More importantly, as Zia’s measures only affected the state schools, which by and large catered to the poor of the country, private and elite state institutions continued to use English as a medium and even flourished. The ruling elites were divided into two parts on the subject of medium of Maqbool, Ghani & … startxref "Alfatah" and "Lail-o-Nahar", both published from Karachi, However, this was hardly the case. So reads a recent tweet (in Punjabi) by Shehbaz Sharif, the former chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab region and current president of the Pakistan Muslim League, a center-right conservative party in Pakistan. Only it seems that Peshawar University offered resistance and did not allow Urdu till much later. trailer For instance, cricket in Pakistan is synonymous to ice hockey in Canada. xref The language used in the domains of power (like the higher bured the officer corps of the armed forces)is English, as it was during British rule. But again this bill reached a dead end for the government, while promising to modernise Urdu for official usage, postponed the issue for at least a decade. The second part will then follow with what I propose for adoption in Pakistan. Pakistan is an ideologically inspired state and Urdu was a part of this ideology. The two terms of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were too unstable to make much of a difference either way in the debate. endstream endobj 559 0 obj<>/Outlines 87 0 R/Metadata 103 0 R/PieceInfo<>>>/Pages 99 0 R/PageLayout/OneColumn/StructTreeRoot 105 0 R/Type/Catalog/LastModified(D:20100904125058)/PageLabels 97 0 R>> endobj 560 0 obj<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]/ExtGState<>>>/Type/Page>> endobj 561 0 obj<> endobj 562 0 obj<> endobj 563 0 obj<> endobj 564 0 obj<> endobj 565 0 obj<> endobj 566 0 obj<> endobj 567 0 obj<> endobj 568 0 obj<>stream Urdu which is the national language of Pakistan. This paper aims to critically examine the trends, issues and challenges in policy and practice of English language education in Pakistan. If history is any guide, the recent moves towards immediately enforcing Urdu as an official language seem problematic. Further, even the schools which wanted to adopt English as the medium of instruction, could not do so fully due to a chronic lack of qualified teachers. The Supreme Court judgment of September 8, 2015 goes even further and contemplates a more radical changeover. But as it is apparent, if Urdu had actually been used in these provinces after that bill was passed, the NWFP government would not have to pass another bill in 2004 making Urdu the official language. Controversy after independence regarding Medium of instructions (1947-1971) In self-governing Pakistan, government was framed by the pioneers of Muslim League. 0000001721 00000 n By the end of Ayub’s rregime not much progress had been made. The first education commission report under Ayub, the Sharif Commission in 1959, suggested that even though English should remain in the educational system, the national languages should now occupy a more prominent position. The Pakistani textbooks controversy relates to the reported inaccuracy of most Pakistani textbooks and the existence of historical revisionism in them. In 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first Governor-General, declared in Dhaka (then usually spelled Dacca in English) that "Urdu, and only Urdu" would be the common language for all of Pakistan. 0 The origin of Urdu goes back several centuries, and according to some historians, Urdu has evolved from an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the area around Delhi which absorbed words fro… Other books, espe- The content of Pakistan's official textbooks has often been criticised by several sources including many within Pakistan for sometimes promoting religious intolerance and Indophobia, leading to calls for curriculum reform. Pakistan is home to many dozens of languages spoken as first languages. Although Arabic was never made compulsory, and regional languages, especially Sindhi, were never kicked out of the system, Pakistani students, though only in the state-run schools, did start the 1979 academic year with Urdu as the medium of instruction. 0000002752 00000 n Five languages have more than 10 million speakers each in Pakistan – Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki and Urdu.Almost all of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.. Pakistan's national language is Urdu, which, along with English, is also the official language. x�b```b``�b`f`����À �l,�F�)�KcBzR�X������.��(�;�\�R6�f�n�c�s���`�`�X8�d[P�E�$ZY1ɜ2FݨZ�.#tI�����06M,�(K�N�K��@g��d�1` ,B�6G� ��р�J � Ju��9�, �d`��Hs�:�[���%/s���px�B$�� �~��� ,""Y��N�`m`gm :+��! More than 70 languages are alive languages/spoken languages of Pakistan and its government is confused which language to select as MOI (medium of instruction) at primary level, i.e. The Ayub era saw an intensification of the move to make the two national languages more prominent, usually not at the expense of English but the regional languages. However, not much changed. They connected Urdu language with religious and Pakistani atmosphere. However, a vast section of the population speaks it as their second language. Variety of Muslim majority nations together with China’s all-weather ally Pakistan is sustaining a stoic silence over this not like protests in opposition […] However, try to stay away from both topics as something small can become controversial. His commission suggested that not only should Urdu be the medium of education in the country for all classes, Arabic should also be taught as a compulsory subject. As the government had still been unprepared for the usage of Urdu, the Ministry of Education in 1987 had to allow for English to be used as a medium of education in science subjects due to a lack of Urdu terminology. This created a new social class in Pakistan, which was not exposed to English till after elementary school. ... Presbyterian official's death sparks controversy in Pakistan (Sheikh et al, 1989). Its stated purpose was