Re: Indian weapon against Pakistan: Urdu/Hindi
Interesting opinion:
*
I think the future World would be increasingly organized along civilizational lines.
Due to a number of factors including the nature of modern state/society, political and state patronage, modern means of communication, modern institutions and education, internal colonialism, movement of populations across porous borders, and consumerism/commercialism, the civilizations that have historical antiquity and cultural depth would further expand their zones of influence. Dominent civilizations would bring increasing number of tribal and rural communities under their fold.
One example would suffice to elaborate this point. A Pashto T.V. Channel was launched a year ago. It started looking for advertisement but faced tremendous difficulties because companies considered Pashto a local language and Urdu understandable by Pashtuns. Obviously, if there is a lingua franca, why should companies spend on advertising in "local languages"!
Bollywood is producing films in Urindi ( Urdu-Hindi ) because the vast market from Khyber to Dhaka enhances the profit margin for their products significantly.
Multinationals and national companies also tend to prefer languages patronized by state and state elite to secure favor and to gain access to market and resources. Consequently, local artists get less for their creative effort.
Coming back to the point, Gangetic plain was the bastion of Hindustani civilization. And the territories to the north were either the invasion routes for Central Asian hordes or transit places where they camped. Gagetic plain was a sort of final home/destination for these hordes where they got passively assimilated, vanishing forever, in the wider Hindustani society, like an element submerges into a compound or a river drains into an ocean.
In my opinion Hindustani identity is more mythical than other northwestern identities because the core of this identity sprung from a more stable and broader ecological base (i.e. Gangetic plain) and comparatively in more ancient times. Owing to this stability, civilizational continuity in Gangetic plain remained intact like the flow of a perennial ocean/river whereas in the northwestern territories, it was disrupted again and again by the invaders (like a seasonal torrent which flows only for a while).
In the northern territories, on the other hand, the invaders actively participated in the formation of juvenile ethnicities e.g. Baluchi, Sindhi, Punjabi, and Pashtun etc. In terms of Chemistry, these ethnicities are like solutions/mixtures with distinct complexion but retaining the characteristics of their constituents. And due to geographical proximity with Gangetic plains on one side and Central Asia the other, they borrowed influences from both sides. They are truly swing communities that can go one way or the other depending on the priorities of the state of which they are a part as well as the thrust of their neighboring civilizations on them.
As for Gangetic plain is concerned, the influence of its civilization has increased on these northwestern communities during the last one-and-half century, thanks the colonialist policies of the British Raj and the ever-increasing modernization trend. The presence of Urdu-speakers in Karachi and their emphasis on Urdu as the language of communication has further accelerated the diffusion of Hindustani cultural influences into the northwest.
The successor states of the British Raj i.e. Pakistan and India have retained the same policy regarding language issue as British Raj, although each has put a varying degree of explicit or implicit emphasis on religion to "assert" its distinct identity, more so true of Pakistan. But it is a fact that the influence of Central Asia/Persia on these "swing" communities has largely vanished making them vulnerable to the gravitational pull of Hindustani civilization. Today, a member of these communities finds it more convenient to communicate with a Hindustani than with a "co-religioust” from the north or the west.
Overall Hindustani civilizational influence is on the rise, expanding northwest to integrate the Dards, Punjabis, Sindhis, Siraikis, Pashtuns, and Baluchis into its mold.
Would religion be able to repel this tide?
Religion has not been so far and it is least likely to be in future. It would be a mistake to think that religion would have any big role to play, except in the limited social-personal life, in the future global world, where individuals, with divergent views on broader matters of life, would have to increasingly interact.. Religious assertion has been a destabilizing factor historically and it is so more in the Central-South Asian context, threatening the very existence of the societies involved and doomening their future as normally functioning societal units.
