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Introduction
Purpose:
The purpose of this paper is to inform all
concern about the Pahari Language, its journey through the history, survival
under ever changing political and religious conditions and recent revival
including UK.
The Language
Human beings existed before they started
speaking.so do nations-they emerge before they aquire symbols that can
represent them. Language being one of the most important of these symbols
remains what it is-an aquired trait to emphasise a common identity that already
exists.
Language is the finest repository of the
thinking and emotional patterns of a group of people. Language grows out of
human interaction and is reflective of group activity while individual only
adds his flavour and enriches a language. No individual has been credited with
his own language.
It has been considered to make mother
tongue the medium of instruction for childern (this seems to be even true of
animals). In the past few decades with the with the founding bodies for the
promotion and preservation of culture under the united nations, the first
principal of imparting education at the primary level in the mother tongue has
been followed. It is now a human right recognised in the Universal declaration
of Human Rights.
In today's world the languages are becoming
standardised and this process involves the extinction of many languages.
Perhaps this process of standardisation had always been an ongoing one, Only
the current rate accelration is unprecedented. This accelerated process only
means an accelerated an accelerated existinction of languages.
Language politics in India
India is
a muesum of languages and cultures, it is estimated that over three and half
thousand languages and dialects exist in Indian sub-continent. It consists of
over 558 former states. Over the centuries many rulers, invaders and ruling
classes have tried to impose single identity, culture and language in the
region with some degree of success, recent examples include, Hindi, Urdu and
English. All these were languages of power and domination as well as of
exchange between peoples of diverse culture. It formed the link between diverse
groups and communities.
During the British Raj English was the only
source of making inroads in to the exclusive citadal of power. This must have
been true of Persian and Urdu during different eras, even for holding a minor
position in governemnt one had to know the rulers language otherwise one was
considered illitrate, no matter how literal one was in his mother tongue or fallen
rulers language. This than reasulted in worthlessness of native languages which
got demoted from language to "Boli" spoken language. It was the
superiority of English which pushed Indians to look for identity and they found
it in Hindi and Urdu. Which resulted in partition of India
and creation of Pakistan.
Above material is used from,The news
section of international, Daily Jang, Monday 14 March, 2005, Various articals
on Urdu Language conference
Globalisation
Currently imperialists are looking for
globalisation and standardisation in language and culture and yet in their
human development indicies they emphasise the need for pularism and cultural
diversity. It may be that they are merely seeking to introduce certain ecnomic
standards to further their one world thesis. At the same time the fact remains
that opening of the boundries and emergence of English as the global language
of communication threatens the development and existance of other languages.
The fact remains that economy is central to the flourishing of a language.
Infact that is amply reflected in the case of
Pahari which was thrieving at the hight of Buddhist empire and now it seems to
be the inherated property of the illetrate. This than does not stop in the
Indian Sub- continent it follows Pahari speaking Kashmiri community in the UK
too. Like global masters,Public Service providers are always talking about
inclusion, community cohesion, need to recognise diversisty and social
inclusion, despite all that they continue to deny Pahari speaking Kashmiri
community their identity and keep one of the largest language spoken after
English out of Classroom. It does not stop there, Public service providers
choose to communicate with Pahari speakers in other South Asian langauages
which are as foreign to Pahari community as is the English. It seems as though
there is very little or no knowledge of Pahari within British state and
society.
As a reasult of that not only a very large
Pahari speaking community living in Britain miss out on public services, but
multicultural Britain's ethos of inclusion are defeated and Pahari speaking
Kashmiri community's invisiblity and exclusion remains a big challenge for
authorities. Underachievement of Kashmiri community can be translated as none
paricipatary which in essance means British state and society is not exploiting
full potential of this community. Continious exclusion means that Pahari would
be extinct within third and four generation of Kashmiris living in Britain.
Pahari Language
Pahari is a language of the Indo-Aryan
family of languages1 It drives its name
from Pahar meaning" hills and mountains " for it is spoken over a
very large area starting from Nepal and running throughout the foothills of the
Himalayas, in the Hamachal Pardesh (Northern Indian province), the Indian
controlled part of the state of Jammu Kashmir, the Pakistani controlled Jammu
Kashmir and through out the Northern Pakistan, up to River Indus and Chitral2,
(see map below) The language spoken in Pothwar and hills of Muree in Northern
Punjab is by all means Pahari language, deriving its so-called name from the
Pothwari region which consists of four districts, Rawalpindi, Jhelum,, Chakwal
and Attock3. It is called Pothwari in this region for much the same reason as
the Pahari spoken in the district Mirpur (especially in Britain) is some time
referred to Mirpuri or in Rajori Chibali and in Jammu Dogari and it commands
many more regional names such as Hindco and Garwali. Due to geo-political
stresses and strains its current position can be compared with that of Scandian
navian languages which is discribed as family of languages, hence all above can
be described as family of Pahari languges though most linguists discribe it as
Pahari languge with many dialects. It is open to interpretation and demands
serious discussions and research. However, it is very clear that it is neither
Punjabi or dialect of another South Asian language, which often seems to be the
explanation by language service providers.
