Urdu and Punjabi: A Zero-Sum Game of Languages in 19th-century Colonial Punjab

Introduction

In 19th-century colonial India, language was more than a tool for communication. It was also a marker of identity for communities. While language helped reshape identities in the colonial backdrop, languages themselves were also influenced by policies and practices. Given the diversity of languages and their varying functionality in a place like India, the British also manipulated language as a tool for strengthening their imperial power in the region.  Two such languages that were reshaped in the 19th century due to the changing political and social landscape in colonial India are: Urdu and Punjabi language.  Both Urdu and Punjabi became unique symbols of the Indian vernacular languages, each having its own struggle. While Urdu emerged as the Indian answer to English language, even in the eyes of the colonial officials, Punjabi was considered “inflexible” and “barren.” This created a zero-sum game for the languages in the official and public realm, where there could only be one with higher status. In the context of communities forming their distinct identity through language, this paper aims to explore the journey of Urdu and Punjabi in 19th century colonial India. Urdu had official patronage and Punjabi was more often than not limited to the spoken vernacular. However, it is important to challenge these notions and question why a language was viewed more vernacular than the other by the state. Looking at how these two languages survived and thrived despite competing paths allows one to understand present day perceptions of these languages and their politics as well.  

The State of Urdu and Punjabi in 19th-century India 

What was spoken as Hindavi and written in Perso-Arabic script came to be known as Urdu eventually. The British broadly termed Urdu and Hindi, both as Hindustani. Teaching of Urdu has significant and traceable marks in India. In Northern India, upper and middle classes (the ashraf) spoke Urdu at home and wrote in Persian script, which was considered the key to intellect and literacy. A lot of Islamic books at the time were also written in Urdu and Persian, both, making the language spread more among Muslim elites. Urdu also became the language of mushaira instead of pure Persian for ease of accessibility by many more people, which contributed to its further spread as people hired ustads (tutors) to correct their Urdu verses. What can be understood from the development of Urdu’s usage in the 19th century is that a Persianized Urdu came to be associated with intellectual pursuits and a literary elite circle as it became the mode of formal and informal education within the ashraf. On the other hand, a conversational Urdu was more popular for more informal communication and was understood by those beyond Muslim elites of Northern India. 

Outside of Northern India, Urdu was also understood in the Punjab and North Western Provinces and thrived in the Deccan as well. However, Ayesha Jalal notes that there needs to be a distinction between the spoken language and written script as Urdu may be widely understood on different levels by Punjabis in these states, the majority of the populace spoke Punjabi irrespective of their religious denomination. Jalal’s claim raises an important question: was Urdu chosen as the official language in Punjab because it was understood widely, or it was understood widely because it happened to be chosen as the official language? In choosing an official language for Punjab, the officials had to uphold Act 29 of 1839 that allowed a vernacular language to be chosen. This language should have been Punjabi however, the officials chose Urdu, also a vernacular language. This decision could be attributed to how Punjabi language was viewed in relation to the function of language.  Punjabi was considered the regional vernacular that was only spoken but could not be made one of the official regional languages. In its written form, Punjabi was considered so only when written in Gurmukhi script and was associated with Sikh scriptures. The colonial officials considered Punjabi written in Gurmukhi as something only for “religious scriptures and denigrated it as a bastard from of Nagree.” What this perception of Punjabi led to was a tense space where two languages were competing for official patronage, and the odds were more in favour of Urdu as it was administratively convenient to present Punjabi as a version of Urdu.  

Colonial Attitudes Towards Punjabi

The colonial misconception was that Punjabi is not a language with a literary past or present of its own. This is not just a perception of the language based on its state in 19th century but one that is created to propagate throughout to reduce the language to a shadow of another.  This perception is challenged through the extensive work on the literary formation of Punjabi language by Farina Mir. Mir uses the tradition of oral and written qissa (storytelling), that is deeply important in the Punjab and Punjabi language to show how limited was the colonial understanding of this language. “Punjabi qissa served as both high literature and popular entertainment, and were widely accessible due to their being composed in a vernacular language and disseminated  through oral performance and printed media.” Mir is countering the narrative that Punjabi was a language devoid of rich literary texts and a greater linguistic purpose than every day communication by tracing the history of the Hir-Ranjha qissa in colonial Punjab. 

