LANGUAGE

By: Nasser Yousaf 

THE LANGUAGE DILEMMA 

Zubeida Mustafa is the leading author of 'Reforming School Education in Pakistan and The Language Issue.' The book includes contributions by many other authors, scholars and essayists. It is no less than an honour having the trust of an editor of her class.

Zubeida could have authored the book alone but as I know her she loves working in the inclusive spirit of a democratic environment. She literally loathes imposing her opinions. 

The subject of education in the mother-tongue is very academic and hence may not be very tempting to elicit long time reading interest. I remember the first thing she said when she called me and broached the subject. 'We would focus on stories of personal success and achievements in the area,' she stressed in her soft, calm and persuasive voice.

The book came out in 2021. My circumstances at that time didn't allow me reading it beyond my own little contribution. This was known to Zubeida Mustafa as she remained in touch and would offer help.

Zubeida Mustafa has written extensively, untiringly and indeed ceaselessly on the subject touched in the book in great detail. For years, I have found her beseeching and pleading with the authorities, parents and teachers. But with little success, I may add. No wonder then that whatever little attention this subject is drawing in Pakistan is solely due to Zubeida Mustafa. 

People in Pakistan, except in matters of how to make big money, have to contend with an attention-span syndrome. This sickness has been exacerbated by the numerous social media platforms. People immediately delete and dismiss anything that may beg attention longer than a minute.

Like my essay in the book, any further comments by me on the subject of education in the mother's tongue and the related issues would also be that of an ordinary person. I consider it a wonderful feeling standing along all those other contributors to the book who possess very high qualifications including degrees from the renowned foreign universities. I, on the other hand, have a simple master's degree in Economics from the University of Peshawar.

Before submitting my viewpoint on some other issues discussed at length in the book, I must say I found no acceptable definition or description of the word 'language' itself in the long discourse. It was like not being able to see the forest for the trees. 

Many years ago, I read a book titled 'The Discovery of India' by Jawaharlal Nehru. I had grabbed the book from the fast vanishing library of my late uncle. It was perhaps the first edition of the book and was in hardcover as books in old days mostly used to be. I loved holding the book in my hands and reading it. I don't know for whatever reason but I tick- marked some passages. I never knew one day it may help me explain some point. Below is one of the highlighted passages:

'The modern Indian languages descended from the Sanskrit, and therefore called Indo-Aryan languages, are: Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujrati, Oriya, Assamese, Rajasthani (a variation of Hindi), Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Kashmiri. The Dravidian languages are:Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese and Malayalam. These fifteen languages cover the whole of India and of these Hindi, with its variation Urdu, is by far the most widespread and understood even where it is not spoken. Apart from these, there are some dialects and some undeveloped languages spoken, in very limited areas, by some backward hill and forest tribes. The oft-repeated story of India having five hundred or more languages is a fiction of the philologist's and the census commissioner's mind, who note down every variation in dialect and every petty hill-tongue on the Assam- Bengal frontier with Burma as a separate language, although sometimes it is spoken by a few hundred or a few thousand persons. 

There were some more explanations:

'The real language question in India has nothing to do with this variety. It is practically confined to Hindi-Urdu, one language with two literary forms and two scripts. As spoken there is hardly any difference; as written, especially in literary style, the gap widens. Attempts have been, and are being, made to lessen this gap and develop a common form, which is usually styled Hindustani.'

There is little more on this subject in Nehru's book except a couple of lines about Pashto and Sinhalese. Pashto, Nehru said, was spoken in the North-West Frontier Province and Afghanistan and had been influenced by Persian. Sinhalese, he said, was the language of Ceylon.

In the essays about Pakistan's dilemma, China, Japan and South Korea are quoted as the quintessential countries that have prospered because of teaching in the mother's-tongue. Both China and India have almost the same population. But while India, if Nehru is to be believed, has some two dozen languages, China, on the other hand has just about four of which Mandarin is the language of more than a billion people. China, therefore, is not a good example to quote because China has no other option other than teaching in Mandarin. Same must be true of Japan and South Korea.

