Reinventing Pakistan: The Rise of The Left

kulharee...
don`t you know that urdu is the language of civilized people whereas, punjabi, sindhi , pashto, hindko and barohi are spoken by jahils and daggas... how can they learn local languages which have neither ghalib nor meer not even an akbar allahabdi...

Ally - that’s all nice and dandy… what about Urdu speakers learning the local languages? Why do Sindhis need to learn Urdu and Urdus can get away without learning Sindhi while living in Sindh? Remember Bangladesh? Well, that’s what happens.

Kulharee

From the Pakistani govt site

http://www.infopak.gov.pk/public/govt/basic_facts.html

Urdu (National) and English (Official)

Arabic is not a mutually intelligable language, and Kuwait is not joined to us by land nor is it part of the Pakistani Federation, so there is no need to `merge` with it or any other area (Kashmir still being disputed, so am not including that in here)

There are no queues in Pakistani high commisions across the world for ppl to emigrate to Pakistan like there are for the US. Immigration to Pakistan stopped a while back, when Indian Muslims decided to be exactly that `Indian and Muslim` and stay put in Bharat Ma.

If the immigrants you are talking about are the Urdu speaking Mohajirs of Kolachi and Hyderabad, then i feel it is unfair to taint all of them with a stereotypical view that they believe Pakistan depends on their genius, just as it is unfair to taint all Punjabis as moocha marooring land grabbers, and all Pathans as gun wielding crazy men.

I have been reading what has been happening in Baluchistan, and i was in Quetta only a few weeks ago. Whats happening is very sad and is a culmination of events and ill feeling and mis treatment, not only by the federal govt but also by the Baluchi vaderas. As with all political matters, nothing is what it seems. I can only hope and pray that the govt sorts this out without using force and violence, and the rights of the Baluchi ppl are respected.

And what is wrong with Urdu being the national language? It is the lingua franca of our country and helps it function. I can share with you the analogy of the dukandar that i have given before, a Punjabi man in Faisalabad selling cotton and lawn. He uses a Balochi truck driver to send his maal to his Sindhi client in Sukkur, which language do you think they will speak to each other? it is not fair to expect all three to know each others languages but what is fair is to expect they have rudementary working knowledge of Urdu, that they all learnt in school at least till grade 10.

As a Punjabi person i would like to see educational institutes teach in my language and be able to go to Punjab High Court and speak in Punjabi just as they do in Sindh. But in Sindh they also learn Urdu so that Sindhis can speak to the rest of the country. I do love my ma boli, but loving your mother tongue and culture does not mean not liking or being negative towards your national tongue and culture. It just means giving them both their due place.

Pakistan has a multitude of problems and sins, but which country does not? Yes, we can cuss and diss and take the rip out of the govt all we want, because it is our country and we have the right to do so to highlight the problems and get something done about them.

...i have been shouting at the top of my voice at the threat from across the border since yesterday but no one seems to see the oncoming ``indianization`` through brainwashing by the bhayyas from within... who are suddenly active in the akhandization of bharat mata...and the proof is found in the patronisation of the unheard salvar kamiz instead of our beautiful shalwar kameez...if it was 70s or even 80s, i could have apportioned blame on CIA but seeing the growth and growth of the largest democracy in the last five years it has gotta be...RAW...;)

I read the whole piece, am still searching which indicator suggests ‘The Left’ is making inroads. All I noticed is that plain commonsense is slowly replacing reflex response and I think this is a very good sign.

The glass after all is half full!

re: Saima Shah

Saima, I agree that in the last five years, Pakistan is trying to make up for a lack of investment in education. The problem is not a lack of investment in education in the last twenty years. The real problem is the loss of a generation in the last twenty years due to conflict, religious zeal and politically diabolical games of intrique.

The investment in education, which is being made now, will yeild results in the next twenty years, but the ruined generation of 1980s and 1990s, will come to influence and power as the expected investments of 2000-2005 start to materialize. Higher education is a solution in the long term, but in the short term, it is not a solution but a problem. The problem is that Pakistan will produce a low amount of graduates despite the vast sums of money poured into higher education, because it never bothered to create a viable infrastrure of primary and secondary schools. Hence, having the best equipped and the most modern universites, with the best imported minds in Pakistan will do nothing, as there will be a very small number of students who make it to that post-secondary level of education due a prevailing rate of high illiteracy in the primary and the secondary levels of education.

