Things have changed in Pakistan and people have learned from history, apart the same old usual sections of the societies, the rest of Pakistan has woken up to economic inequalities, electoral fraud and political power struggles. No more demagogues standing up to divide and emotionally blackmailing communities on the basis of language. MQM supporters are feeling sick and tired of the sense of ethnic victimhood imposed on them, so you can just imagine how far things have changed in Pakistan.
PPP and their school of pseudo intellectuals have failed to spark any revolt between North and South Punjab on the issue of language and ethnicity. The economic inequalities between Southern and Northern Punjab are more talked about, and people want to resolve that instead of getting any chest medal for struggling for lingual and ethnic supremacy. KPK is doing extra work to highlight Pashto culture and archaeology, but again, without any chip on the shoulder mentality against Urdu, extreme bitterness towards past, or taking the attention off from resolving socio-economic inequalities and political suppression which was the ultimate cause behind the fall of Dhaka.
These provinces are free to revive their ingenious culture and languages without putting Urdu language on trial, vilifying founding father's efforts in uniting the country, and butchering history to artificially gain any fake intellectual and moral backing for their case by emotionally blackmailing people to lend you some support.. Associating hopeless sense of victim hood to languages will not really attract people to learn it or respect it any more. Maybe these tricks work to stir emotions with the natives, but people get attracted to beauty and positivity not self pitying and power struggles.
We haven't had any language revolt in Pakistan since 1971, but the country was once again at the brink of civil war over the issues of electoral fraud. So exactly what do we need to learn from the past?
There were many reasons, they were more politically aware. After all Punjabi was also sacrificed which at that time was the second largest language. Their population was larger than west Pakistan, there was no land link. When the majority would have decided they would have seceded. I have never supported the high handed tactics by Pakistani army in that conflict. However I feel that we look at the conflict only from one direction, we don't know what happened from the other side. The figures of casualties like I mentioned are highly inflated.
Ali just one observation though... i am punjabi and i know how punjabi urban families treat punjabi. they hate punjabi language, they are embarrassed of it, they punish their kids if they ever speak punjabi. they consider it an extremely backward language. am i wrong?
so you cannot say that punjabi was sacrificsed. Hell, no serious punjabi literature is there. Bangalis on other hand loved their language, were proud of it and had a huge association with it. By 71, language may not be a major issue but when urdu was imposed as language of paakistan it did create a lot of rift among banagalis. thx
Ali just one observation though... i am punjabi and i know how punjabi urban families treat punjabi. they hate punjabi language, they are embarrassed of it, they punish their kids if they ever speak punjabi. they consider it an extremely backward language. am i wrong?
so you cannot say that punjabi was sacrificsed. Hell, no serious punjabi literature is there. Bangalis on other hand loved their language, were proud of it and had a huge association with it. By 71, language may not be a major issue but when urdu was imposed as language of paakistan it did create a lot of rift among banagalis. thx
Thats an honest statement from a Punjabi. much appreciated. Those who live in fool's paradise should learn to respect their own and other's languages to avoid creating any further rift among the communities.
^ I certainly don't need to get a certificate from someone like you to know whether I respect my mother tongue or not. Quit assuming just because people don't wear their lingual pride on their sleeves or aren't always crying about it, they don't respect their language. Punjabis are more than capable of reviving Punjabi literature without giving in to xenophobia, self satisfying victimhood or imposing their pride on anyone. For Punjabis who actually love and respect their language, that's all that matters. Province is too great to fall for any self destructive nationalism.
The issue is of butchering of history by pseudo intellectuals who have distorted the narrative by isolating and inflating the role of language behind the fall of Dhaka. For sake of history, some people desperately need to learn the difference between things that were part of Bengali nationalism and the issues that eventually gave birth to separatism.
Facts remain facts - the issue of language was nonexistence when Bengali demanded their 'rights'. Language was not part of the final struggle that came to define the modern day Bangladesh. Simple as that.
All power of those who love their language and respect others. Distributing certificate / degree for loyalty to country is not my activity. Others should look at themselves, how hatred they carry against others. I don't need to learn Bengal history from a person who has no respect for others languages and whose hobby is to feel happy by throwing insults at every person having different view on any subject.
