[lg policy] Pakistan: Urdu to replace English as official language

Mon Jul 27 15:05:30 UTC 2015

 A new language policy

 Asif Ezdi
<http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintWriterName.aspx?ID=9&URL=Asif%20Ezdi>
Monday,
July 27, 2015
>From Print Edition

  42  8  4  0

 On July 10, the government informed the Supreme Court that it had issued
an executive order for the replacement of English with Urdu as the
country’s official language in stages. The decision had been taken, the
court was told, in fulfilment of the government’s obligation under Article
251 of the constitution, which makes it mandatory that arrangements should
be made for the use of Urdu for official and other purposes within fifteen
years from 1973.

The 15-year grace period for English ended 27 years ago in 1988 but
Pakistan is no nearer the goal of replacing it with Urdu as the official
language. The truth is that none of the governments, whether civilian or
military, which have been in power during this period, has shown any
discard English in favour of Urdu. As a result, English has become further
entrenched as official language, while the use of Urdu in government
offices has been declining despite the fact that its nation-wide use as the
language of communication between people speaking different mother tongues
has been growing constantly and the language has gained acceptance even in
the far-flung parts of the country as its lingua franca.

The Nawaz government’s announcement to make Urdu the official language was
not made of its own accord but in response to strictures passed by a
Supreme Court bench during the hearing of a case brought by a civic-minded
citizen on the government’s failure to implement Article 251. It remains to
be seen whether the government possesses the will to take the necessary
policy steps to fulfil its commitment.

Scepticism about the government’s resolve has been heightened by the fact
that it has still not officially published its new policy on Urdu, and
neither the prime minister nor a government minister has cared to speak on
the issue in public. Nevertheless, some of the initial steps announced by
the government are highly welcome even when they might appear to be largely
of symbolic importance. It is to be hoped that the spectacle of government
ministers and senior officials speaking in English within the country even
when their command of the language is very shaky will become a thing of the
past.

But these early steps are the easy part. The real test is whether they will
be followed up with the more difficult ones like translating laws, policies
and documents into Urdu and training government personnel in the use of
Urdu terminology and whether the government has the will to overcome
determined resistance from the vested interests which favour the
continuation of English as the official language. A lot of hard work and
leadership from the top will be needed. The circular issued by the federal
government directing the different ministries and departments to start
using Urdu is a typical bureaucratic quick fix. Everyone expects that it
will be largely ignored.

Opposition to the new policy is coming from the expected quarters: the tiny
English-speaking ‘elite’ of the country which is a legacy of British
colonial rule, and the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. These are groups
which owe their power and privileges largely to their knowledge of English.
They have also become the backbone of the present unjust class structure.
The government will have to show a lot of determination to break their
resistance.

Most important, the introduction of Urdu as official language must be part
of a broader language policy in which the use of regional languages is also
promoted. In particular, every province should be free to adopt its own
language for official purposes in addition to Urdu, and to promote the
mother tongue as the language of instruction in the schools. The Supreme
Court itself has underlined the importance of regional languages in its
hearing of the case and pointed to clause (1) of Article 251 which says
that “without prejudice to the status of the national language, a
Provincial Assembly may by law prescribe measures for the teaching,
promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national
language.”

But the promotion of regional languages should not be left to the provinces
alone. Pakistan is a multi-lingual country and the languages spoken in its
different parts are a national treasure. They all go to enrich the cultural
mosaic of the country. Their preservation, development and promotion should
therefore be made a priority at the federal level as well. In fact, it must
go hand in hand with the promotion of Urdu.

In its manifesto for the parliamentary elections of 2013, the PML-N had
promised the setting up of a National Language Commission to develop
criteria for giving the status of national language to all major languages
of the country. Two years into its tenure, the government has done nothing
so far to fulfil this promise. In fact, it opposed a private bill
introduced by a member of its own party in July last year for an amendment
in the constitution to declare the major regional languages as national
languages in addition to Urdu.

The PMLN-led government should not delay any further the fulfilment of its
pre-election pledge to give the status of national language to the major
languages of the country. This would require a constitutional amendment and
this step should be taken in parallel with moves to make Urdu the official
language. The setting up of a commission for this purpose, as proposed in
the PML-N manifesto, would not be advisable as the matter is essentially
political. The task of recommending which languages are to be given
national status should instead be left to a parliamentary committee which
should give a hearing to experts and to civil society representatives.

Once the constitution grants the status of national language to the major
regional languages of the country, it follows logically that their
promotion should also be a federal responsibility, but without restricting
the authority of the respective provincial government for their
advancement. At the federal level, this task should be given to the
National Language Promotion Board (NLPB), which has replaced the National
Language Authority.

In keeping with its enhanced responsibilities, the NLPB should be renamed
the National Languages Promotion Board and its governing body should be
expanded to include representatives of provincial governments. It would
also help if the composition and mandate of the NLPB are specified in the
constitution to rescue it from its present position in the backwater of the
federal bureaucracy.

The resources and the capacity of the NLPB would also need to be enhanced
to make it better equipped to carry out its added responsibilities,
especially to translate words and expressions from foreign languages into
Urdu and to coin new Urdu terms in the realms of government and
administration, law, science and technology, and business and commerce.

It is a shame that we have no Urdu words for even such high constitutional
institutions and offices as Senate, Assembly (as in National Assembly),
Governor, Supreme Court and the Election Commission and still use the
English words transcribed phonetically into Urdu. We should of course be
ready to borrow words from Arabic and Persian and exceptionally even from
English. To assist the NLPB in coining new words or adopting foreign words,
the government should also hire the services of people from the academia,
the civil society and the practitioners of various specialised professions.

In promoting Urdu, the main focus in the Supreme Court hearings and in the
government’s executive order has been on its use as official language. But
the government’s constitutional responsibility is not confined to that.
Article 251 states that arrangements must be made also for its use for
“other purposes” within 15 years from 1973. Regrettably, our governments
have also failed completely in implementing this provision of the article
and no serious effort has been made to promote the use of Urdu as a
language of education and learning, of science and technology and of
business and commerce. To give just one example, no bank in the country
issues a cheque book in Urdu. It is hoped that the Supreme Court orders in
the ongoing case on Article 251 will address this aspect of the matter as
well.

The writer is a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-330816-A-new-language-policy

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