Daily Times

The Sindhi language Bill passed by the Sindh Assembly in July 1972 neither posed any threat to Urdu nor did it aim to expel it from the province. The Bill just restored the status of the Sindhi language in judicial courts, provincial, district and local government offices without barring the simultaneous use of Urdu. Sindhi had enjoyed this status along with Persian before the fall of Sindh to the British Indian Empire.

The British parliamentary act of 1836 made it obligatory for British India Administrators to learn the indigenous languages. This applied to all British possessions in the Sub-continent including Sindh. It was also compulsory for the British Governors and administrators to learn Sindhi within three months failing which they had to face administrative censure including stoppage of their annual increments. This obligation was discontinued in independent Pakistan.

The federal government under Liaquat Ali Khan almost stopped the use of Sindhi in offices. Sindhi schools in Karachi were gradually converted into Urdu teaching places. The only provincial university in the capital city was taken over and renamed Karachi University. With the imposition of one unit in 1955, Sindhi was banished altogether from judicial courts, provincial, district and local government offices of the entire province. Even the names of small railway stations in remotest villages were written in Urdu and English.

Against this backdrop, the Sindh Assembly passed the Sindhi language bill in July 1972. The Urdu-speaking elite had no justification whatsoever to sensationalise it. Poet Raees Amrohvi lamented it as the “funeral of Urdu” (Urdu ka Janaza he dhoom dham se nikle). This was headlined by one large Urdu Daily. Instead of any linguistic issue, they actually had political and administrative reasons for their agitation as it came to the fore, later on.

Administrative facts and figures from 1948-69 show that Mohajirs and Punjabis had overwhelming domination in the appointments, transfers, postings and promotions to senior positions in the Sindh civil secretariat, districts, local governments and other provincial and federal departments and corporations. These figures present a pathetic picture of discrimination against native officers.

The delicately maintained ethnic equilibrium was dealt a death blow by the ethnic-based violent politics of MQM.

The Hindu population of the province migrated en masse to India after the riots of 1947-8 in Karachi. Without any help from the federal government, the provincial administration of Ayub Khuhro tried to stop the riots. He incurred the displeasure of the federal government and lost his power. The fleeing Hindu population included an overwhelming majority of the officials of the provincial administration. This vacuum was filled by the migrants from India. The One-Unit gave a carte blanche for discrimination against natives.

During the general elections of 1970, the Urdu-speaking population of both wings of the country sided with the rightist and religious political parties which were badly defeated by the PPP and Awami League. The mishandling of the evolving political crisis in the post-election period by the ruling military junta took a toll on the country. We lost former East Pakistan.

In the changed political scenario, the Urdu speaking elite of Sindh could clearly foresee the erosion of their earlier dominance in the provincial administration. As their talks with late Bhutto after language riots showed, they were more worried about their share in political and administrative appointments. Late Bhutto acceded to many of their demands to promote ethnic harmony in the province. However, the delicately maintained ethnic equilibrium was dealt a death blow by the ethnic-based violent politics of MQM.

Urdu cannot be made the medium of competitive examinations for provincial and central superior services. The candidates of these examinations are allowed to take indigenous languages including Sindhi, Punjabi, Pashto and also Urdu as one of the optional subjects. They are also allowed to choose other optional subjects according to their convenience. Many opt for technical subjects for which books are not available in Urdu. We also don’t have good books or journals in Urdu that may thoroughly prepare a candidate for international current affairs.

Indeed, we have to go a long way to replace English in our competitive examinations or higher medical and engineering studies. The Urdu Development Authority under eminent Urdu scholars took decades to prepare an incomplete English-Urdu dictionary only. The Osmania University of Hyderabad Deccan too has retained all the technical words and phrases in medical and engineering studies in English. The degrees of the Osmania University in medicine and engineering are not competitive in India and carry low value in the international job market or research domain.

The Evacuee Property Scheme was started following the Liaquat-Nehru Pact of 1948 and continued to remain in force until the dissolution of one unit in 1969 allocating the urban and rural properties abandoned by the fleeing Hindus to the immigrants from India. I don’t vouchsafe for other provinces but this ill-famed scheme opened flood gates of fraud, forgery, trickery and corruption in Sindh. It was a lucrative trade marked by corrupt practices to grab maximum properties.

Precious urban properties and large tracks of fertile agricultural lands abandoned by Hindus were allotted to Mohajirs on mere affidavits. Most of them sold these lands to neighbouring landlords. Urban properties exchanged many hands. There were many allottees of a single property or a property lived in or occupied by its original Muslim or Hindu owner resulting in long and arduous litigations.

The scheme has since been discontinued. There is nothing left for allotment to Mohajirs after 70 years of independence. Now, they are eyeing fewer urban properties abandoned by Bengalis. One wonders how many more years, this business of seeking properties by Mohajirs for their fallacious role in making Pakistan will continue in this dear land.

Some diehard MQM activists from abroad have stormed the social media with foul-mouthed videos for a Mohajir province in the ‘Evacued Sindh’. This is further intensifying the political and ethnic fault lines in the province. The federal government and other powers need to take stock of such subversive videos, which are apparently part of the nefarious plans of enemy states to weaken us from within.

(concluded)

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books.