A rough map of Pahari speaking areas which
over lap in to India, Pakistan and Nepal,
the central point being hymalian region of state of Jammu and Kashmir from where most British
Kashmiris have migrated
Pahari like many other languages of the
world has seen rise and fall in the course of history,
It's written historical storey is as old
and as complex as the language itself. At the height of the Buddhist reign
Sharda university was built, After Maharaja Ashoke. It is a remembrance to
Maharaja Kinshak and those Budhists who in 5AD fled Northern areas of
Gilgit,Tibat etc in the face of white Huns invasion and entered Kashmir through Sharda. It is argued by Dr Nassuralla
Khan Nassar a Pahari scolar, that Landa Pahari is continuation of Ashoke
Parakat or Pali language which was official lanaguage of Buddhist Empire which
covered Most of current Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal and most Indian states in the
Hymalias from 600 BC to 100 Ad.
Pahari
was initially written in Landa script and landa is a form of Sharda which was
invented by Buddhasits4. Sharda was a Buddhist university which is situated in
Neelam valley (Kishan Ganga) in the Azad Jammu Kashmir. In this village there
are remains of an ancient Budh university, a monastery and certain stupas5
quoting from Professor Buhler's indische palaeography (p56), Dr Grierson states
that Sharda script was introduced by Kashmir6. Heim Chander (1088-1172), an
eminent Chinese scholar, collected eight ancient manuscripts from the Sharda
monastery in order to compile his new book of grammar entitled" Sada Heim
Chander7.
Why Sharda?
One might argue why build a university at
Sharda? it is a little place in the
middle of nowhere but looking at it closely one would see that it is a central
place between Graze and Kashmir valleys also it was on caravan roots to Upper
Indus, Kahagan valleys and linked to most central Asian and Indian trade roots.
The other reason seems to be that because Buddihists way of writing was leaves,
wooden planks and bark ( it was called Laikam Chandni).The forests of Sharda
exhibit a rich growth of paper trees locally called "Purzi" or "
Bhoj pattar", that casts off paper-thin bark used for writing purposes, and
now-a-days the holy men use it for writing talismans. Hence, Sharda was chosen
for the religious educational purposes by the Buddhists and Pahari language
Alphabets were not restricted to Kashmir but were used in central Punjab and
Sindh and through out Buddhist empire and religious influanced areas.
Some argue that Dave Nagari, Landa or
Takari alphabets are older than Sharda alphabet, however if that was true than
one might argue why go in to all that bother to invent Sharda alphbet? more
research is needed on the subject Nevertheless It can be said that arguably
Sharda Pahari is one of the oldest written language in South
Asia and it has contributed in developing other languages old and
modern including Urdu8. Pahari and other similar South Asian languages, most
are not taught in the classroom but are very much alive within the people and
overlap a lot through population's physical contact and interaction9, Along
with other languages Pahari has suffered on the hands of foreign invaders,
Pahari's erosion started with the demise of Buddhist Empire and religion within
South Asia. Each new Master introduced and imposed new styles of official
writing including alphabetic changes.
Erosion/Change
In the lower regions the style of writing
started changing with Greek invasion followed by rafts and rafts of other
invasions but in Kashmir up until 10th century AD the nagri Alphbet survived,
however, this changed with Muslim invasion and it became farsi from
1819 to 1846 during sikh rule it was Punjabi and than it was replaced by
Urdu. In Kashmir Pahari was and still is to certain extent written by Hindu
business people in Landa script10 and has been kept alive from father to son.
Some time reffrred to as "Tunda Munda" or " Dand Mutrani" A
drogotory term by the so called linguists.
Post 1947 Like Punjabi, Pahari has suffered
from the division of India
and the written forms got divided too in the shapes of Shah Mukhi and Gurmukhi
broadly speaking. Punjabi seemed to have made some progress on the both sides
of the border but Pahari in Jammu Kashmir got further suppressed through this
neo- colonial status-co between Hindi and Persian scripts
Survival
Once thrieving written Pahari language,
became extinct not only from the classroom but from existance in the written
form, however, it remained verbally very strong within the people and seem to
have stood test of time as have many Buddhist traditions with out any real
awareness. One of the main reason for this could be the presence of mass
illetracy and people's tradiotions and way of life unchanged in the absance of
any infrastructual changes ie roads, industry etc. As the map shows, Pahari has
survived and is still the language of agrarian mountain farmers and herdsmen
living in the hymalyes which were former Buddhist strong holds and Sharda being
in the heart of it.
Revival
Post 1947 there seems to be a drive for
recognition of local languages more so by India than Pakistan, However, In
Pakistan Punjabi, Sindhi and Pushto have found its way in to classroom and many
more regional languages and dialects have found space in media especially air
space. Indian occupied Kashmir has a very vibrant and thriving cutural acadmy,
when it started work on Gojri, Dogri, Kashri and other languages of the state
of Jammu Kashmir, a pressure group called Pahari welfare society was formed and
soon Pahari became integral part of the acadmy and in the last twenty years
have produced and translated many books into Pahari as well as TV ,radio
programmes and dramas are being produced. Currently, there are magzines like,
"Shamas Barri, Shiraza, Usta
Adab and many more are produced regularily.
