Saadat Hasan Manto (1912–1955), one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century that South Asia has produced. Writing mainly in the Urdu language, he produced 22 collections of short stories, a novel, five series of radio plays, three collections of essays and two collections of personal sketches. His best short stories are held in high […]
Manto, The Short Story Writer Who Chronicled India’s Partition — The Liberating Whispers
Just discovered this Blog by Noor Rathore, beautiful mix of text and pictures.
A story that was passed on from generation to generation, almost lost through the passage of time gets a modern retelling.
The Lost Empire: Gujranwala — Noor Rathore
In this year of 2020, as debates are generated around Government of Pakistan’s new single national curriculum and its comparison with Government of India’s new national education policy, mind goes back to the first attempts made by a different Government of Pakistan, ‘to evolve a comprehensive national plan in accord with the Objectives Resolution’ of March 1949 (File No. 3 (4)-PMS/50, GoP, PMS).
Fazlur Rahman, then-Minister for Commerce & Education, was born in then-Dacca and was a lawyer-politician of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League, who had served as Revenue Minister of the pre-partitioned province. On 14 September 1949, he sent a 14-page letter (F. No. 14-313/49-Est) to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, in which he set out his trenchant comments and an accompanying template for the ‘two-fold task’ confronting them namely (1) ‘to lay the foundations of an educational system based on “Islam”’ and (2) to imbue children ‘with an international outlook’.
Recalling the first Pakistan Educational Conference of November 1947 and its resultant educational ideology and institutions – ‘the Advisory Board of Education, the Council of Technical Education and the Inter-University Board’ – he felt that the time had come to overcome ‘the existing system of education, with its alien background, Hindu and Christian ideas, foreign to our ideology’, for as long as it continued, it could not be expected ‘to produce men and women who would realise the value of the Islamic way of life and would make loyal and zealous citizens of Pakistan’.
For the successful achievement of this task, two things were essential: (i) text-books and (ii) teachers. As far as text-books were concerned, the need for Rahman was ‘to draw up the syllabus for every subject on the basis of Islamic ideology (as distinct from instruction in Islamic theology) and get text-books written by competent authors’. He wanted ‘Urdu readers – fundamentally the same all over Pakistan’, necessitating ‘a change in the existing system of publication – whose sole motive is profit-making’. Thus, ‘the Central Government should have them written under supervision’.
There was also the matter of ‘compiling a national history as a kind of reference book’ comprising researched topics like (a) ‘Islamic history and civilisation, (b) the rise and fall of Muslim states all over the world and (c) the contribution made by Muslims to the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent’. For the adoption of Islamic ideology, it was ‘essential to establish a Research Institute in Islamiyat’. As regards teachers and their training, ‘a number of Central Training Institutions’ were needed. These two were ‘fundamental problems which exclusively concerned the Central Government’.
While education was constitutionally the responsibility of the provinces – like in India – their ‘limited resources’ and its ‘all-Pakistan character’ made it ‘incumbent on the Central Government’ to take the lead – ‘from adult to university education’. For ‘democracy and illiteracy go ill together. The illiteracy percentage for India [before 1947] was nearly 90, but with the establishment of Pakistan and the exodus of non-Muslims (educationally more advanced) and the influx of Muslim refugees (to a large extent illiterate)’, there was an increased mass illiteracy in Pakistan.
Adult education, however, was not ‘mere imparting of literacy’ but included ‘spiritual, civic and vocational motives’ for the creation of a patriotic and productive citizenry. This involved infrastructure, implements, literature, teachers and audio-visual aids, for the provision of which, ‘the Central Government must assume certain powers’. Equally important was ‘the provision of free, universal, compulsory primary education’, involving a vast expenditure. ‘Free, compulsory secondary education’ was ‘unfeasible and must be left to future’.
Anyhow, the Central Government had the ‘clear responsibility’ to produce ‘patriotic citizens not warped by narrow provincialism or alien cultural elements as the Hindu influence in East Bengal’. National solidarity therefore required ‘the speedy revision of curricula and syllabi and re-writing of textbooks’. Another problem was the ‘place of Urdu in national life’. As Jinnah had made it ‘abundantly clear’ that Urdu was to be ‘the national language’ and as, by adopting Hindi in Devanagari script, India had ‘dealt a blow’ to Urdu – ‘the cultural heritage of Indian Muslims’.
