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Abstract
Examining the vernacular lives of Punjabi language in Pakistan, this essay considers the question: what is the life of a languages undesired in a hostile politicolinguistic ecology? By way of an answer, it employs the term paindoo to argue that Anglo-Urduphile postcolonial Pakistan reduces Punjabi to a lingual and visual accent that is caricatured, embodied, and gendered. This reductive accent is produced not by the speaker, but rather through the accented perception of the listener.
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Notes
1 On 17 November 1999, UNESCO General Council announced that 21st of February would be observed as the International Mother Language Day. Same day is commemorated as Language Martyrs’ Day in Bangladesh. After the partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan declared Urdu as the only official language. On February 21, 1952, thousands of students gathered at Dhaka University campus to demand that government declare Bengali as the national language or one of the official languages of Pakistan and as the language of instruction and official communication in East Bengal. When the protest escalated, police opened fire which killed three students and two other persons. In 1956, Pakistani government eventually recognized Bengali as a state language along with Urdu. See: Badruddīn Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh: Class Struggles in East Pakistan (1947-1958), vol. 3, (India: Oxford University Press, Citation2004; Anam Zakaria, “When Language Becomes Dissent,” in 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India (India: Penguin Random House, Citation2019); Alyssa Ayres, “Politics of Language Policy in Pakistan,” in Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in Asia, ed. Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly (United Kingdom: MIT Press, Citation2003).
2 As the language of Quran, Arabic is perceived as embedded into Pakistan’s Muslim identity. Constitution of Pakistan notes under “Islamic Way of Life” that the “State shall endeavor” to “encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language” (Constitution of Pakistan Citation1973, 17). Quran and Arabic grammar are also taught as mandatory or elective subjects in Pakistani schools (National Education Policy Citation2017, 25). Pakistani senators have encouraged learning Arabic for more job opportunities and remittances from the Middle East and other Arab countries (Senate Secretariat Citation2020, 2).
3 Punjabi publications in Shahmukhi script (Perso-Arabic script used for Punjabi in Pakistan, as opposed to Gurmukhi script used in India) are scant. Hence, Punjabi culture and traditions have a more vibrant oral life in West Punjab.
4 Punjabiyat is the language movement that seeks to “rescue and restore” Punjabi to forge it from a peripheral “oral literary culture” into “a written literary culture” (Ayres Citation2003, 65).
5 In English, aadamkhor translates to human-eater and khooni zubaan translates to murderous language.
6 This cited excerpt is loosely translated by me, with an eye to brevity. Rural Punjabis constitute 75% of Punjab’s population.
7 According to Rekhta and John T. Platt’s dictionaries, shusta means pure, chaste.
8 “My culture is not your costume,” a phrased used to critique cultural appropriation in the Global North.
9 Protagonists of Najm Hossain Syed’s historical fiction, Ik Raat Ravi Di and Takht Lahore.
10 Translation: “would you still beat your chest and wail now”.
11 Translation: “Congratulations, you man in uniform”.
12 Baraat Series is a multi-series drama, where each series revolves around marriage between people from Karachi (the biggest metropolis in Pakistan) and Faisalabad (the third largest city but considered a big village) and their ludicrous interactions.
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Iqra Shagufta Cheema
Iqra Shagufta Cheema teaches and writes about 20th-21st century postcolonial and feminist literary and media cultures. She is the editor of The Other #MeToos (Oxford University Press 2023) and author of ReFocus: The Films of Annemarie Jacir (Edinburgh University Press 2023).