On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 6:46 PM, Saurav Datta <sauravdatta118@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.viewpointonline.net/a-country-in-search-of-nation/Print.html
A country in search of nation
by Arshad Mehmood | 
The story of Pakistan is of an "un-organic nation" in constant state of war on itself on the matters of nationhood, identity and its languages
Pakistan is neither a historical construct nor a nation. It is ahistorical for it defies the very idea and definition of a nation-state. It is an enforced birth. It has never taken pride in its own history, languages, cultures and civilization. So, it can safely be called, in anthropological terms, a shame-society for it might be the only country in the world where majority of the population does not like to be buried in its own land. People here instead pray for a death in the holy lands of 'Mecca or Madina'.
It is a country where people take more pride in looking fake Arabs than original natives. They believe in Islam, one book, one prophet, one language and one culture as sacred and divine. This makes them, once more, defy the natural principle of diversity. While world is embracing the principle of pluralism; Pakistani populace is stubbornly determined to cloak itself in a tattered fabric of unity based on an outdated political dogma.
What makes Pakistan such an odd and an essentially ahistorical state is misconception that "religion cements people into a nation". This proposition, however, has never proved to be guiding principle for nation building. This baseless and dangerous principle is being followed to the utter neglect of the fact that it is not religion that makes a nation. It is instead but culture, art, language, communication system and aesthetic expressions. For our myopic establishment, all such attributes are inferior to the religion.
Because of this basic flaw in its very construct, the country even in its 65th year of birth is still at its highly vulnerable and embryonic stage in terms of nation-building. It is because of this folly that Pakistan is sinking, headlong, in the quagmire of crisis. In 1971 Bengalis refused to be part of a nation in the name of religion and now Baluchistan has become a vivid admonition of this basic flaw in country's fundamental construct. But, it is sad to note, that establishment is still harping the same tone and, sadder is that, it's being listened to...
The story of Pakistan is of an "un-organic nation" in constant state of war on itself on the matters of nationhood, identity and its languages. The nations that are product of organic historical evolution have already settled these problems across the world. In Pakistan, however, an "all wise" establishment has enforced a national tongue which has never been owned by a singular region in the sub-continent. How can a language be the national language of the state which has never been a mother-tongue of a singular socio-ethnic group? Answer to this simple question requires common sense which is not our way. Pakistan is known as God-gifted country, mumlikat-e-khudadad, which has nothing to do with its citizens, their cultures, mores and norms.
It is pity that on the issues related to language and education; our intelligentsia, educationists and even pop-intellectuals have always added to confusion. They, to strengthen the elite, have always advocated the mother-tongue as medium of instruction. Ruling elite, on the other hand, has used this confusion of dual educational standards to maintain status quo by dividing nation into minority of rulers and majority of clerks. Our ruling elite studies in high-priced English- medium institutions while people, to make nothing more than clerks of them, are forced to get education in Urdu-medium schools. To make this divide-and-rule policy work even better, Urdu has been perched on sacred pedestals while, in fact, ruling elite has never owned this language. It has only been used as a straightjacket for masses.
In Pakistan, national language would never have been an issue. It was very simple as our national languages could be mother tongues of our people. As everyone understands Urdu, its status could be that of lingua-franca but not a national language. It would have been the wisest strategy to make Urdu language richer and owned by different language groups of society by adding local vocabulary into its lexicon. However, Liaquat Ali Khan, who hailed from UP, did not want Pakistani populace to be connected to their local culture. The method behind this madness was quite simple: to safeguard and prolong the hegemony of those few who came with the "brilliant" idea of a Muslim state. So they came up with a sparkling formula of de-linking Pakistani people from their cultural roots, folklore, and wisdom by imposing nobody's language. After having done this, ruling-minority burnt midnight oil to make Urdu as alien as possible. To have this noxious method work for them; they added more and more archaic Arabic and Persian words into it to make it sickeningly official and unutterable. While ruling-few got education in Western universities, they make every possible effort to make common man avoid English by declaring it a foreign language. The net result of all these "sane" efforts is a disorganized and confused herd which is formally called a nation.
On the other hand, our educationists have been struggling to make mother tongues the basic medium of instruction. To support their argument, these educationists would give you examples of China and Japan if you dared disagree with them. They would say that these countries have made progress without "going" Anglophile.
I agree to such educationists in principle that mother-tongue should be the first medium of instruction. However, in a country like Pakistan, where several historical and cultural complexities have raised their heads, it's not wise to adopt a scientific and methodological way. Pakistan is a region which has failed to keep pace with scholarly and scientific advancements in the rest of the world. It is a country which is trailing far behind in everything considered the basis of progress and development. So this country, at this critical stage, needs a jump-start to catch up with the rest of the world. Our mother tongues, during the darkest era of official negligence, have not only become backward but obsolete. Some short-sighted "leaders" have choked these languages to death. Now, we are left with no time to mourn over their death and chant mantras to bring them back to life. It is time to be rationalists not passionate. Time, we lost in skirmishes, has changed the world around us. Now, we would have to run faster to catch the convoy. Honestly speaking, we have nothing to compare ourselves with China or Japan—they owned themselves while we are still suffering from identity crisis.
In this situation what we can easily follow is India's example. India has already become one of the progressive and developed nations in the world by choosing English as its sole medium of instructions. This time, almost everyone in the urban India can speak or understand English. Indians, at the same time, can identify with and speak their mother tongues.
Above arguments make the gist of my book "Education and our National Puzzlements" whereby I argue that Pakistan cannot stay abreast of world without adopting English as a medium of education. It should start from first grade and go up till the final step (if it really is) on the ladder of knowledge. Children can easily learn two or three languages on the early stage. By making mother-tongues the medium of instruction, we would trail further behind and would never be able to join the caravan going far ahead on the way of vertical evolution. If we adopted mother-tongues as a medium; we will, later on, be condemned to translate everything into English.
To be very precise, Pakistan's real problem is that of education not of languages. People of Pakistan should be offered identical programme of study and equal educational opportunities. Pakistan should come out of security fever by declaring itself progressive and development state. Major part of our GDP should be spent on education and it should be freed from religious contents. Cramming should be discouraged to give room for creativity and original thought. Moreover, freedom of thought should be respected so that people may think and say whatever they want without the fear of death.
Dr. Kaniz Yosuf, a renowned educationist, has endorsed my suggestions in the preface of my abovementioned book. Recently, famous progressive intellectual Raja Anwar, who is serving as an advisor to Punjab ministry of education, has also recommended English to be medium of education in Pakistan.
"In Punjab, foreign languages have been means of instructions from last 550 years. Even in the times of Ranjit Singh, for example, Persian was the official language. It is very good idea to make mother-tongues means of education but our languages, now, have nothing to compete with mainstream languages—like English etc. We are fond of offering examples of Japan and China without keeping in mind that these languages are nourished, owned and respected by their loyal sons and daughters. If we cannot learn from complex behaviour of time—we'll fall like a tear dangling in the eyebrows of time," Raja Anwar writes.
Keeping it in mind, let's come out of this lingual romance and be rationalists!
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"To those who believe in resistance, who live between hope and impatience and have learned the perils of being unreasonable. To those who understand enough
to be afraid and yet retain their fury."
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone
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"In Law, nothing is certain but the expense."
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