For Rahman, language was a ‘potent means’ to maintain ‘cultural ascendancy and a separate political consciousness’. Urdu with its Persian and Arabic words was ‘alien in spirit to Hindu culture’, essentialising its ‘elimination from Indian national life’. Conversely, in Pakistan it was ‘a matter of vital necessity to have Urdu in Arabic declared forthwith as state language, a compulsory subject in schools’ overcoming the ‘narrow provincialism’ and ‘parochial mentality’ of East Bengal and Sind and resistance of West Punjab and NWFP ‘to assimilate the vocabulary and culture of these two’.
It was a no-brainer for ‘all employees of the Central Government be required to know Urdu’ and a Bureau of Translation be set up for all technical-scientific terms. In this connection, it is important to remember that in 1949, the Hindu community in East Bengal constituted one third of its population, among whom were ‘the caste Hindus – wedded to the Bengali language – the hard-core of resistance’. Rahman was concerned about their potential for ‘an anti-national mentality’ without ‘a pro-Islamic outlook’; ‘dependable citizens of Pakistan with due regard to their religious rights’.
His suggestion was to ‘reconstruct the Bengali language’ with ‘the Arabic script’ thereby ‘putting an end to the disruptive activity being carried in the name of the common culture of the two Bengals’. Moreover, the ‘present Bengali language with its Sanskrit script’ was ‘steeped in Hindu influence, full of Sanskrit words, Hindu mythology and [thus] anti-Islamic’. The Arabic script would ‘eliminate Hindu influence, facilitate adult education, link up East and West Pakistan [and] ensure East Bengal’s willing acceptance of Urdu as a national language’.
In technical education, Pakistan then had only 3 ‘engineering colleges’, like its 3 universities, for a population of 80 million, ‘impaired by the exodus of non-Muslim teachers’. A ‘Grants Committee’ for both was needed. Here, the ‘main obstacle’ was ‘the attitude of the Ministry of Finance’, to which education was a ‘provincial responsibility’. Rahman had forged the establishment of a History Board, Adult Education Centres in East Bengal, a Central Syllabus Committee with its Bengali sub-committee, a Committee of adopting Arabic script and a Committee on Technical Education.
His future proposals were less piece-meal and included the Central Government assuming ‘direct responsibility for the general planning and coordination of education’, a central-provincial sharing of adult education expenditure, central financial assistance for free, compulsory primary education in provinces, Urdu as state language, Arabic script for regional languages and centres for translation, Islamiyat, teachers’ training and a University Grants Committee.
Special report: The founding fathers 1947-1951. The season of light… By Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, Dawn.
TWO books reviewed of A time BYGONE
ONE is the biography of Jamal Mian (1919-2012), a life across British India, independent India, East Pakistan and Pakistan. The kind of life, which would be unimaginable to most people of the subcontinent today. At the core, this is a detailed history of the changing political landscape of North India told through the life and times of an extraordinary life. The story unfolds with authority and simplicity, the kind of old-fashioned narrative history writing that barely exists. Stories and history writing are barely written like like because they do not command the short-term impact and they take years, generations to unfold through the relationship of the historian and his subject. But importantly it brings together the life and times of an individual and his milieu – showcasing the kind of “Hindustan” that no longer exists, other than in history books.
Pippa Virdee, FRANCIS ROBINSON. Jamal Mian: The Life of Maulana Jamaluddin Abdul Wahab of Farangi Mahall, 1919–2012, The English Historical Review, ceaa186, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceaa186
TWO is an account of the province(s) of Punjab; rising From the Ashes of 1947 but simultaneously being reimagined. This too is about a political landscape that has been transformed and only exists in the history books, kinder memories and sepia imaginations of some of its people. It is about the shorter, shocking and longer, hardening consequences of dividing the land of five rivers. It too has been written over a long period and reveals the changing nature of my understanding of Partition, from the beginning of my doctoral work in 2000, to the point of this publication in 2017. It has changed further still because history is about engaging with the past through the unfolding present and “reveals how far nostalgia combined with the lingering aftershocks of trauma and displacement have shaped memories and identities in the decades since 1947.”