To take forward the notion highlighted by Mir, it is worth noting that Hir and Ranjha have become symbols alluded to very often in Urdu language poetry as well. Ghulam Hamdani ‘Mushafi’, a master of classical Urdu ghazal in the 19th century, used Hir and Ranjha as a characters in his couplet:

ai ‘mus.hafī’ gaave ye ġhazal merī jo rāñjhā

(Oh Mushafi, if Ranjha sings this ghazal of mine)

mānind-e-parī uḌne lage hiir havā par

(Hir is going to fly in the air like a fairy)

The example of Mushafi’s usage of Hir-Ranjha in an Urdu couplet necessitates a conversation about how language systems in South Asia are not as absolute and static as one would desire for ease of administration. The borrowing of elements of Punjabi language for Urdu poetry reflect the multilingual nature of the speaking and writing abilities of Indian people. This is not to say that the authority to Punjabi language is derived from its usage in Urdu but it is important to acknowledge the position of Punjabi even if it is overlapping with Urdu in places. Even though The Social Space of Language shows that colonial preference of Urdu had limited impact on the spread of Punjabi language in the Punjab, it cannot be ignored that hierarchies within languages were created due to certain imperial policies, which had some impact after all. When the colonial authorities claim that why keep Punjabi as a regional vernacular when its speakers adequately understand Urdu, it reflects their lack of understanding of the functions of language in the Indian society beyond communication. It does not take into account that creating hierarchies within languages that have consequences on the education system and upbringing of youth leads to a cultural void because each language is playing a different role with its own place. 

Implications for Education 

One of the primary implications of a language being chosen (or not) as an official language is on the education system and consequently, production of written material in the form of textbooks.  Once Urdu became an acceptable language for administration, it opened doors to its usage in education and the desire in people to learn it so they had better access to jobs. Kavita Datla discusses the role of Osmania University as the first Urdu-medium university set up by Muslim intellectuals to further knowledge and education in the communities that found knowledge most accessible in Urdu language. A major boost to the language, as Datla notes, came from the translation initiatives by scholars across India. The focus of Datla’s exploration of Urdu is its development as a secular national language through the educational initiatives taken in Hyderabad.  With involvement of institutions like Osmania University and the Nizam of Hyderabad, Urdu language education had enough financial and human resource support in Southern India and there was a significant volume of translation undertaken in the 19th century. However, it can be argued that such patronage to Urdu was a privilege affordable only because elite Muslim scholars like Maulvi Abdul Haq and Sayyid Ross Masood (grandson of Sayyid Ahmad Khan) were on its case and believed that “it can become the language of education and the exchange of ideas, and why it can make a claim to be the national language.” Datla notes that the scholars of this time clearly differentiated between the literate and illiterate, where the latter was perceived to be those people who were not engaged in producing, consuming and sharing intellectual knowledge. However, this limits the purpose and reach of a language to the elite of a community, as by the standards of these scholars Punjabi language would not be making an intellectual contribution to Indian society. But using this logic to isolate certain vernacular languages causes social immobility among the speakers and learners of the other language. 

It is important to understand what was happening in the Punjab education system at the same time that Urdu was soaring with translations and printed material. Jalal notes that in North Western Provinces the language of common people and the script were incongruent in the education system so more people opted for Hindi-medium schooling in Nagari script as opposed to Urdu-medium schooling in Persian script, as officials had hoped for. However, in Punjab the language of the people and both, spoken and written language of the education system were out of line. In 1862, when there was another movement to make Punjabi an official language in the lower courts to encourage people to learn it, the response was that it is “merely a dialect of Urdu, with no literature of its own” therefore, Urdu serves right in the Punjab as its official language. Jalal further notes that people’s response to this gap between what they were taught in school and what they spoke in their daily lives was to absorb Urdu significantly in spoken Punjabi, instead of the other way round. This answers the question raised earlier that the official language compelled speakers of Punjabi to absorb it in their mother tongue, and not the other way around. This is in line with what Mir has argued in The Social Space of Language, and could be another reason why imperial policies regarding Punjabi were largely unsuccessful in completely diminishing its power. Nevertheless, Punjabi was deprived of the benefits of having knowledge translated to it for its users to learn from unlike Urdu, which thrived because of the support of a demand for published material in it. This was only because there was administrative convenience in a uniform language that supposedly suited all Indian people. And if not, compelled them to learn it instead of the system providing some opportunities in the languages people spoke in their respective regions. Alternatives to English, Urdu and Hindi schooling in the Punjab and North Western Provinces would mean that children would retain knowledge of their mother tongue while expanding their horizons by learning another language as multilingualism is always an asset in societies like that of India. 