I don't need to show the so called respect to other languages by butchering, manipulating, exploiting history to build any artificial and emotionally blackmailing case for 'respect of languages'. People who resort to such tactics are the ones who have no respect for the language as they are only motivated by selfish agendas.
Neither Urdu is my mother tongue nor present state of Punjabi literature has anything to do with East Pakistan debacle. It is just a little thought that thing that defined Bengali nationalism did not become the reason for their separatist campaign. Breaking of Pakistan could have been avoided (not suppression of Bengali nationalism!!!!) if Mujib's famous Six Demands were compromised, and the language was simply not one of them. Yet most of self pitying by pseudo intellectuals revolve around inflating the issue of language because it helps them propagate their own dissent against Urdu language. That's not reliable history!
Ok live in your bubble till it is bursts. Your version of history is only acceptable to those who want to see things from selective perspective, because they have got guilt to suppress others and imposing their choices forcibly.
"suppress others"...."imposing choices* forcibly*"....What a helpless and sorry existence of those who actually feel like this. Must be a very suffocating bubble to live.
Whenever my bubble bursts I just hope that I don't fall in the river of self pitying victimhood. May the Force be with me. Ameen.
Ok live in your bubble till it is bursts. Your version of history is only acceptable to those who want to see things from selective perspective, because they have got guilt to suppress others and imposing their choices forcibly.
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version of history, it is interesting subject all together, i mean, what would be the history been told (and not taught) by red indians to their young one, what would be history being told by the Iranians about Arab Invasion, same goes to Baznities, and then to Mughals... had they be the winners...
History always have multiple perspective, a hero of one can be villain to other, a battle can be enough for one to be proud off
By the way, I really want to clarify for readers that promoting local languages is never a bad idea! It enriches culture, promotes tourism, encourages creativity and arts, creates job opportunities, and improves rate of integration. But this whole promotion of language should not be done at the expense of distorting history, constantly playing blame game, putting founding father's graves on trial for choosing Urdu as a national language. By contaminating the issue of language with so much negativity and making it carry a nasty baggage of past, you don't really achieve anything.
There is a quiet Pashto music and arts revival going on in KPK, and have you ever heard this becoming an controversial issue in Pakistan? In fact so many people are appreciating it, it is such a positive and welcoming initiative, brings out the best of what the local community has to offer.
All countries go through so many internal power crisis, identity makeovers, all sorts of ups and down and crisis. But there's only so much self pitying and self lamenting you can do. So much guilt tripping and blame game can be done. The idea is to learn from the past, and do things differently again, if you really have to.
Being a person who can speak five different languages (with varied level of fluency - and yes I am a fluent speaker of my mother tongue!) it would be quite hypocritical of me to say languages do not matter! This is absurd. I strongly support increase funding of regional languages and culture promotion, but I strongly oppose politics being done in the name of language. It never really achieves anything.
All power of those who love their language and respect others. Distributing certificate / degree for loyalty to country is not my activity. Others should look at themselves, how hatred they carry against others. I don't need to learn Bengal history from a person who has no respect for others languages and whose hobby is to feel happy by throwing insults at every person having different view on any subject.
Everyone in karachi learns sindhi, so what else do you need bhai?
Isn't it time sindhis let go of talpur, kalhoro and actually move on to scientific pursuits? singing sindhi songs won't make a dam or make you a scientist, would it?
Everyone in karachi learns sindhi, so what else do you need bhai?
Isn't it time sindhis let go of talpur, kalhoro and actually move on to scientific pursuits? singing sindhi songs won't make a dam or make you a scientist, would it?
I agree with you. Lots of Sindhis in USA, Canada, or in other developed countries are doctors, engineers, scientists etc. Connection with kith and kin do not bar pursuing higher professions. It only needs effort, determination and hard work.
Everyone in karachi learns sindhi, so what else do you need bhai?
Isn't it time sindhis let go of talpur, kalhoro and actually move on to scientific pursuits? singing sindhi songs won't make a dam or make you a scientist, would it?
Nothing. Neither Sindhi is the subject of the thread. Its been dragged by someone unnecessarily.
My point is that every community got varied level of affection with its language. We can't compare Bengalis with Punjabi in this regard.