I am not sure that the language issue has got much to do with our very poor quality of education -be it in the public or private sector or in the elite schools and colleges. Would our doctors or engineers and judges or teachers be any better if they had received their education in their mothers' languages? There may be some exceptions but not in the general sense. There is an all-pervasive sickness in our society that, I am afraid, cannot be attributed to just one reason.

Somehow, I tend to agree with Nehru about the number of languages. If the present-day India is any guide, especially the Indian media which is accessible throughout the world, then Hindi-Urdu combination has worked wonders for the said country. Next, I believe comes English, which too is spoken and understood by a big number of Indians. Imagine, the kind of mess that India would have been if all the varying dialects of the major languages spoken by the hill and tribal people had to lay claim to be treated at par. I believe both India and China have experienced a deux ex machina type dramatic resolution to their linguistic worries.

I have really enjoyed some of the essays in Zubeida Mustafa's book. But I must say I didn't find any input about the perceived strength of the dozens of languages that we claim are spoken in Pakistan. For instance, what kind of rare knowledge and literature is there that would be lost if children are not educated in these languages? Do these languages even have alphabets, grammar, phonetic sounds, vocabulary etc? How do mothers in the hills and smaller communities straddling our peripheries talk to their children about the solar and lunar systems?

Zubair Torwali from Bahrain valley in the district of Swat is an exceptionally talented individual. As his surname indicates, he belongs to the small hilly Torwali community. There is a considerable presence of shepherds among the Torwali. A young illiterate Torwali shepherd recently became very famous when his evocative folk song found its way to the Coke studio. In his essay 'Attempting Inclusive Education,' Zubair cautions against ignoring languages like the one spoken by his community. But Zubair tells us little about the latent power and scope of his language that may be essential for considering it fit to be used as a tool for imparting education.

I must concede even my mother's-tongue Pashto does not possess the wherewithal of fulfilling the requirements of modern scientific education. Pashto is the language of more than 50 million people in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it has got voluminous literature. I got my schooling from a public sector English medium school where I studied Pashto language from class 6th to 8th as an optional subject. The other option was Persian and we used to have two classes in a week which sufficiently enabled us to learn reading and writing in Pashto. It was on the basis of that meager education in Pashto that I opted for it as an optional subject in my competitive examinations besides acquiring the ability to translate the grand poetry of Ghani Khan from Pashto into English and publish the same. With somewhat temerity, I have to say that no other language in my province can equal Pashto in its capacity and yet I consider my mother's-tongue wanting in its scientific vocabulary.

Since I had already read it said it many times, I wasn't surprised to relearn from Dr. Farooq Bajwa's brilliant essay 'Whither Education in Punjabi' that fashionable Punjabis felt shy talking in Punjabi language. I must say I have always found the Punjabi officers from the elite services groups conversing among themselves in chaste Punjabi. I believe it may not be due to any inferiority complex but owing to their spiritedness and competitiveness to excel in their respective fields that Punjabis do not attach too much emotional patriotism to the issue.

I also believe that all major regional languages spoken in Pakistan are deficient in scientific vocabulary. Urdu is an exception but learning Urdu and speaking it flawlessly is as difficult for at least the Pashtuns as English language. 

But on a positive note, our old poetry in all our regional languages can be a source of great intellectual input as far as building up our scientific vocabulary is concerned. Whether it's Khushal Khan Khattak, Baba Bulleh Shah, Shah Lateef or Mast Tawakali from amongst the Baloch, all these poets have sung praises of the universal and astronomical phenomenons. Such poetry is a veritable treasure trove of vocabulary. But it will take years, and more than that a supernatural will, to do that job. Can we afford to await the outcome of such a herculean task?

I have been reading Dr. Anjum Altaf for years. I keep receiving his essays on a variety of subjects including poetry and more often than not share my views with him. I, however, doubt the outcome of his conclusion in his essay 'Urdu's Role in Education and Language Learning.' His advice for transition from education in mother's-tongue in the primary classes to regional languages in elementary school and finally English at the professional level may not deliver the desired results. Human beings learn rapidly in early years which is what our biological growth tells us. As we age, our capacity to commit new knowledge to our memory slows down. Children learning the Qur'an by wrote in Arabic is a good example.