Sarah Ansari, PIPPA VIRDEE. From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining Punjab, The American Historical Review, Volume 125, Issue 2, April 2020, Pages 635–636, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz695
Pities of Partition: Fragmented archives, claims and counter-claims, ‘actual facts’ & contested-truths, sacred and scarce, state against society, naya Pakistan & naya Bharat.
1. 31 January 1950, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar (Minister for Transport & Railways, Govt. of Ind.) to N. Liaquat Ali Khan (Prime Minister, Govt. of Pak.):
‘I have been distressed about the action taken by the Pakistan authorities in relation to the Swaminarayan Temple at Karachi. When an allotment of a portion of the Swaminarayan Temple building was first made to a Muslim, our High-Commissioner at Karachi in December 1948, requested the Administrator, Karachi, to ensure that, for reasons of the sanctity of the temple and security of Hindus living in the temple precincts, the temple building should be reserved for the exclusive use of Hindus. By January 1949, the Administrator, Karachi, confirmed…that the Muslim allottee would be fixed up elsewhere… Later a committee of Hindus was also appointed to allot accommodation within the precincts of the temple. Lately the Administrator has abolished this committee and has withdrawn the previous assurance that the temple would be reserved for the exclusive use of Hindus. Meanwhile, further tenements in the precincts of the temple have been occupied by Muslims. The temple has not only catered for the religious and social needs of Hindus at Karachi but has also been used for accommodating Hindu refugees in transit to India…The Governments of India and Pakistan have undertaken to maintain the sanctity of the religious shrines within their territories. It is contrary to this agreement to disturb the sanctity of this temple, which is one of the important ones in Sind, particularly as Hindus in Karachi still continue to offer worship in the temple. I would strongly urge your taking suitable action in the matter…
2. 20 February 1950, N. Liaquat Ali Khan to N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar (in reply):
‘I made inquiries…The temple is surrounded by a big courtyard; all around the courtyard there are a number of tenements used as residential flats by Hindus, Muslims and others, but most of the flats do not open in the temple courtyard. A number of Muslims lived in these flats even before Pakistan was established. However, the sanctity of the temple is as well maintained as before. In order to obviate all chances of misapprehension on the part of the Hindu minority, the Administrator was willing to reserve all the flats around the temple exclusively for Hindus. Therefore, a committee of Hindus was appointed by him to recommend allotment of accommodation…It was however found that the committee took no interest in the work and allowed a number of flats to remain unoccupied. At the same time, it came to notice that the intending Hindu evacuees were transferring possession of the flats, with or without the connivance of the committee on pugree money. In view of the acute shortage of accommodation in Karachi and the recurring complaints of corruption, the Administrator had to dissolve the committee and resume the practice of making allotments direct…Preference is always given to Hindus, but when they are not available, residential accommodation cannot be allowed to remain vacant in the present-day conditions. I would reiterate that so far as the temple is concerned, its sacred position is fully maintained and the Hindus of Karachi continue to offer worship in it without let or hindrance. The High Commissioner for India recently held some of his Independence Day celebrations at the temple, which goes to show that he considered the premises exclusive enough…As regards the allocation of this whole area as a transit camp for Hindus, it is regretted that in view of the present acute shortage of accommodation, it is not possible to reserve any area in the city for this purpose. An offer is however being made to the High Commissioner for India, for allotment of sufficient land just outside Karachi for maintaining a regular transit camp…’
3. 16 March 1950, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar to N. Liaquat Ali Khan (in reply):
‘I write to acknowledge your letter…Before replying, I had necessarily to obtain full information from our High Commissioner at Karachi in respect of the specific points you have raised…This information has since been received…You will find from [it] that the information given to you – such as that a number of Muslims lived in the flats even before Pakistan was established, that the committee of Hindus set up for advising on the allotment of accommodation took no interest in the work, that possession of some of the flats had been transferred with or without the connivance of the committee on pugree money etc. – is not in accordance with actual facts. I trust you will agree that the temple and its precincts together with the flats physically connected with it, should, for obvious reasons, be allowed to be occupied exclusively by Hindus for residential purposes and for serving as a transit camp for Hindus who pass through Karachi on their way to and back from India. You will appreciate, I am sure, the Hindu sentiment in regard to this…temple… [which] has been used as such a transit camp for over two years…I understand that our High Commissioner has been offered land at Malir for locating a transit camp. Malir is 14 miles away and the inconveniences of locating a transit camp at such a place are obvious…It is impossible for us to accept the offer and I do hope that you will be good enough to reconsider the whole matter…’