To summarise, this has been brought up from previous discussions. There are people who believe that language imposition in Bengal did create conflict among the two parts of the country and that mobilized Bengalis to next level when they felt that they were economically being suppressed as well. We need to see things as a whole. Nations don't forget past atrocities committed to them. Sikhs remembered cruelties of Mughals till 1947 massacre, so how come we expect that Bengalis forgot their language movement within two decades?
Apart from that there were restrictions on their national poets like Tagore on Radio Pakistan from 1965 on wards. They were being taunted for being less Muslims. Bhooke Nange Bengali was the popular slogan. It is very naive that these things did not create hatred among the Bengalis.
As far as raising question on decisions of founding fathers is concerned, it might be a trial of grave for blind worshipers, but I don't think that the founding fathers are some infallible prophets guided by Allah through revelation making their decisions unquestionable. When we can link Hazrat Usman's action of appointing Banu Ummaya on pivotal posts with incident of Karbala, why can't Quid e Azam's decision to impose Urdu on Bengalis and its impacts in future years be discussed without personally attacking people. How come this means disrespect to founding father? Wasn't it also a disrespect to Quaid e Azam, when in 1950's Bengalis was given status of state language against the strict stance adapted by Quaid e Azam in his life?
Pakistan's founding fathers were not infallible, the biggest example is the inclusion of Bangladesh in Pakistan to begin with. It was not feasible from the very first day. There is nothing in common between the two other than religion.
The issue of Ireland dominated British politics the time Jinnah was in England, it is hard to imagine how he did not think due to geographical detachment and cultural differences (majority of Ireland was Catholic!), it was feasible that Pakistan could have remained a one unit despite being divided in two units.
But pseudo intellectuals have this ridiculous and really anti intellectual habit of criminalising Bengali nationalism, and somehow turning it into a cause behind the separatist campaign. So bloody what if there was Bengali nationalism? Don't we have a nationalist government in Balochistan at the moment? Nationalism does not equal separatism!
Bengali nationalism turned into an ugly separatist campaign over every reason but on the issue of language. This is the fact. So it is about time you discuss the issues, the players that actually resulted in break up of Pakistan. Enough of this inflated rhetoric of 'bitter' feelings, 'hatred' yada yada yada.......Bengalis did not go to fight a war because they were holding a grudge over a 10 year old issue. A lot of things happened in between. For sake of history, stop exploiting and exaggerating the whole language aspect to propagate your own dissent with Urdu.
A lot of things happened in Pakistan which weren't according to the wishes or original plans of founding father. Is 1973 Constitution Jinnah's brainchild? No!
Honestly, those who bother reading 'proper' history, bigger feelings of betrayal, bitterness, sense of deception and exploitation over socio-economic inequalities. It is absurd to think that language lollipop would have made poverty stricken East Pakistanis to forget those issues. There were systematic inequalities that handicapped their society's collective socio-economic mobility.
Mujib did not fight the election on the basis of language, or did he? Bengalis did not overwhelmingly elect him (the root cause of the final battle!) because he promised to earn any esteem status to their language or did he? No. He fought to give Bengali their due "rights" of financial liberation and administrative autonomy.
Even if Bengalis were bitter or upset because of language, was it okay to piss them off even more by denying them electoral justice? Had Bengali were given their due right of forming the government, maybe they would have done the right things for themselves to patch up those differences and negative feelings.
Maybe the idea is that if only Bengalis did not have a one bad experience already, Shaheed Bhutto would have got away with being a self destructive feudal brat to block Mujib from becoming the PM.
exactly. Here is a link to a book, which discusses these differences at length. Even the practice of religion was different. The book refers to a study where 60% of East wing was in favour of secular identity as compared to 60% Islamic identity in West Pakistan. It also discusses difference between diet, architecture, etc. Last but not the least, this anti intellectual writer covers language issue and ban on tagore over more than 10 pages of a book about ‘Causes of Bangladesh War’. Unfortunately, the writer is not a Sindhi
How much did we know of East Pakistanis before 47,how much do we know bangladeshis now? I think the answer is not much, and here lies the predicament. There was not much interaction between the two wings before 47. If Pakistan tried to implement one language in the country, some people might construe this as usurping their rights, but it can also be due to not properly understanding the cultural sensitivities of the group.
