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. If we try to understand this situation from a linguistic point of view, the Hindu argument does not remain tenable. According to research conducted by Grierson, Punjabi is a distinct language with both a standard literary form and a number of dialectical and subdialectal varieties.[10] It has its own grammatical system and vocabulary which makes it a separate language. Although Grierson recognized its literary capabilities, he judged that it was not a very extensive regional literature.[11] This charge was later refuted by Punjabi scholars.[12] Most importantly, Grierson rejects the idea that Punjabi was just a dialect of Hindi and he draws a fairly sharp boundary between Punjabi and Western Hindi or Hindustani. In fact, the controversy between Punjabi and Hindi protagonists was rife at his time and this made him take a clear stand in regard to the Punjabi language's separate identity. While writing on the features of the Punjabi language, he concludes: Even at the present day there is too great a tendency to look down upon Punjabi as a mere dialect of Hindustani (which it is not), and to deny its status as an independent language. Its claim mainly rests upon its phonetic system and on its store of words not found in Hindi; both of which characteristics are due to its old lahanda foundation. Some of the most common words do not occur in Hindustani.[13] With the development of the sociolinguistic study of Indian languages, many linguists like Gumperz, Pandit, Srivastva, and Pattanayak[14] have shifted their focus from distinguishing languages and dialects to the study of codes and their distances from one another in bilingual situations. Gumperz conducted a study examining the use of Hindi and Punjabi among the urban Punjabi community of Delhi. He found that speakers in various contexts use different codes of Punjabi. An educated speaker uses three linguistic codes. He may use a Hindi code while conversing with a Hindi speaker, a Hindi/English dominant Punjabi code while talking with an educated Punjabi speaker and a native regional variety code with an uneducated Punjabi speaker.[15] The discussions by Grierson and Gumperz enable an objective observer to understand that certain arguments advanced by Hindi proponents against the status of Punjabi are incorrect. Saying that Punjabi is nothing more than a dialect of Hindi is contrary to linguistic facts. The area where Punjabi is spoken is fairly distinct. Both advocates of Punjabi and Hindi at one time were willing to accept, on the basis of the Sachar Formula or Regional Formula, that Hindi speaking areas could be differentiated from the rest of the Punjab. But Hindus argued that even the Punjabi-speaking region was bilingual.[16] The pro-Punjabi reply to this was that the mother-tongue of the whole population of the Punjabi region was Punjabi. The only thing needed to settle this argument was to decide whether the so-called Punjabi region is inhabited by people of different religions speaking the same mother tongue or people of different religions and different mother tongues.[17] The Hindu argument that Punjabi did not have Gurmukhi as its sole script and the script was not as fully developed as Devanagari was also not true. There is no denying that Punjabi was written in Gurmukhi, Persian characters and Devanagari; but it was Gurmukhi which was being used by both Hindus and Sikhs for writing their literature. Since the Sikh scriptures were written in Gurmukhi, the Sikhs naturally favored the use of this script for Punjabi.[18] Hindus opposed Gurmukhi precisely for this reason and wanted to use Devanagari for the Punjabi language.[19] The contention over the scripts in Punjab caused Gurmukhi to become the symbol of the separate identity of Sikhs. As a result it became a focal point on which the cultivation of the Punjabi language and pursuit of Sikh cultural aspirations rested.[20] The Hindi movement in nineteenth-century Punjab was led by Punjabi Hindus, themselves educated in English and Urdu.[21] In its origin, the Hindi movement was purely a religio-political or sectarian movement promoted by the Arya Samaj to displace the official status of Urdu in the Persian script due to its association with Muslim communal identity and Hindi's with Hindu revivalism and religious reform. The push to replace Urdu was also associated with political aspirations. The Hindi-Urdu clash in British India erupted first in 1882, a year after the decision of the government to replace Urdu in Persian script with Hindi in Devanagari script in the province of Bihar. Urban Hindus in Punjab soon made the same demand.[22] Both sides saw this as a manifestation of the Hindu-Muslim communal conflict. The Anjumun-e-Islamiya of Lahore protested against this demand, which it saw as delivering "a death-blow to the prospects of Mohammadans."[23] Lala Lajpat Rai, the famous Arya Samaj leader and Punjab politician who did not even know the Hindi alphabet, entered the political arena through this controversy. He came to believe that Hindi could be the foundation for the edifice of Indian nationalism. Through the Hindi-Urdu controversy, Lajpat Rai learned his first lesson of `Hindu nationalism' and became convinced that political solidarity demanded the spread of the Hindi language in Devanagari script.[24] Muslims retained political dominance and Urdu its official status in the Punjab until 1947, when India attained independence. The Simon Commission had earlier rejected the demand of making Hindi or Punjabi the medium of instruction at primary level in the schools of British Punjab. The promotion of Punjabi and Hindi was, however, overseen by denominational educational institutions run under the aegis of the Chief Khalsa Dewan and Arya Samaj respectively. The real trouble started with the census operations of 1951 and 1961 when, after independence, the Hindus of Punjab decided to record their mother tongue as Hindi instead of Punjabi.[25] The Punjabi language became an instrument of political struggle. Punjabi Hindus took up the cause of Hindi with such great passion that they abjured their links with Punjabi as their mother tongue. As discussed, organized efforts to influence the censuses in favor of a language by associations and individuals belonging to religious communities was taking place even earlier. The major conflict during the 1911, 1921 and 1931 censuses was between the educated Muslims and Arya Samaj Hindus. Each urged their religious brethren to declare Urdu or Hindi, respectively, as their mother tongues. In this quarrel Hindustani--a common name used by the superintendents of the census operations for both Hindi and Urdu--was weakened since the use of Hindi and Urdu was insistently forced on the informants. By 1941 communal feelings surged so high and deceptions were so widespread that the mother tongue category was ordered not to be tabulated.[26] In 1951, instead of Hindi-Urdu, the conflict centered around Punjabi-Hindi. Hindus under the banner of Arya Samaj exhorted their co-religionists to record Hindi as their mother tongue. The Sikhs urged fellow-Sikhs to record their mother tongue as Punjabi. In the urban areas the census operations were being accompanied by the shouts of 'Har Har Mahadev' by Hindu groups and 'Sat Sri Akal' by Sikhs, charging the political atmosphere with intense emotion. In 1961, under the leadership of the Arya Samaj and Hindu militant organizations, such as Jan Sangh and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Hindus launched a concerted campaign to declare their mother tongue as Hindi. The Sikhs were being advised similarly under the aegis of the Shromani Akali Dal to record Punjabi as their mother tongue. The vernacular papers of both groups, primarily published in Urdu, appealed to their respective communities to show loyalties to their own language. The Sikh newspapers also started expressing fear that the Sikh religion was in danger and that the mighty Hindu religion was going to devour all minority religions.[27] The Hindu newspapers started propagating the idea that Sikhs were traitors and that they wanted to set up their own independent state of Khalistan.[28] The atmosphere of mutual hatred and mistrust, fanned by intense communal sentiments, further complicated matters. |
