most of South Asia, the indigenous languages of Muslims - Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Brahvi etc - of these areas were also used for religious purposes. Thus, in the case of Urdu, there are Sharia'h guidebooks in all these languages.
While most of these books were not part of the formal curricula in the madrassas, some were taught at one time or the other. For instance Richard Burton, the famous explorer and Orientalist, mentions the names of Sindhi books which were taught in the schools before the British conquest. Similarly the Baran Anwa, a rhymed Sharia'h guidebook in Punjabi, is mentioned in the great epic work Heer Ranjha. The names of such books in Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi and Brahvi are given in detail in my book Language, Ideology and Power and need not be repeated here.
The point which needs to be made here is that a large number of these works were written during the 18th century when Muslim political power was weakening and the ulema feel that a Muslim identity based upon an internalisation of the rules of the Sharia'h was desiderated. Such a reaction is clearly in evidence in Balochistan where the ulema took fright when the Christian missionaries translated the bible in Balochi and Brahvi between 1905 to 1907. One of them, Maulvi Mohammad Fazil (1823-96) from the village of Darkhan near Dhadar, created a movement for writing religious books in the local languages. This movement, known as the Darkhani school, got a number of Sharia'h guidebooks printed which are available in private collections in Balochistan.
As the Baloch ulema also felt threatened by the Zikris, a sect which believed that obligatory prayers had been abolished, they counteracted this idea by emphasising upon prayers.
In short, threat produced the urge to promote Islamic orthodoxy through the peoples indigenous languages which were not otherwise considered worthy of formal transmission of religious knowledge. But even when there was no threat, there were products belonging to themes from folk Islam - the veneration of the prophet, members of his family (ahl-i-bait), saints and the martyrs of Islam. Thus Nur Namas, which were rhymed stories about the creation of the radiance which is the essence of the Prophet (in Barelvi thought) and is eternal, were common in all languages. Similarly, Jang Namas and Karbala Namas recounting the battle of Karbala (October 680) in which Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, fought Yazid ibn Muawiyah (r. 680-683), are also found in all these languages.
All these stories in verse are sung by people who have memorised them. Thus they are also known to completely illiterate people, especially women, who used to listen to them in their homes. These practices used to be common in the villages of Pakistan but the spread of the radio and the T.V. have weakened their hold upon the people. Even now, however, some forms of rhymed verse in the in other tongues are sung on occasions such as the Maulud (the birthday of the Prophet) or the Muharram (the month of Karbala according to the lunar calendar).
Moreover, despite the fact that, except for Sindhi, the indigenous languages of the people are neither used as medium of instruction nor as compulsory languages in schools, small tracts (chapbooks) in these languages are still printed and sold. This means that the availability of religious literature in the mother tongue serves a persistent need which the availability of much richer religious literature in Urdu cannot fulfil.
ENGLISH AND ISLAM:
English is associated with Westernization and liberal values in Pakistan while Urdu is the language of Islam. However it is English which is fast becoming the language of what Olivier Roy calls 'globalized Islam'. It is the language of Muslim websites some of which are neo fundamentalist and militant. Thus a virtual ummah exists on the internet where the anger about Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim grievances is expressed in the idiom of Islam which all Muslims with knowledge of English can understand. This role of English is explained by Roy as follows:
But this use of English (to translate Islamic books in it) also favours English-speaking preachers, these living in the West or in countries where English is an official language (such as Pakistan and South Africa). Transmitters are often people with a minimum of experience - the aged Wahabi Sheikhs based in Saudi Arabia rely on their English-speaking disciples to be translated but also to be informed.
Thus, most Islamic centres operate in English in the United States. Even the maulvis imported from Pakistan are under pressure to learn English because the U. S has a large middle class, professional community of Muslims who operate in English anyway. In the United Kingdom, where the Muslim community is predominantly of Pakistani rural origin, Urdu was the preferred language with the older generation. The traditional maulvis from Pakistan fought to preserve Urdu too.
However, the younger generation, including the neo fundamentalists, are in favour of using English for religious purposes. In any case the younger generation of Pakistani (and north Indian) Muslims growing up in English Speaking countries, do not relate to the culture which uses Urdu. Nor, for them, has Urdu any special religious significance. Thus, they are trying to make English the language of the international Islamic identity.
Paralleling this development, there is a 'recent configuration between the global demand for English and a new brand of Christian Evangelical activity that now confronts the world'. In fact, since English reaches out to more people than any other single language, all ideological preachers, use it as a tool to spread their world view. This makes English the most powerful carrier of competing world views ever seen on the globe. This is a sobering thought for those who are apprehensive of intellectual invasion and conquest to the exclusion of diversity.
Except for Arabic, there is no special language of Islam. However, a language used by a community of Muslims can become the language of Islam and the Muslim identity in a specific time period and region. With the advent of modernity, Urdu, a language of north Indian origin, became such a language with political, social, educational, economic and cultural consequences. It became part of (ashraf) Muslim identity replacing Persian which occupied that position earlier. It became a symbol of the Muslim political identity next only to Islam itself during the struggle for the creation of Pakistan out of British India. Then, in Pakistan, it became a part of the Pakistani (as apposed to the ethno-nationalist) and Muslim (as opposed to secular and Westernised) identity. In these roles it opposed the aspirations of the language-based ethnic elites at the horizontal (regional) and that of the lower middle classes for power at the vertical (socio-economic class) levels.
IT ALSO BECAME A LANGUAGE OF EDUCATION, AGAIN DIVIDED ALONG IDEOLOGICAL AND CLASS LINES: Urdu-medium schools and colleges being mostly for the lower middle and middle classes and catering to right wing political and cultural views while English caters mostly for the upper-middle and upper classes and liberal political and cultural views. In journalism too Urdu is associated with the right; the indigenous languages with ethnic nationalism and English with liberalism.
Thus, in Pakistan, Islam is associated with Urdu in complex ways which express how identity is constructed with reference to new realities created by modernity. The Indian Muslim community also perceived Urdu as part of their collective identity. This makes it an anti-hegemonic, liberal force acting on behalf of pluralism and liberal democracy in India while in Pakistan it is mostly seen as a symbol of the domination of the centre over the provinces; the hegemony of the Punjabis over other ethnic groups of the country and, generally, with right-wing, religious orientation. The association of Islam with language, then, is a complex, multi-dimensional and even contradictory phenomenon in Pakistan and north India.
(Concluded)
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