The Aftermath 

Come 20th century, we see that Urdu was once again deemed necessary for uniting a people, as it was made the national language of Pakistan. In the 1998 census, Urdu was the first language of only 7.53% of total population of Pakistan but a good 20% of urban population, retaining its status as language of the urban elites. Ayres claims that till date to be literate in Punjab, Pakistan means understanding Urdu, which creates a culture-language complex in the rural Punjab populations. This is a direct reflection of the kind of complex colonial Punjab must have developed in relation to Urdu in the 19th century. Employing theories of Ronald Grigor Suny and Geoff Eley, Ayres argues that the larger motive behind placing Urdu as the unifying language over speakers of multiple other languages is the “creative political action necessary to forge a larger sense of collectivity from diverse populations.” Punjabi, however is “doubly marginal” in Pakistan because it is not just hierarchized against Urdu but also English – the language symbolizing the epitome of a postcolonial complex in Pakistan. Therefore, those whose first language is Punjabi are to bury it underneath both English and Urdu in the public sphere, leaving a congested space for their Punjabi and its rich literary history to flourish among its speakers. 

Another implication of the long-standing marginalization of Punjabi was witnessed in Pakistan with a regional movement called “Punjabiyat” by Ayres. As Punjab became the powerhouse of independent Pakistan, Punjabi language finally had the powerful voice and support that Urdu had begun to enjoy in colonial India. Rahman and Ayres, both argue that this movement to reassert the position of Punjabi language’s heritage was often mistaken as a provincialis movement in Pakistan but if analysed in light of the trajectory of Punjabi language and consequently, Punjabi identity from the colonial period, it would not be perceived as such. 

Conclusion 

The discussion of Urdu and Punjabi languages’ struggle for official and public space in 19th century colonial India has revealed that there existed strong prejudice against Punjabi language. While it is uncertain what were the underlying causes of this preference for Urdu language, the reason on surface was ease in colonial administration owing to the uniform applicability of Urdu language in Punjab and North Western Provinces. However, the discussion undertaken in this paper challenges the notion of Urdu’s perceived universal appeal and brings to light evidence for the strength of Punjabi language in the private realm, as claimed by Farina Mir. That this prevalence of Punjabi as the primary language of provinces was overlooked is yet another example of willful oversight on the part of those who stood to benefit from the dominance of Urdu. The struggle of Punjabi, in fact, did not end with the colonial period and the mindset carried on in Pakistan where a culture-language complex manifested in a movement to assert Punjabi heritage, once again mistaken for provincialism. The conversation that this discussion opens can be taken forward by exploring the publishing industries and a comparative analysis of Urdu and Punjabi languages’ prevalence in homes. This would enlighten larger conversations on identities and how they function in the post-colonial South Asia as well especially, since the image of vernacular languages against the classical, literary languages remains largely tarnished. 

Bibliography 

Ayres, Alyssa. Speaking Like A State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Datla, Kavita Saraswathi. The Language of Secular Islam: Urdu Nationalism and Colonial India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013.

Jalal, Ayesha. “Common Languages, Contested Scripts, Conflicted Communities: Shifting Identities of Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi.” In Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850, 102-38. Routledge, 2000.

Mir, Farina. “Mperial Policy, Provincial Practices: Colonial Language Policy in Nineteenth-century India.” The Indian Economic & Social History Review 43, no. 4 (2006): 395-427. Accessed April 5, 2019. doi:10.1177/001946460604300401.

Mir, Farina. The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

“Mushafi Ghulam Hamdani – Sher.” Rekhta. Accessed April 9, 2019. https://www.rekhta.org/couplets/ai-mushafii-gaave-ye-gazal-merii-jo-raanjhaa-mushafi-ghulam-hamdani-couplets.

Rahman, Tariq. “The Teaching of Urdu in British India.” Annual of Urdu Studies, 2000, 31-57. Accessed April 7, 2019. http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/06rahmant.pdf.