Recently Pahari from Hamachal Perdesh has
found its way in to main stream Bombay
film industry in the shape of????????
On the Pakistani side, there have been
radio programmes in the shapes of dramas, Pothwari shares and poetry in
existance for a long time. In the recent pass there have been 18 Pakistani
languages recognised by the Alama Iqbal open University for research purposes
and Pahari is one of those 18 languages included. Radio Mirpur and Muzzaffrabad
TV and radio programmes are seen dominated by Pahari.
Apart from the official recognition, the
public effort in revivalism has been over whelming on both sides of Kashmir and
only in the last decade there have been at least 20 books written, these
include poetry, pros short stories, novels, nursery rhymes and people's folk
stories. These are mainly written in Persian script. This than has contributed
to literary exchange between writers of both sides of Kashmir,
which normally is a very rare thing.
While uncoordinated work on revivilism of
Pahari language was going on in South Asia, for some reason it started in Britain
too in the shape of a magzine called "Chitka" It was the British
Pahari speakers who forged links between all sides of Pahari speakers and
produced some qualitative Pahari litraturer.
Pahari in Britain
The spoken language of nearly all Kashmiris
in the UK
is Pahari, and many are unable to read any language. Most social commentators
write that in Britain 80% to
90% of the so called Pakistanis are infact of Kashmiri origin11 Professor Nazir
Tabbasam in his paper Pahari sounds writes "People who emigrated to UK on
Pakistani passports, 80% were of Kashmiri origin. They are quite distinct from
the rest of the south Asians not only culturally and linguistically but
ethnically too"12 Similarly 99% of
the Kashmiris emigrated from the
districts of Mirpur, Kotli, Bhimber, Pounch, Mehendar, Muzafrabad, Rajori,
Jammu and Noshara, around 1% from the Valley, Gilgit, Baltistan and
Ladakh/Kirgil. Thus 99% of the people of state of Jammu
and Kashmir, northern India
and Pakistan in Britain
speak Pahari. This arguably makes Pahari the largest language in Britain after English i.e. more than 1 million,
this makes Kashmiri community and Pahari speakers almost 2% of the UK
population.
Recognising this BBC world service, British
High Commission in Islamabad, and many local
radio stations and Muslim Charities in UK including radio Ramadan and one
off community stations run programmes and advertisements have adopted Pahari to
reach its customeri. Lot of good Local
Authorities and other public service providers recognise and include Pahari in
their communication stratagies to reach to Kashmiri community.
Conclusion
References:
Ref1 Asher
R E, Simpson J.M.Y, editor of the encyclopaedia of languages and linguistics,
Vol. 3, page 1661, pergmon press Ltd.
Oxford England,
1994, masica, C. P. ,Indo-Aryan"
Ref2 Ali
Adalat, Pahari in United Kingdom- A presentation paper researched especially
for Leeds Language Link and presented at
the national conference held by cintra at Warwick
university on September 14, 2001- page 1
Ref3 Tabassam,
M Nazir, A Phonological Analysis of
Pahari language- A research paper written under the supervision of J.M.Y.
Simpson the senior lecturer in the department of English language , University of Glasgow, the sarosh, Golden jubilee
number,2003, page 397
Ref4 Dr
Raja Naserullah Khan Nassar, Linguistic Analysis of Pahari language- An extract
from third chapter of author's PhD thesis presented to the department of Urdu, University of Karachi, Pakistan, 2002, page 1
Ref5 Ibid-page2
Ref6 Grierson,
Dr. the Imperial Gazetteer of India, The India empire new edition Vol.-page
356-7
Ref7 Nasar,
Dr Raja Naserullah Khan, Analysis of Pahari language- An extract from third
chapter of author's PhD thesis presented to the department of Urdu, University of Karachi, Pakistan, 2002, page 2
Ref8 Ibid.-page
400
Ref9 Tabassam,
M Nazir, A Phonological Analysis of Potohari/Mirpuri Language- A research paper
written under the supervision of J.M.Y. Simpson English language section University of Glasgow, the sarosh, golden jubilee
number, 2003, page 399
Ref10 Nasir,
Dr Raja Naserullah Khan, Linguistic Analysis of Pahari Language-Third chapter
of author's PhD thesis, university of Karachi, Pakistan, 2002 page 3
Ref11 Professor
Ballard, a view from Mirpur, university
of Leeds research paper
1995, Dr Nasreen Ali- A paper on Kashmiri
Diaspora and politics of identity in Britain 2004
Ref. 12 Tabassam,
M, Nazir: A phonological
Analysis of Pothwari/Mirpuri language-A research paper written under the
supervision, English language section university of Glasgow, the Sarosh, golden
jubilee number, 2003, page 399
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