Investment in education is meaningless, without a coherent educational policy. In Pakistan, education is a mess and the mess is made more worse by the provincial bickerings over the nature of the curriculum in our educational institutions. There is a movement towards this effect, and the idea is to establish a standard medium of instruction for all private and government schools in the next five to ten years. The problem is that, in achiving this aim; the government also wants to standardize all curricula as one in all schools of Pakistan; both private and public.

The problem exists in the sense, that the standards of the government schools are at extreme variance, with the private schools. Under this policy, the idea that Aitchison College will teach the same curricula, for example, as a school in Jacobabad, Sindh. In this case, there is an impending ``Panipat`` in the offening as Aitchison or Beacon House or Karachi Grammar School will resist such a policy, because it will mean a potential lowering of their standards in order to balance the low standards in the government schools. On the other hand, the government schools will not be able to teach the level of education imparted in the private schools, because they lack the qualified teachers and generally do not teach, even though they claim, English as a medium of instruction.

Hence, the question becomes critical as to how, this equality of educational standards between private and public schools, will be achieved?

This issue then cuts across class and economic demographic lines, as the people who send their children to private schools in Pakistan tend to belong to its educated classes and are either bureaucrats or professionals, who wish their children to have an economically viable education. They will resist, in this sense, the apprent down grading of the educational standards in the private schools. Thus, educational reform in Pakistan becomes a political and economic class struggle, with the educated intelligensia hoping to keep educational opportunities limited to their own demographic group.

The other side of this debate is that though the idea is feasible in principle, in reality it means that since the government cannot hope to compete, with the private educational institutions in terms of quality of education, it is doing this for political reasons. By harmonizing the quality of education in both private and public schools, the government can make the claim that its schools offer the same quality education that a private school offers but a fraction of the cost.

The sub-textual issue, within this debate, is which standard will be adopted: private or public? Given the fact that government schools might have a hard time to attain the levels of private school education, the private schools will be forced to adopt the curriculum of the government schools.

Therefore, investment in education in Pakistan is a good idea in principle, but in reality it is an invitation to open a Pandora`s box of irksome issues involving provincial and federal rights and secular versus theocratic education and other related issues destined to make a pig`s breakfast out of an attempt to reform the educational system in Pakistan. In this sense, the circle will complete itself in the next ten or years, because the generation that will come to majority, politically and economically, and will be the decision makers in Pakistan will be educationally illiterate since it will be the lost generation of 1980s and the 1990s. This illiterate generation will at helm in Pakistan at a time, when Pakistan`s educational policy`s future will be at a crossroads of hope and expectation.

Pouring money into education in Pakistan is a bad idea as long as the nation does not have a viable educational policy to ensure that such an investment will pay off eventually, because the failure of such a policy will mean another lost generation and Pakistan cannot afford to lose any more generations for any reason; we have suffered too many lost generations in Pakistan.

Ciao

JG...

Don`t you mean ``Mahatma``.. but I protest- I have no such intentions.

Re # 25..

Ally, what I meant by that was that immigrants “in their minds” believe that the country depends on their genius. You don’t have to agree with what I had to say.

By the way, have you been reading on what’s going on in Baluchistan? Urdu is “national” language? Says who? Urdu is an “official” language, and not a national language – we have 4 national languages. It only means that the government work is conducted in Urdu (and hopefully not for long). It doesn’t mean that it is understood by all. If anything, it is understood by fewer than Punjabi is. Having inter-dependence shouldn’t be a criteria for a country. If that were the case, we should merge with Kuwait.

I hope the `Left` doesn`t mean state control of economy and education . We are still recovering from THAT disaster.

Kulharee

There aren`t any songs idolising Pakistan (to my knowledge) in Sindhi, Seraiki, Baluchi, Pashtu, Kashmiri etc. either, they are usually sung in Urdu, as its the national language (meant to be) understood by the whole nation, not just a particular province.