Source: File No. 12 (4)-PMS/50 (Government of Pakistan, Prime Minister’s Secretariat)
4. 12 January 2014, ‘City Faith – Shri Swaminarayan temple’, The Karachi Walla:
‘A…landmark on M.A. Jinnah Road…the temple is 200 years old according to the priest in-charge…The priest was originally from Thar. The architecture of temple is very similar to those of Jain temples in Karoonjhar range…The temple is built in the honour of Shri Swaminarayan who…lived his life in Gujrat…Naturally a link has been established between this temple and those in Gujrat and every few years, priests from both sides visit each other. The compound accommodates a Sikh Gurdwara as well. There is a sacred cowshed at the back and a gate, which leads to a neighbourhood with those fabulous balconies from yore. It is the biggest temple in Karachi and naturally a centre of celebrations during…festivals. There’s a significant Hindu population living around the temple…’
5. ‘The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir…:
‘…was built in 1849…over 32,306 square yards…on the M. A. Jinnah Road in Karachi city. The temple celebrated its anniversary of 150 years in April 2004. The temple is located at the centre of a Hindu neighbourhood in Karachi, and it is believed that not only Hindus but also adherents of Islam visit the temple…There is a sacred cowshed within the premises of this temple. [It] became a refugee camp in 1947…People who wished to settle in India from all over Sindh awaited their departure to India by ship at this temple, where they were also visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, during this period. In 1989, for the first time since 1947, a group of sadhus from the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad (India) visited the temple. Since then, small groups…visit every few years in a pilgrimage’.
I recently came across Golam Mostofa and his rather state-centric as opposed to peoples-oriented 20-page pamphlet on The Battle for Pakistan, which examines the entangled questions of state-language and the basis of Pakistan. Mostofa was the secretary of the East Bengal Government’s Language Reform Committee, while being a strong proponent of the two-nation theory and an advocate for Urdu as the national language for Pakistan.
As the ideological imagination, and its linguistic articulation, in early-Pakistan was taking shape, Firoz Khan Noon (Governor of East Pakistan) had his vision of converting Bengalis into Urdu speakers by using religion to play on their sentiments (Jalal 2014, 87). Urdu was deemed the only language that could strengthen national unity over ethnic groups. Noon commissioned various argumentative material to this end, including Mostofa’s pamphlet that presented a case for adopting Urdu in East Pakistan. Below are some extracts from the pamphlet, which was published c. 1952.
The Ideology of Pakistan
An unwarranted bitterness has been created over the question, of whether Urdu or Bengali should be the State-language of Pakistan. This sort of domestic quarrel at this nascent stage of Pakistan is really very sad…Long before the announcement of the Quaid-i-Azam, I said at a public meeting in Dacca that Urdu should be the State-language of Pakistan, though, of course, Bengali should not be discarded. The following extract from the report of the Hindustan Standard will bear me out:
“Poet Gholam Mustafa said that those who wanted to make Bengali as the State-language of Pakistan were looking at a narrow angle of geographical limits; but if they consider Pakistan as a dynamic unifying force in the world, they could not brush aside Urdu. He was inclined to the view that Bengali language was responsible for the decline of the Bengali Muslims as that language reflects the idea of non-Muslims”. (12-11-1947)
Significance of State-Language
The very expression “State-language” pre-supposes the existence of a State. The State-language of a State should therefore be that language by which the interests of the State can be served best. [emphasized in original] …The question of the safety and integrity of the State therefore comes first in determining a State-language. If we quarrel amongst ourselves over this issue and the ‘State’ disappears as a result thereof, what shall we do with the ‘language’ left behind? Language is a means to an end, not an end in itself. When the British conquered this country, they made English the State-language, not for our convenience, but for the interests and ideals of their State. The same principle will apply equally to Pakistan.
