Kashmiri and the Linguistic Predicament of the State

- P. N. Pushp

Excerpts from: Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh - Linguistic Predicament Edited by: P. N. Pushp and K. Warikoo Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation Har-Anand Publications

 This genius of a linguistic scholar somehow felt fascinated by the probability of such a hypothesis which unfortunately for him remained pampered within the confines of probability and did not get ratified as an objective fact of linguistic development. Consider, for instance, a few of his observations that he published in a series of articles in the Indian Antiquary (1931-33);
  1. "It is probable that in Dardic language distinction between dental and cerebral mutes is not as sharp as in India proper".

 2. "In Kashmiri and probably in all Dardic languages the following pairs of vowels are commonly confused, i.e.

 - - ..
i, e; u, o; u, e."

 3. "All the Dardic languages probably possess e-matra, but only in Kashmiri do we find positive information about it."

No categorical statement of his based on clinching evidence appeared even after 1933 that could release his hypothesis from the confines of mere probability. The words underlined in the excerpts quoted above reflect, in fact, a fair degree of uncertainty when studied further in the light of the linguistic data furnished by the eminent scholar in support of his hypothesis. The data adduced by him in this regard is just confined to tentative resemblances: just some casual sounds, and vagrant vocables regardless of the evidence offered by the structural framework that the Kashmiri language shares with sister languages including Sindhi, Panjabi, Marathi, Gujrati and Bengali. By the way, it is not an old vocable (adopted or adapted) occurring in an utterance that indicates its lineage; on the other hand, the structural matrix in which the vocable is framed is a sure index to the lineage as well as the level of linguistic development of the utterance.

 Nor does Grierson's data throw any sure light on the most striking peculiarity of the Kashmiri language, i.e. the morphology of the verb that carries with it the pronominal morphs as well as the synthetical case-morphs of the agentive and the accusative dative. Let us take Vonmas, for instance, meaning: I told him. The form is partially like the Sanskrit avadam; but more closely, like the Perisan goftamash (which carries the agentive as well as the accusative markets). Was this trait of the old Avestan-Vedic verb-morphology, somehow, alive in the literary memory of Kashmir at the time Kashmiri was evolving out of the regional Prakrit-Apabhramsa round about the tenth century?

 The linguistic features vaguely claimed to be shared by the Dardic languages are by no means peculiar to the Shina- Dardic Group, but are already there in the Indo-Iranian heritage. Even if Dardic impact be detected and conceded here and there, it is too meagre and superficial to warrant formulation of the Dardic origin of Kashmiri. Origin lies not on the surface but has to be identified at the deep structure of the syntax.

 Similarly untenable is Grierson's insistence on formulating two main varieties of Kashmiri fondly labelled by him as Hindu dialect and Muslim dialect. The two versions of the Prodigal son (The Biblical Parable) furnished under the two labels betray methodological arbitrariness because both the versions can be taken as free variation of the Kashmiri utterance common to a Hindu as well a Muslim speaker of the language.

 Calling 'Akis mahnivis aasy zu necivy' typically Hindu, and 'Akis shakhsas aasy zu necivy' typically Muslim, in contradistinction with each other is quite simplistic, even ludicrous. A Hindu and a Muslim could both have used either of the two vocables, mahnavis and shakhsas with equal ease and could also have used zanis without any inhibition. Both are sensible enough to operate appropriate registers of socio-cultural context irrespective of religious denomination. The next sentence (in the Parable) goes a step further in cooking up the myth of a Hindu dialect and a Muslim dialect in terms of the vocables manz and andar (respectively) i.e. in timav manza dop koonsy hivy maalis and timav andra dop lokuty hivy maalis.

 Grierson seems to have been unconsciously inhibited by the Fort William model of the Hindu/Urdu syndrome, in terms of Mir Aman's Urdu and Lallu Ji Lal's Hindi, both meant to enlighten the new entrants into the Indian Civil Service under the Raj. Obviously, Grierson's assistants had not cared to develop a suitable mechanism for verification of the linguistic samples furnished to him in response to indoctrinative terms of reference, somewhat like: speak this as a typical Hindu/ as a typical Muslim.

 Reckless enthusiasts (innocent of linguistic perspectives) have taken widely extreme postures regarding the origin of the Kashmiri language. On the one extreme end are those who are inspired by Khwaja Nazir Ahmad's Jesus in Heaven or Earth (1953). Taking their stand on chance resemblance of sounds detected in words (of remotely distant stocks) they seek to prove that Kashmiri owes its origin to Hebrew moorings. On the other extreme end are those who claim that the Kashmiri language is as old as the Vedic. (Every Indian language, of course is!) Neither of these cadres of crusaders has cared to consult the Kashmiri language itself as to the stratification of its structural evidence. The evidence of the structural matrix of the Kashrhiri utterance conclusively establishes that the language of Kashmir is a late medieval development of the Indict (Prakrita- Apabhrams'a) stock, and is quite akin to other modern Indian languages of the Indo-Aryan family.