Honestly, I was looking forward to learning a great deal from the essay titled 'Mother Language Education' by Dr. Tariq Rehman. This essay is full of citations which makes for cumbersome reading. At the end, I couldn't really find out what we ought to do.

I believe we can learn something from the Sri Lankan experience. How come almost everyone in Sri Lanka speak English so fluently? They have a very high literacy rate. But we have to keep in mind the small size of their population in addition to the fact that Sri Lanka has the advantage of having only two major communities of Sinhalese and Tamils. Sri Lanka must be having an efficient teachers training methodology.

The idea propounded and implemented in the shape of Harsukh School by Jawad S. Khwaja does not appear to be a viable solution to solving the myriad problems surrounding our system of education. Harsukh is rife with contradictions and runs contrary to what the learned former judge appears to be espousing. Who in our conservative cultural milieus would like to send their children to schools where they are taught 'kathak?' It could be done in one odd case but literally impossible to find favour on any wider scale. 

On the one hand, we want to shun English language being a foreign language and on the other hand we wish to be teaching 'kathak' to children. The retired judge's picture in the book showing him wearing western shorts while taking a class with the students does not inspire in any sense of the word. One wouldn't know which language - Urdu or Punjabi would Jawad S. Khwaja recommend because he himself is a Punjabi speaker. If he wants both languages, then wouldn't that be burdensome for the children? A loaded school bag is what we are advising against, ain't we?

It would help if I elucidate what I said in the middle of this critique that we have to look for reasons beyond just the language issue to arrive at the truth 

Zubeida Mustafa's essay 'What our rulers want' is very exhaustive as it says nearly all that ails our system of education. There could be another essay titled a little differently as 'What our rulers are doing?' 

We have textbook boards in all four provinces in addition to the one in Islamabad for the educational institutions run by the federal government. Unfortunately, these boards are to blame for nearly everything that is wrong not only with our education but also with our mindset. These boards, quite shamelessly, have not yet enabled us to agree on how the moon appears and disappears, waxes and wanes, what is a lunar calendar etc. It is mostly the people from Pakistan who carry this blighted mindset to their offshore destinations and acting as the agent provocateurs in the moon sighting related controversies. Pakistan's print and electronic media is equally to blame for this illiterate mindset. The same ignorant mindset extends to other natural, biological, geological and astronomical phenomenons. 

We need not go far to find out why is this so. Our textbook boards are by and large headed by people of very poor intellect from the various services groups. Several very petty considerations motivate the choice of officers in the textbook boards. These considerations range from either simply filling up the vacant slot through favouritism or most ridiculously to post a sluggish officer as the chairman as a punishment. But since the top position in these boards carry enormous perks and privileges, the officers concerned bide their time in great comfort.

Our public service commissions present the most ominous challenge to the country. But while the textbook boards are filled up with one type of serving officers, the public service commissions are treated like game reserves for the retired officials. No effort goes into finding out about the past performances of the ladies and gentlemen appointed as members. The appointees just have to be very close to the powers that be. One would hardly ever find reputed academics and intellectuals on the panel. There are many examples where the rulers ensured the entry of the children of politically influential families in the elite services through foul means. 

I hold rote-learning as the single most determinant factor that has ruined all professions in Pakistan. Rote-learning or cramming has devasted our physical, economic and moral health. This cardinal sin is not mentioned even in passing. Our doctors, engineers, teachers, judges are all the products of this malaise. In February 2025, Peshawar High Court conducted tests to fill up some posts of additional session judges from amongst the lawyers. A staggering 139 lawyers out of 598 could not pass their exam in English. One may ask who gave these lawyers their degrees because all LLB subjects are in English. These lawyers may send their clients to the gallows!

But it is the medical professional that has been ravaged by rote-learning on a massive scale. Having reached the medical colleges through cramming and then passing their MBBS through the same method, our doctors are simply dispossessed of the great values of inquiry and research. They are playing with our lives with impunity, and indeed with the full knowledge of the government. Our health and education regulators literally sell licences to hospitals and schools, and one would never hesitate to say this.

All these matters have little to do with which medium of instruction could be be the best for Pakistan.

Only intellectual integrity and plain-speaking can better our lot, and that is that.

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