Our Problems
The argument of those who say that Bengali should be the State-language of Pakistan because of the numerical superiority of the Bengali Muslims has no leg to stand upon. Had numerical strength been the only determining factor in solving national problems like this, surely, we could not get Pakistan in India, as the Hindus commanded an overwhelming majority over us…Ideals cannot be judged by votes alone.
Pakistan is one State. It is, as it were, a bouquet of five flowers, none of which can be separate from the others. There is no such thing as Eastern Pakistan and Western Pakistan…The different provinces are to the Pakistan State what the limbs are to the body. If the limbs fall out and do not co-operate with one another, the body cannot exist…Pakistan is still beset with various dangers and difficulties…If Bengali and Urdu are both given the status of two State-languages, one for the East, the other for the West, it will only serve the purpose of the enemies. It will give rise to narrow provincialism among us, culminating in the ultimate separation between the two wings.
The demand for Bengali as the State-language of Pakistan therefore signified the triumph of Hindu culture and, as such, is in itself a strong symptom for the intravenous injection of Urdu in the cultural life of the Bengali Muslims. It is really very amazing that the Bengali Muslims are unwilling to accept Urdu for fear of Punjabi domination, but are quite agree-
able to be slaves of Bengali culture which is dominated by the Hindus.
On analysis, it will be found that the ‘Bengali for Bengal’ movement owes its origin to the borrowed idea of nationalism. Bengali Muslims are a separate unit having distinct culture of their own – this territorial patriotism has prompted the agitators to go in for Bengali. But they do not perhaps know that there is no such nationalism in Islam. Islam is preacher of internationalism or extra-territorialism.
Conclusion
We have got Pakistan. But real Pakistan is still far away…It is a thorny path and, as such, we have got to sacrifice much before we reach our goal. We must not be satisfied with our geographical Pakistan. Pakistan is an ideal…Islam is appearing in a new historic role and Pakistan will be the stage board of that great episode. For that ultimate goal, the entire Muslim World should first of all unite under one banner. Egypt, Arabia, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia: all the Muslim States of the world are therefore combining together to form a “Sixth Continent”. Will the Muslims of East Pakistan lag behind?
Following biographical details are provided on Wikipedia: Golam Mostofa (1897 – 13 October 1964): “Mostofa started teaching at Barakpore Government School in 1920. He retired as headmaster of Faridpur Zila School in 1949…His book Biswanabi (1942), a biography based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, provided him with recognition.”
Other references
Jalal, Ayesha. The Struggle for Pakistan. Harvard University Press, 2014.
‘Remembering poet Golam Mostofa’: https://www.observerbd.com/2014/10/16/48987.php
Poem Hunter: https://www.poemhunter.com/golam-mostafa/biography/.
When Pakistan was created in August 1947, it was made up of two wings, East and West. In 1951, when its first census took place, the combined population of both wings was 76 million; 34 million in West and 42 million in East. The Bengalis made up the majority of the population of East and this made Bengali/Bangla the language spoken by the numerical majority of Pakistan. But Urdu was seen as the national language, while being the mother tongue of barely 5 per cent of the population then. However, it was more than a language; it was attached to the very core of the Pakistan Movement as the Quaid-i-Azam Mohd. Ali Jinnah declared in Dacca (Dhaka) in 1948. Yet, soon thereafter, the fractures and fissures between the two wings began to open up, due to the discriminatory and step-brotherly treatment of the East Pakistanis; not just in the language sphere.
By 1952, there were large-scale demonstrations and unrest centred around the University of Dhaka and on 21 February 1952, these ended in violence, in which the police clamped down on the protestors resulting in numerous casualties. Since 2000, the United Nations has observed 21 February as the International Mother Language Day. Bengali/Bangla was eventually recognised as an official language of Pakistan (alongside Urdu) in article 214(1), when the first constitution of Pakistan was enacted on 29 February 1956. Longer term though, this parity in the Constitution failed to address the underpinning problems and East Pakistan eventually became Bangladesh following the civil war of 1971.