 Historically studied and structually scrutinized, the Kashmiri language doubtlessly appears to have emerged out of a Prakrita-Apabhrams'a substratum of the region round about the X century. Why else should Ksemendra (XI cent.) have recommended the prospective Sanskrit poets of the time to positively study the bhasa-Kayya (: Verse in the regional dialect of Kashmir) alongside the Prakrita- Apabhrams'a Kavyas? A few years later, Bilhana, another celebrity of Kashmir, admires the women of his native land for their superb command over both Sanskrit and Prakrit which they wielded with equal ease as if they were wielding their mother tongue (unequivocally termed janma-bhasa).

 Obviously the mother tongue, in due course, developed into what Siri-Kantha (XIII cent.) has described as sarva- gocara desa-bhasa (: the language widely understood in the region by one and all), written of course in the Sharada script.

 The nomenclature (: Kashmiri), however, is recorded for the first time by Amir Khusru in his Nuh Sipihir (C. 1300 A.D.). He mentions the word Kashmiri alongside Lahori and Sindhi as an outstanding name in India's linguistic landscape of the times.

 Yet, dominated by the classical language, the vehicle of elitist culture, Kashmiri had to remain content as a medium of lowbrow (folk) culture, mostly catering to the literary needs of the non-privileged. It was generally cultivated by those that either had the inner urge to compose verse in the mother tongue or by those that simply failed to make a mark in the classical language. It, nevertheless, flourished as a language of rich expression as is reflected by its folksong and folktale sparking with proverbial collocation.

 In this context it would be worthwhile to get a peep or two into the historical legacy of the classical language that have left their deep impress on the Kashmiri language by conditioning its growth in terms of form as well as scope.

 The earliest evidence of the Sanskrit-writing in Kashmir is that of the Sarvastivada tradition of the Mahayana preoccupying itself with dissemination of the Dhamma, as perceived and interpreted by Kashmiri savants and scholars. It was their reputation for eminence that attracted Hieun Tsiang to Kashmir (in 631 A.D.) where, as many as twenty scribes were placed at his disposal for copying manuscripts preserved at the Jayendra-vihara of the city. The Chinese pilgrim's impressions of his two years' stay at the Vihara are an eloquent testimony to the pervasive presence of Sanskrit in Kashmir.

 The language may not ever have been a spoken language of the Valley; yet it continued to be not only the language of Kashmir's court and culture but also of creative as well as critical writing till the late 14th century. It contributed to religious thirking and aesthetic appreciation as also to poetic articulation, both lyrical and reflective. Among its outstanding contribution may be mentioned: 1. The philosophic writing on Kashmir Saivism, particularly on the Trika Dars'ana also called the Pratyabhyna.

 2. Systematization of various schools of Indian Poetics propounding original points of view not only on Rasa but also on Riti, Dhvani, Vakrokti and Aucitya.

 3. Collections of (Brihatkatha) tales. Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, in particular, provided the models for various versions in world language, through the mediation of the Persian rendering.

 4. Historical narratives like the Rajatarangini of Kalhana who struck a new path in verse-writing by structuring the historical flux of time into a sizable chronicle covering some currents and cross-currents of Kashmir's past down to the middle of the twelfth century.

 5. The satire of Ksemendra who caricatured agents of administrative bungling and debunked promoters of moral dereliction.

Manuscripts of these Sanskrit works, have come down to us in the Sharada script which emerged out of the Brahmi (Gupta) script towards the beginning of the ninth century. Naturally, therefore, the same script served the purposes of Kashmiri language also when it came to be written in the tenth century. Curiously enough the script continued to be in use for some time even after the advent of Islam and for a few years coexisted with the Persi-Arabic script particularly on some tomb-stones.

 Sanskrit, naturally, continued to be the language of court and culture for a few years even after the advent of Islam (in Kashmir) till the Persian language totally replaced it as the language of court and administration. Establishment of Islam in the Valley (by the middle of the XIV century) opened up a two-way intercourse between Kashmir and the centres of Persian culture, particularly Khurasan, Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv and Herat. Divines and Sufis from these seats of learning and culture brought with them the Persian language and literature, while princes, scholars and traders from Kashmir also felt tempted to see a bit of the outside world.

 Interlinguistic exchanges threw up valuable works like Mulla Ahmad Kashmiri's Bahr-al Asmar (: Persian rendering of Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara), prepared at the instance of Zain-ul-abidin (1420-70 AD), and Srivar's Kathakautuka (Sanskrit rendering of Jami's Yusaf-Zulaikha) prepared in 1505 AD. During the Mughal period (1586-1752 AD) in Kashmir, we find a galaxy of Kashmir's Persian writers rubbing shoulders with their contemporaries from Iran, particularly form Mashad and Hamadan, besides those from other parts of the subcontinent. Persian, thus, flourished and lingered on in Kashmir as language of administration down to the reign of Maharaja Pratap Singh (1885-1925 AD) when Urdu and English (in part) took over from it.

