Barah Mah & story of Punjabi magazines in Pakistan (A radio prog)

 

Barah Mah & story of Punjabi magazines in Pakistan (A radio prog)

The struggle for the Punjabi language, its literature, folk & media is still a forgotten past, thanks to centralist mindset. Here in this program you will listen a brief account of Punjabi magazines as explained by Jameel Paul, Zubair Ahmad & Nain Sukh. The occasion was celebration of 5th issue of  annual Punjabi magazine Barah Mah. 

Nationalism based on enemy construction is killer for the spirit yet nationalism based on language & folk lore may change things. Nationalisms in South Asia are the best examples to understand the phenomenon. 

Both the editors (Amarjit Chandan & Zubair Ahmad)  tried their best to maintain the standard well and published Punjabi writings not only from both Punjabs but also from Punjabi diaspora too. 

Now you watch few clips and listen program

  

Few video clips of the program

Jameel Paul sharing his views

Zubair Ahmad talk

Nain Sukh in his own style

There was a galaxy of unknown Punjabi stars who did struggle for the Punjabi since 2nd half of 19th century yet thanks to fake Hindi Urdu controversy,  misuse of religion card in languages as well as scripts the issue of mother tongues remained unresolved. After annexation of  Lhore Darbar (1849) colonial masters cleverly adopted a pre annexation policy and use religion card against Punjabi too. They said that Punjabi is a language of Sikhs. Hindi for Hindus, Urdu for Muslims & Punjabi for Sikhs and English for all elite as well as discouragement for Persian, Arabic & Sanskrit and Shah Mukhi Punjabi (Punjabi in persian script) was the policy. They also discourage Devnagri script for Sindhi, etc and Persian  scripts for Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil etc. In the Punjab after Wood's dispatch of 1854, they imposed Urdu as official & court language in 1865. Punjabi for Sikhs in Gurmukhi was used but Punjabi in Persian scripts remained absent from schools from 1880s till 1947. It was a clever trick because colonial masters knew that British Punjab had a massive majority of Muslim Punjabis. Even after expulsion of many Punjabi areas, first by creating J&K State 1850, than creating NWFP (1901) even than Punjabi Muslims were not only 57.1% but in all 8 divisions of the Punjab. Keeping in view the legacy, we witnessed that the policy continued after 1947 in both Punjabs. Rejection of Shah Mukhi remain present in East Punjab and rejection of Punjabi remain there in West Punjab. In both countries Punjabi was further divided in different languages Dogri, Haryanvi, Seraiki, Hindko etc without having a debate of language,dialect and the script. In such circumstances, few Punjabi Muslims & Punjabi Christians supported cause of the Punjabi well. Eric Spreen, Safdar Mir,Masood Kadarposh etc were pioneers at political front yet Ahmad Rahi, Josha Fazaldin, Faqeer Muhammad Faqeer, Asif Khan, Akhtar Shah, Sibtul hassan Zygum, Afzal Hasan Randhawa  and many played their role in 1960s and 1970s. In this discussion panelists tries their best yet some names still missing and we will do a detail program about it too. 

Complete recording of the program, click Here

Further links

https://punjabpunch.blogspot.com/2019/03/2nd-international-punjabi-conference.html

https://punjabpunch.blogspot.com/2022/02/an-interview-of-akhtar-shah-editor.html