to "consider ways and means for the promotion of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and to make all necessary arrangements in this regard…" Ironically, this pronouncement was made in English! Also, the issue of adopting Urdu as the sole official language had to yet again be postponed for not enough technical terms and literature had been produced in Urdu to make the switch feasible. Also, according to a separate survey it was established that nearly 44 per cent of books in Urdu were ideological and imparted strict versions of Pakistan and Islam. Zia did much damage to English, and actually to the whole system, in the educational field. Pakistanis are proud of their culture and historical past and love to talk about politics and religion. %%EOF Pakistan faced this problem in early years of its independence when language controversy exercised far-reaching effects on subsequent history of the country as a whole. Somehow, from the start, Urdu in Pakistan has been controversial. endstream endobj 569 0 obj<>/Size 558/Type/XRef>>stream The Musharraf government reiterated this stance of the usage of English in all government schools but the damage of the 1980s was just too deep to be covered that soon and without adequate financial support from the government. Urdu has been a controversial language in Pakistan despite its official and holy status. Scholars like Professor Tariq Rahman and Professor Shahid Siddique have written extensively about how language is used as a political, social and ideological tool in Pakistan (and of course elsewhere). This paper examines the ‘textbook controversy’ (2000-2005) that arose when the Pakistan state introduced new, overtly Sunni textbooks in the Northern Areas, and the local Shia population began to agitate for a more balanced curriculum. x�bb�a`b``Ń3� ���ţ�1� )�! (PDF) Linguistic controversy: Promotion of English as a status language in the domain of education | Muhammad U Farooq - Academia.edu Pakistan has five major indigenous languages; Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki and Balochi, while Urdu is the national language. It said, "We cannot help regretting that some of our universities should have preferred to be swayed more by sentiment than by a dispassionate judgement in accelerating the pace of changeover [to Urdu] beyond all reasonable proportions.". 570 0 obj<>stream Language is not only a medium of communication and instruction, it is a part of one’s identity. Again spearheaded by religious figures, who closely equated Urdu with Islam and Muslim nationalism, a bill was presented in the West Pakistan legislature in 1963 by Allama Rahmatullah Arshad, asking for Urdu to be declared as the official language of the Unit. First, the replacement of English by Urdu somehow assumes that English is a ‘foreign’ language. ial language of the province and Urdu as the second official language. 0000003772 00000 n Officer Who Raided Cafe’ Aylanto In Lahore For Openly Selling Alcohol Is Suspended & This Is Naya Pakistan! However, this enthusiasm to bring in Urdu medium education was quickly criticised by the new education commission of the government. It is funny that people nowadays focus on the language rather than the correct usage of it. It began with Karachi University in 1964, Punjab in 1966 and Sindh in 1966 where the Sindhi medium was also made available. In parliament again an Official Language Bill was presented in 1972 asking for English to be replaced by Urdu, but yet again it was stalled in the Standing Committee hearings. The government of Pakistan reflected that no other language but Urdu could be (2 May 1989). 0000003849 00000 n Since the separation of Pakistan form Subcontinent, the language controversy has been an issue or may be even before it according to (Nurullah & Naik, 1943; Pachori, 1990). First, there was the dispute between Urdu and Bengali, which led to the vivisection of the country, and now it is Urdu versus English, which is poised to create further long lasting problems for the country. %PDF-1.4 %���� 0000000016 00000 n (���pW8�#@�����(�Nd`|y���@��x�"/� Not only did Zia hurriedly try to end the monopoly of English, he created and flourished a class barrier now entangled with the language issue. Moreover, Urdu has been declared the national language of Pakistan and the provincial language in the Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan,” is how leftist intellectual Sibte Hasan wrote about the origin of the riots in the Herald’s August 1972 issue. He also established a National Language Authority (Muqtadira Qaumi Zaban) in 1979 to promote Urdu. Some of them are, indeed, part of the pro-Urdu campaign by such official institutions as the National Language Authority, because of which they articulate only the official language policy (Kamran, 1992). While the rigour with which this judgement is going to be applied and its effect remains to be seen, the re-ignition of the Urdu vs English controversy in Pakistan after seemingly dying out in the Musharraf era raises a number of issues. The Urdu —English Controversy in Pakistan - Volume 31 Issue 1. After Bengali had been declared the co-national language with Urdu in 1954, the position of English as the official language and especially medium of education was also challenged. This was because in most government schools this change was resisted, and even in schools where this was implemented English was taught as a foreign language with mediocre teachers. However, only about 8% of Pakistanis speak Urdu as their first language. The commission also discouraged the teaching of regional languages and suggested that they should be left for informal conversation only. The rule of the military dictator Zia ul-Haq was perhaps the most detrimental for the status of English, as well as Urdu, and the regional languages. The spirit of Pakistan asserted itself', and under Aurangzeb the 'Pakistan spirit gathered in strength'; his death 'weakened the Pakistan spirit'." The language question has always spawned activism and antagonism in Pakistan in, perhaps, equal measures. Still the Zia reign did not