 Yet, during the five centuries of its sway in Kashmir the rich language produced over three hundred writers and more than a thousand (major and minor) works, creative as well as critical. Its popularity with all sections of Kashmirian society became so pervasive that even the Kashmiri Pandits felt tempted to read their masterpieces like the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavata, Yogavasistha, Shivapurana and Bhagavat Gita in Persian rendering. Most of the Pandit families treasured the Manuscripts of the Sirr- e Akbar by Dara Shikuh who during his visit to Kashmir was inspired to undertake the Persian rendering of the Upanishads. In the prologue to the work he informs us how he felt induced to attempt such a gigantic task of cross- cultural dissemination when in 1050 A.H. (corresponding to 1640 A.D.) he was thrilled to see his preceptor, Akhun Mullah Shah (at his Hari Parbat abode) holding converse with seekers belonging to diverse orders of spiritual quest. It was on his return to Banaras that very year that he sought the guidance of local scholars, and completed the work by 1067 A.H. (corresponding to 1656 A.D).

 Evidently it was the Vaak-Shruk temper of Kashmir that had enraptured Akhun Mulla Shah, highly respected preceptor of Dara Shikuh who later on, in his Majma-ul Bahrin (The Confluence of the Two Oceans) shared his awareness of spiritual affinities with his readers, Muslims as well as non-Muslims. No wonder that even non-Muslims of Kashmir enjoyed reading Persian classics like the Mathnavi of Moulana Rumi, the Shahnama of Firdusi and the Sikandarnama of Nizami. These in fact, used to be taught in the maktabs often run by Kashmiri Pandit Akhuns who had no inhibition in popularizing Persian handbooks even on the Karmakanda (ritual) including chunks of Jyotisha (astrology) and Ayurveda (: Indian system of medicine). Such handbooks, often, revealed in quoting excerpts from original (Sanskrit) texts in the Sharada script. Some tracts on Kashmiri music of the Sufiana Kalam variety also were compiled in the Sharada script which almost withered away by the end of the nineteenth century.

 It was natural, therefore, that when Persian progressively became the language of administration as well as cultural intercourse, Kashmiri also adopted the Persi-Arabic script which since has been accepted as the official script after a number of attempts at modification. These were meant to ensure due representation of sounds specific to the articulation of Kashmiri phonemes.

 Earlier, however, the Nagari script was first employed for the Kashmiri language by Pandit Ishwar Kaul for his monumental work on Kashmiri Grammar titled Kashmira- Sabdamritam. His system of diacritics was adopted by Grierson not only for his Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language, but also for his editions of Kashmiri classics like Sivaparinaya, Krishnavatara and Ramavataracarita, published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta. During mid twenties Toshkhani adopted it with slight modification for his Kashmiri Primer and Granz Vyad (on Calculation) and also for small anthologies like Sundar-Vaani. Those very days the Bahar-e-Kashmir of Lahore included a section on Kashmiri in the Devanagari script. In mid-thirties the Pratap Magazine of the S. P. College, Srinagar, started Kashmiri sections in both Persian and Devanagari scripts.

 Later, Masterji brought out an abridged text of Parmanand's works in two volumes of Parmananda-Sukti- Sar and published his own collection of verse, Sumran also in both the scripts. But the first persistent attempt to employ the Nagari script for the purposes of contemporary Kashmiri was made by the periodical, Pamposh of Delhi. Later the practice has been commendably continued by the Koshur Samachar of the Kashmiri Samiti, Delhi.

 The Kashmiri language which has throughout missed court patrongage except for a brief period during Sultan Zain-ul Abidin's reign (1420-70) had, however, to face the odds and carry on at the folk level despite elitistic disinterest bordering on classical arrogance. Though denied facilities of schooling in it, the language persisted in its non-formal role as an inevitable medium of interpretation even in the State schools at the Primary level as it had done earlier in Pathshalas and Maktabs. The language continued to perform the vital role of an interpreter even in the early forties when the State introduced Asan Urdu in both the (Persian and Nagari) scripts as the common medium of instruction at the Primary level.

 As Urdu in both the scripts was introduced on the recommendation of a Committee with Zakir Hussain as the Chairman and Khwaja Ghulam-us-Sayedain as Secretary, the other members being Siddheshwar Varma and Raghuvira. The committee, in fact, produced a basic Glossary of Asan Urdu Terms (published in both the scripts). Some how the project was not effectively followed up after Saiyedian relinquished the State job.