The letter below, sent a week after these protests, from Malik Firoz Khan Noon, a prominent landowning Punjabi and future PM (1957-58) of Pakistan, then-Governor, East Bengal Governor to Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin, an aristocrat Bengali and Jinnah’s successor as Governor-General (1948-51) of Pakistan, then-PM (1951-53), shows the failure to recognise the legitimate grievances of the language movement.
Noon to Nazimuddin, 28 February 1952
The Vice-Chancellor and other members of the Executive Committee have closed the University. Some students are leaving: others will try to hang on in Dacca. Out in the districts no untoward incidents have taken place except this that students have been trying to make themselves a nuisance at railway stations and in the cities, and the papers who write explaining true facts are not allowed by the students to be distributed by the hawkers in the district headquarter towns. The Government are now planning to drop pamphlets from the air throughout the province. I do not think that the Muslim League Ministers or other leaders can go out into the province as yet for three or four weeks to explain their point of view, but our propaganda has been very weak: almost non-existent. The Government point of view has not had the chance to go before the public yet.
I feel that both in Western Pakistan and in East Pakistan our propaganda machine should be put into full force and the true situation exposed to the public, viz. that this was a conspiracy between the communists and some of the caste Hindus of Calcutta, and certain political elements in East Pakistan who wanted to replace the Ministry: the students were made the cat’s paw. Their idea was to set up a puppet Ministry here, with Fazlul Huq as the Chief Minister, and then negotiations were to start for the unification of the two Bengals. I feel that it is most important that this true position must be exposed to the public who should realise the danger that we still continue to face in this province. The language question was only a subterfuge very cleverly exploited. In this province we are doing what we can to put forth our point of view, and Mr Fazl-i-Karim – Education Secretary – who has just returned from abroad has been asked to take charge of this work.
The second point to which I should like to draw your attention is that during the coming session of the Central Legislature, this Bengali language question must be settled once for all, and I do not think that you can get out of it without accepting Bengali as one of the state languages, but it must be Bengali written in the Arabic script. The sooner this resolution is passed the sooner will this controversy be settled. I have no doubt that the Hindus will create trouble about the script, but no Muslim will be able to raise his voice against the Arabic script, because in this way we shall have all the Provincial languages written in the same Arabic script, and this is most essential from the national point of view. I am told that during the time of Shaista Khan, Bengali was written in the Arabic script: there are some books in the museum here written in that script. If Bengali were written in the Arabic script – 85 % of the words being common between Urdu and Arabic if properly pronounced soon a new and richer language will emerge which may be called ‘Pakistani’. But something has to be done in this matter. We cannot let matters adrift.
The Arabic script will be the biggest disappointment to the Hindus who have been at the bottom of it, and that is the real crux of the whole question. The Jamiat ul Ulama-i-Islam in this province under the presidency of Pir Sahib of Sarsina and Secretary-ship of Maulana Raghib Asan have already passed a resolution demanding the writing of Bengali in the Arabic script, and no Muslim M.L.A. – either in Karachi or here – will be able to oppose the Arabic script. As a matter of fact, the Muslim League Party here last year went to the extent of passing a resolution saying that Arabic should be the national language of Pakistan. The object really was to do away with Urdu, but it is certainly a point which may be used by you in your speech, if necessary. The Aga Khan has written a very good pamphlet on this subject. It was going to be published but unfortunately it has been burnt with the Jubilee Press. The Aga Khan has promised his followers to be provided with a revised copy and I will try and let you have one as soon as it becomes available.
One of the main points the Aga Khan brought out was this that Persia changed their script from the old Pehlvi script into the Arabic script and in that way their literature became richer than ever, and by changing the script the Persian language did not lose anything nor would the Bengali language. He also tried and impressed that by enforcing the Arabic script the Bengali literature will be available to all other Muslim countries who will be able to appreciate the work of the Bengali authors. Similarly, the literature of all other Muslim countries will be open to Bengali Musalmans who know the Arabic script. He also pointed out in his pamphlet that every Musalman has to learn Arabic in any case because the boys and girls must read the holy Quran, and if they are conversant with the Arabic script why should this Dev Nagri script be thrust on them unnecessarily. It will be conceded on all hands that if in the schools in East Bengal boys and parents were given the option for children to learn Bengali either in the Arabic script or in the Dev Nagri script, they would all choose the Arabic script.