usher in an ascendancy of Urdu and the demise of English. You may like Muniza September 13, 2019. The bourgeois Sindhi poet has criticized some Urdu weeklies vehemently. Instead, try to keep a conversation around things you would talk about in Canada. In the Punjab, all government schools switched over to the English medium under Shahbaz Sharif and the usuage of English further spread due to an increasingly international economy and connections. One would expect that Bhutto’s coming in after the secession of East Pakistan on a socialist, anti-imperialist and populist stance would boost the cause of Urdu. 0000003280 00000 n A planned march by women organizations on March 8 to mark International Women’s Day has stirred a nationwide controversy in Pakistan. The Language Committee planned a large strike and protests in Dhaka for 21 February 1952 in East Pakistan. Foul language includes taunts, abuses, Punjabi [curses] and the hate speech.” (The operative word in brackets, “curses”, was unfortunately missed in the circular. 0000001486 00000 n New Delhi: In a significant embarassment Chinese language state-run tv has broadcast a controversial image of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad however Beijing’s all-weather ally Pakistan is sustaining a stoic silence over the problem. December 26, 2016. With regards to the status of English under Bhutto, English was given another extension of fifteen years in the constitution of 1973 as an official language. This measure of only imposing Urdu on state schools created much resentment in the students who graduated from these schools against the people who had been educated at private ones leading to increased social friction. This trend gave fuel to a grass roots radical Islamist movement in Pakistan that not only cherished the idea of Jihad against anything non-Islamic, but also led to increased inter-Muslim denominational tensions, something we are still living with in the form of the Jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and the Sunni-Shia tensions. ��=.bъ����i������U4O�����"vN�w������� |�����~��J�3�Ù~J��h�t��s��ފE�^�� ��ٹ�;7u�;���j��;��T�v��VZ������9��S�ƒFAx�({V#�h��J�����Z���[7vx�}�U�T���%=��t��G~���_���o��d6�1'. In Pakistan, language has been contested since the inception of the country. This paper traces the controversy about the medium of instruction in Pakistan, beginning with the use of Englt education in pre-partition days. 0000000569 00000 n While many nations are adopting English, Pakistan is going the opposite way, with the Supreme Court ruling for it to be replaced with Urdu as the official language. So for Zia’s Islam, and by extension the Urdu cause, were political as well as ideological and religious tools. 0000001021 00000 n The pro-Urdu lobby was very active during the Ayub era, probably because they saw in the Sandhurst educated Ayub a pro-English bias that could perpetually jeopardise the status of Urdu in the country -- after all, Ayub had even mentioned the Romanisation of Bengali and Urdu during the 1950s. It stated, "While we felt that English must yield to the national languages the paramount position it has occupied in our educational system so far, we are at the same time convinced that English should have a permanent position in that system." In doing so the first PPP government declared: "It has been decided that option shall be given to adopt English as medium of instruction in all subjects from class 1. The tweet was controversial because although Punjabi is widely spoken in the region and in Pakistan as a whole, Sharif himself had never showed an affinity for the language. With this background, the recent moves towards immediately enforcing Urdu as an official language are problematic. Written by Robert Mickens, English-language editor of La Croix International. First, there was the dispute between Urdu and Bengali, which led to the vivisection of the country, and now it is Urdu versus English, which is poised to create further long lasting problems for the country. Yes, Urdu was being taught in all schools, and the president was making his major speeches in Urdu, and that there were numerous Urdu conferences and related events, yet the language still widely used in education, courts and government remained English. Hence, by the time the Bhutto regime was ousted by Zia in 1976, a lot of lip service and little concrete steps had been taken to establish Urdu as the official language of Pakistan. This is done first by historically reviewing the English language education policies since Pakistan's independence in 1947, looking particularly at policy objectives, implementation strategies and outcomes, and the rationale for policy change. Is this immediate change feasible or even advisable shall be discussed in the next part. Monday, Dec 14,2020. The Government of the day declared unequivocally that Urdu alone shall be the State language of Pakistan. <]>> For him, as it had been propagated since the emergence of Pakistan, the establishment of Urdu as the primary language of Pakistan was not only a nationalistic but a religious action. Actually, most of the current English medium schools were established under Zia’s regime. 0000001210 00000 n As a result the Urdu proto-elite got a huge boost and soon educational institutions started offering degrees in the Urdu medium. 0000004105 00000 n Before I posit my arguments on the language issue, let me first recap the history of the Urdu-English controversy in Pakistan. To stifle the protest plans, the Pakistani government imposed Section 144 in Dhaka which made assemblies, processions, and demonstrations illegal. 558 0 obj <> endobj Urdu is not only the official language of Pakistan but also the national language of the country. 0000002285 00000 n It was pushed in a multilingual society in a way that it created more enemies than lovers. While the government has made promises to translate all policies and laws into Urdu and carry out all functions and speeches in the same language, it is unclear if this move will be at the expense of English. 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