Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India

by Tariq Rahman

This is the first book-length study of the history of language teaching and learning among South Asian Muslims. It looks at language teaching policies and texts to prove that they are meant to support certain ideologies which, in turn, support certain power structures. It also argues that, in
most cases, people learn language to empower themselves by equipping themselves for powerful jobs.

Hardcover

First published May 2, 2002

About the author

Tariq Rahman PhD is presently Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He is also HEC Distinguished National Professor and Professor Emeritus at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Dr Rahman has been a guest professor in Denmark and Spain, and a Fulbright research scholar (1995-96) at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He was also the first incumbent of the Pakistan Chair at U.C. Berkeley (2004-05). He has been a research fellow at the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies and the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg. He has been given several awards: the Presidential Pride of Performance (1994), HEC lifetime achievement award, the highly prestigious Humboldt Research Award (2012) from Germany, and the Sitara-i-Imtiaz in 2013. He was awarded a higher doctorate (D.Litt) by the University of Sheffield for all of his published research in 2014.

Reviews

[ناسازگار · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, how MUCH I love when every modern day value judgment or bias around language turns out to be just as arbitrary as any other once you engage with it on a more than superficial level.

My favourite sociolinguist on the planet described brilliantly how modern standard Urdu’s current position as a national hegemon in Pakistan, and prior to Partition, its position of prestige across North India, was in itself the result of a series of policy decisions by the colonial government. Urdu was seen as ‘filthy’, as the uncouth language of uncouth people by those who had been convinced through centuries of exposure to Persian as gatekept by powerful or power-adjacent people. Persian schools dominated the landscape across much of the Indo-Gangetic plains, schools that taught in Urdu were looked down upon much as Hindi medium schools are in India of today, as Persian was the language of worldly affairs and elevated discourse. It took policy decisions like restricting civil service positions to those who had Urdu in school for a gradual shift to begin taking place, alongside the increasing appeal of Urdu as part of a ‘multi symbol congruence’ for South Asia’s Muslims under Hindu right wing lobbying in favour of Sanskritized Hindi in the Nagari script. Most of this, to me, was extra nuance that I wasn’t adequately aware of, even after my reading on and around the Hindi-Urdu ‘controversy’ of the 19th century and thereafter.

Ahhhh, so much to chew on. Loved the details on the patronage of Urdu as a medium of instruction across disciplines, including medicine, by Osmania University under the independent kingdom of Hyderabad; and on the backlash faced by the first translation of the Qur’an to Urdu, which was so vociferous, all copies were confiscated and destroyed by the colonial administration in deference to Ulema demands.

AHHHH LOVED THIS.