A more rational paradigm would have to be sought with religion forming a part of the overall culture but not directing the political or social process to a dangerous degree. Probably, a civilizational approach centered on history, regional lingua-franca, ethnicity, geographical proximity, etc. would have to be adopted in order to have a sense of broader identity as well as retain distinct sub cultural individuality. Religious approach is anachronistic, impracticable, irrational, and destructive.
So what destiny lies ahead the "swing communities"?
Especially if the Hindustani Civilization is allowed to expand farther north, what would be the consequences? More interesting is the question what would be its farther limits in the northwest?
Well the limit could be Indus, Khyber, or less likely Hindukush but one thing is certain that it wouldn't spread beyond Indus or Khyber or Hinudkush because these points define the southeastern extremities of Persian-Turkian World.
The options for the "swing communities" are many! For example to east-south is the Hindustani Civilization, in the north-West is the Persian or Perso-Turkik Civilization; in the north-east is Sinic Civilization; and towards the south-west across Indus Ocean, is the Arab Civilization. No civilization is inherently good or bad but in the coming world, isolated societies based on ethnicity and local culture wouldn't be viable/feasible units for survival; probably, they would have to align themselves with one of the existing civilizations.
It is for Pakistani political and intellectual elite to decide which way to go but one thing is almost certain that systems and societies based on religious identities wouldn't be viable in the future world. Sinic Civilization could not be a choice neither Arab Civilization could be because of a number of factors. The choices could only be Perso-Turkik (A greater Central Asia) or Hindustani Civilizations (a greater South Asia).
Following approach could be adopted to align with the Central Asian World:
For the short run, make Urdu, along with English, only a language of communication, not a national language.
Put more and more emphasis on English in official work and education.
At the same time, make it compulsory for a Pakistani to learn one native language other than mother his/her mother tongue tongue i.e. either Punjabi, or Pashto, or Sindhi, or Siraiki, or Baluchi.
On media, give more and more coverage to native languages.
At the same time introduce Dari on media and in education.
(Personally, I think transition to Dari or any other lingua-franca would be via English i.e. Urdu-to-English and then from English to Dari etc.)
Hopefully, the above measures would significantly erode the influence of Urdu-Hindi. Then apply direct measures i.e. introduce Dari at mass-scale. Alongside, take the following measures:
Rewrite history books, emphasizing geographic, ethnic, and cultural ties, Gandhara and Indus civilizations, and Central-South Asian cultural heritage.
Establish cultural, political, and economic ties with Central Asian and Middle-Eastern countries. The strongest link with Central Asia will be a common lingua franca, which would make communication among inhabitants of Pakistan and Central Asian people possible.
And most importantly, make Pakistan a true federal country with secular orientations and with as much autonomy for the federating units as possible. No strategy for a distinct Pakistani identity will be succeed until this pre-requisite is met.
Adoptation of Urdu/Hindi was a shrewd move, by Colonialists, to tie diverse people together into a single polity. In particular, they wanted to detach the north-westerners from their Central-Middle Eastern heritage and integram them into the Indian amalgam.
Although, the motives mostly were political but the devices employed were cultural.
Can the migration of Urdu-speakers be likened to that of Arabs outside Arab Peninsula 1400 years back, which Arabized the present non-Peninsular Arab world? Or should we compare it to the gradual Chinization of Siberia due the increasing number of Chinese settlers?
I mean are there other such examples to give us a better insight into the issue?
The migration of Urdu speakers to Karachi shouldn't be considered a normal event. It would have historical impacts. It accelerated the process of Indianization of the native communities as begun by British.
And it would have future consequences.
Down the road, in a time-span of 15-20 years, when borders would become softer and the Urdu speakers in both the states would start interacting with each other increasingly and in increasing numbers, that would open another dimension of integration i.e. integration at demographic level.
I read somewhere that when Mongolia secured freedom back in 1920s, the father of Mongolian freedom struggle wrote a letter to Stalin or Lenin requesting Russia for close political, strategic, and cultural ties. This was to protect Mongolia against the Chinese cultural, political, and demographic threat. He had said, we would be swarmed by Chinese. *