I too am Punjabi and have sympathies for it, but we have a better lot by working with the other provinces. Already the economies of the provinces are interdependent, so we can have as many sympathies as we want, but the bottom line is we have to work together whether we like it or not, and much of Pakistani business already does so quite happily.

Your analogy of Pakistan and the US is nothing but utter codswallop. Please explain how immigrants will sustain Pakistan now?

We came from the Indians (Punjabis at least, are same race as Punjabis across the border), the Amreekis didn`t. We fought them in a war or two, the Amreekis slaughtered.

Okay. I Love India and Indians... Hindus, Muslims, christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Atheists alike...

Some of the Pakistanis need to grow up and stop Bashing Indians on chowk.....

Some of the Indians will follow by example.......

Ye kya hai....

Ab bas bhi karo tum log

chotey log

choti zehniyet

Bey Ghairat

Bey Haya

We are brothers and sisters, Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. We breathe the same air. The spirits of our ancestors, our grandmothers and their grandmothers, and their fathers and mothers and so on and so forth live in the Indian Subcontinent.


Please grow up for their sake..... for your ancestors.....

Stop this mutual bashing of each other..... Bhagwan ka wastaa.... Allah ka Wastaa... Wahe Guru ka Wasta....

As a Punjabi, my sympathies lie with Punjab. Why is there not a single patriotic song written in Punjabi idolizing Pakistan? Why has “Pakistan” (identity and affiliation) become a chanson de passion of only a certain Pakistanis?

Show me a Punjabi or a Baluch who is worried about Pakistan, and I will show you 10 who give a crap. Made up dreamt up identity is no substitute for Ethnic distinctiveness.

Pakistan in many ways is like the United States – both countries need immigrants to sustain (psychologically) and both killed Indians.

#17 Mantolives
I hope all of you are very grateful.

Clearly, you suffer from delusions of grandeur. Another Jinnah in making?

If somebody says ``glass is half full`` because The Left has made inroads in Pakistani psyche, I am a little confused. Shouldn’t it be ``the glass is half empty``?

I would like to know where in its entire history, The Left has done any good?

Re #17:

Manto:

I also caught that {a certain political leader`s alleged success ``beyond our wildest dreams``... } That certainly was Saima`s imagination stretching a bit, I suppose.

Respectfully submitted,

Saima,

kahaaN tak suno gi.. kahaaN tak sunaoN?

Prefacing a stunning statement `Pakistan is a brave attempt to answer humanity’s most divisive and difficult questions such as ‘Is there a God?`, is an ugly malapropism of `DNA belonging to a nation..`?? The complex molecules that determine an organism`s dispositions are akin to describing the genesis of a locus of abstract boundaries??

You must know that the article veers off to tackle issues in your head, then somehow snaps back into `focus` with a grand realization that `Pakistan is also struggling with the same questions as the rest of the world`. SAME, eh? Is that why this article is published? That its all the same??

The silly dichotomy of Left and Right.. then why they are `slightly` different in the West and in Pakistan (`There is where the fledgling Pakistani Left is different from the Left of the West`).. all this confused stream of consciousness is really getting silly. Please drop this juvenile insight.

The temptation to say something worthwhile at the cost of substance has you dropping statements like `Peaceniks are just that, nicks without names` etc, reminding kaka of Versey. Please do not follow her in pursuit of insight and wisdom. She is a fool.

Here`s an example of the care that kaka would like to see. Very anal but please appreciate the beauty of achieving that Platonist sensibility:

When you say, `Science slowly but surely has defected to the Right`, the operative word that begs evidence and further explanation is `defected`. Suddenly noticing that that Science is on the side of Right when you remember it being on the side of the Left, does not merit that statement. Since you used `defected`, you have to try to describe the dance and the movement from Left to Right including intermediate positions and postures of Science. OTHERWISE DO NOT USE THE WORD `defect`. Say something like, `Now we find Science saddling in nicely with the Right` or something similar..

Lastly, the bulleted lists of `good` things happening in Pakistan is condescending.. but not more so than the presumed acquiescence of the readership that you, or anyone else for that matter, means well for their surroundings and should do something about them.