Quite a large amount of money is being earned by Calcutta Hindu authors who have the monopoly of all our school text books and it is they who are spending money in support of the Bengali language and would even spend money in support of the Dev Nagri Script. It should not be forgotten that people in West Bengal themselves have not asked for Bengali language to be accepted as a State language in Bharat: they have accepted Hindi as their national language.
Further Reading:
Rahman, Tariq. ‘Language and ethnicity in Pakistan‘ Asian Survey 37, no. 9 (1997): 833-839.
S.M. Shamsul Alam (1991) ‘Language as political articulation: East Bengal in 1952’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 21:4, 469-487, DOI: 10.1080/00472339180000311
Tarun Rahman, ‘The Bengali Story Behind International Mother Language Day‘, Medium, 11 February 2016
Salman Al-Azami, ‘The Bangla Language Movement and Ghulam Azam‘, Open Democracy, 21 February 2013
Earlier in June, I shared a piece about Pakistani Truck Artist Haider Ali and his homage to George Floyd. It resonated with many people. At the same time, I was also writing a separate piece around the cultural landscape and art scene in Pakistan. Originally, I had planned to include something about Truck Art, which I have always been intrigued and charmed by. I even wrote about it but in the end, I had to exclude it from the final version. But words are never wasted, and here I share some of that in an extended version.
Anyone who has visited Pakistan, seen it on screen or in pictures, would have encountered the vibrant, highly distinctive, and perhaps even outlandish, painted trucks. This form of decorating and customising trucks is popular in South Asia, but the designs and passion displayed are quite exceptional in Pakistan. Over the years these truck designs have transformed and evolved from depicting religious iconography and Sufi saints to a much more dynamic art-form. The lively and loud paintings incorporate animals, fauna and flora in a psychedelic array of colours. The artwork is paired with poetry, calligraphy, popular idioms, and popular iconography to represent an individual expression of the trucker’s identity and background. On the surface, they may appear the same but deeper inspection reveals the regional identity and character of the person and the location. Although it is thought that specialism in truck art was prevalent in NWFP/KP, it has travelled through migration of labour to the port city of Karachi, where it has found fertile ground and flourished.
History
The exact origins of this kind of art-form are unknown, but it does date back to the early 20th century. According to Paracha, a more restrained version of this art-form was present in the subcontinent in the 1940s. That of course would also have something to do with the lack of accessibility to the materials used to paint and decorate these trucks. Paracha suggests that, “It first appeared on trucks and lorries driven by Sikh transporters who would paint a portrait of their spiritual Gurus, or those who helped form the Sikh religion. The portraits were painted with the loudest of colours. Simultaneously, Muslim transporters and drivers began to paint portraits of famous Sufi saints on their trucks and lorries.”
On Pinterest there is a popular quote suggesting that “In the 1920s, the Kohistan Bus Company hired Ustad Elahi Buksh, a master craftsman, to decorate their buses to attract passengers. It was not long after that truck owners followed with their own designs. Within the last few years trucks and buses have been further embellished with full lighting systems.”
Another source elaborates and suggests: “This extraordinary tradition has its routes in the days of the Raj when craftsmen made glorious horse drawn carriages for the gentry. In the 1920s, the Kohistan bus company asked the local Michaelangelo, Ustad Elahi Buksh, a master craftsman to decorate their buses to attract passengers. Buksh employed a community of artists from the Punjabi town of Chiniot, whose ancestors had worked on many great palaces and temples dating back to the Mughal Empire.”
The special edition of Granta in 2010 also suggests that there were links with the “ornate horse-drawn carriages of the Raj to the pioneering craftsmanship featured on the Kohistan Bus Company’s fleet in the 1920s.”
Design
The vast majority of the privately-owned Pakistani trucks are decorated with any combination of paint, wood carvings, mirror work, hammered metal work. They are heavily decorated and most often highly personalised to driver’s vision or interests. No one truck is the same. The truck drivers spend large sums of money on customising their trucks, which are not just “painted” but also involve structural work to modify the interior and exterior. According to Jamal Elias, in 2007 the cost of customising these trucks could go up to Rs. 400,000 (US$7,000 at the time), which included having the “coachwork completed on a Bedford truck, the iconic vehicle of Pakistani truck arts. In contrast, the cost of decorating a triple-axle unibody vehicle such as a Hino or Nissan in the Balochistan style was between US$12,000 and US$16,000.” (Elias, 2012). The vast majority (96%) of freight in Pakistan is carried by trucks for transporting goods and this art-form by extension then generates livelihoods for many households.
Samina Zia Sheikh (2018) writing about the expansion of truck art as popular culture notes how, “Decoration of these trucks gives us clear idea of competition between owners of these vehicles in execution of outrageous and daring images, designs and ornamental patterns. These aesthetically adorned vehicles are pleasure for the eyes of observers. Truck art represents a truck driver’s journey that drives this vehicle for long hours.”
The ‘jingle trucks’ as they are referred to sometimes play an important function for the drivers. Sheikh notes that the, “Hanging chains on the front and back-fenders with different shapes like bell, hearts, pīpal leaf or pān kā pattā attached with ghungrū, give off delightful jingling sound whenever vehicle hits furrows or ditches on road. Nazir Hussain is an expert in this field and, working since sixteen years, tells that this work is not only an element of embellishment but has its significant importance in decoration and otherwise. Jingling sounds of chains on rough roads works well on the psyche of truckers and helps them concentrate on driving more watchfully. He said, the sound of ghugrū and zanjīr keeps the driver active and awake during long routes of driving.”
Profile of Haider Ali
Karachi based artist, Haider Ali, has played an important part in taking this art-form to an international audience with his first exhibition in 2002 at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The festival was important because, for the first time, it allowed international markets and artists to see and experience this work first-hand, as painter Haider Ali and bodywork expert Jamiluddin shipped a truck from Karachi to Washington DC. For Haider, who has worked for many years, it is important that young artists are trained properly, especially if this craft is to carry on and grow.
Haider Ali’s family originally belonged from Jullundur before the 1947 Partition of Punjab. His family migrated and settled in Karachi, which has become a hub for Truck artists. The whole neighbourhood around Garden Market in Karachi is devoted to truck decorations. Haider recalls that the market started around 1955 and gradually grew as the usage of trucks started growing in the 1960s. He recalls how truck owners would come and request that they paint images often associated with their own homes, villages and interests. These moving visual memories of home would travel with them while they criss-crossed the land and breath of Pakistan.
At the same time Elias suggests that, “Pakistani truck is a cultural vehicle in the sense that it carries in it and on it an array of cultural messages and expectations…It is also the most widespread expression of visual material culture in the country, saying more about the visual regime of Pakistan than other forms of art and visual expression that are traditionally treated as legitimate windows into the beliefs, practices, and dispositions of members of Pakistani society at an individual and a collective level.” (Elias, 2012)
This unique form of self-expression has today taken on a completely new life in popular imagination. It has carved out a space in the re-branding of modern Pakistan and usage now extends far and beyond the world of Trucks. Popular amongst tourists, keen to take a little piece of Pakistan, the world of Truck art is also very reminiscent of Canal Barge art.
References
Jamal J. Elias. ‘Truck Decoration and Religious Identity: Material Culture and Social Function in Pakistan.’ Material Religion 1 (1): 48–70. 2005.
Jamal J. Elias, ‘The Politics of Pashtun and Punjabi Truck Decoration.’ In Bashir, Shahzad, and Robert D. Crews. Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, Harvard University Press, 2012. Pp. 192-214. Ebook.
Samina Zia Sheikh, ‘Impact of truck art, as popular culture on Pakistani society’, International Journal of Multidisciplinary and Current Research, Vol. 6, Sep/Oct 2018.
Nadeem F. Paracha, ‘The elusive history and politics of Pakistan’s truck art’, Dawn, 19 August 2016.
Pakistan’s Truck Art by Matthieu Aikins, for the Pulitzer Centre, May 2013.
GRANTA 112 Pakistan, 2010.
Anna Schmid, ‘Truck Art as Arena of Contest‘, Journal of Social Sciences, 4:4, 235-241, 2000.
Moving Museums: The Art of Pakistani Trucks, RadioFreeEurope.
BAGICHA 