 During the mid-seventies, however, it was again deemed advisable to equip school teachers (of the State) with a knowledge of both the scripts but mysteriously, again, the scheme was shelved, almost hushed up, despite the fact that the Kashmir University Department of Correspondence Courses, now called Distance Education, got a set of textbooks prepared in each of the two scripts.

 Meantime, the Kashmir University set up a Kashmiri Department for post-graduate studies in language and literature with the laudable objective of producing competent Kashmiri scholars who could in due course be employed as Kashmiri teachers in the Higher Secondary Schools. Later, perhaps, they could think of coming down to the Primary level. Anyway, from the apex to the base, a new strategy, no doubt, but in response to what exigency? Nobody knows; even those that have cared to know do not know for certain.

 What one knows for certain, however, is that by early eighties a whispering compaign was set afoot (in the Valley) against any attempt to pinpoint strands of composite culture symbolized by the Vaak of Lal Ded and the Shruk of Nund Rishi (Sheikh Noor ud Din Noorani). Any such attempt was derided as highly objectionable in the changing circumstances of militant insurgency. What was sought to be aggressively highlighted was any point of departure of Kashmiri language and culture form anything that carried echoes of Indian heritage of inter-community concord and harmony, perceiving unity in diversity.

 Such being the latest scenario of inhibitive manoevers in the Valley, the linguistic predicament of the State has assumed a graver complexity. Administrative disdain has become fortified by a clannish hostility to the mother tongue dreaded as a cultural rival to the Urdu language. The reactionary zealots view it as a vital link in the chain of fundamentalist postures of insurgency. The damage done to the genuine cause of Kashmiri seems to be nobody's concern. A canard has been cunningly floated that it is the Central Government that thwarts the State Government's efforts to introduce the Kashmiri language at the Primary level. An insidious campaign to brainwash the youngsters clamouring for speedy redressal of the sidetracked cause has created the wrong impression that the State would have given the mother tongue its due if the Centre had not stood in their way. The distortionists boistrously argue that the Centre dreads the Kashmiri language as a focal point of Kashmiri identity. According to the canard the centre would not like the younger generation to appreciate how the Sahitya Academy (at the Centre) is keen to see that the Kashmiri language presents its best year by year. If the State fails to give it a proper go how can the Centre help it?

 Administrative incanvenience, after all, is not incurable; it can be sagaciously managed provided there is the will to do so and egalitarian perspectives are allowed to operate undaunted by chauvinistic pressures. Let us probe the genesis of these pressures, succumbing to which even the well-meaning initiatives were foiled from time to time.

 It appears that during the fifties the New Kashmir aspirations were dynamic enough to give the Kashmiri language a chance. The language was made at one stroke a subject of study as well as a medium of instruction. But soon the overcautious bureaucracy seems to have had after thoughts. They viewed the experiment as extremely inconvenient, for, despite its constitutional status Kashmiri, after all, was a mother tongue likely to inspire other mother tongues of the State also to press for their claims to be accommodated in the school curriculum. What added to their perturbation was the displacement of Urdu the mother tongues were likely to cause. It was easy for wirepullers to take refuge under the blanket concern for 'national integration.'

 The pretence, however, could easily be knocked out of bottom by pointing out that the mother tongue would peacefully co-exist with Urdu, the link language of the State. It should be the proud privilege of Urdu to perform its mighty role, coordinative as well as creative. As a coordinator it would introduce the mother tongue to one another, while as a vehicle of creativity it would enrich them by exposure to innovative articulation manisfesting itself in the subcontinent and the world. It need not tread upon the heels of any other tongue of the State, much less the mother tongue which certainly deserves a proper place of its own at the initial stages of schooling. The link language (Urdu) has not only to accommodate the mother tongue by respecting its inalienable right to form the corner stone of the edifice called schooling but also to place at its disposal the consolidated funds of its maturity. But will the State allow it to perform its genuine role in the circumstances?

 A child has, after all, to outgrow the smaller circles into wider circumferences of socio-cultural interaction. Hence the need to learn a language or two over and above the mother tongue for which there can be no substitute whatsoever. It is high time, therefore, that no more time is lost in rehabilitating the Kashmiri language primarily as a mother tongue.

 The linguistic predicament of the State, accordingly, is a pedagogic challenge to ensure proper placement of various languages and dialects spoken in an area of linguistic criss- cross, by working out a viable order of priorities and a sustainable system of linkages. The task concerned is, no doubt, a tough one, but it certainly deserves to be undertaken on a project basis.

 Subject to availability of a basic minimum of instructional material any mother tongue can be introduced as the first language at the initial stage of schooling, but as emphasized earlier, one and only one script should be introduced at a time during a single term. A second script should be taken up only after the first one is thoroughly drilled. Overambitious parents may expect their child to flaunt his/ her acquaintance with the Roman script even before he/ she has practised the script of the mother tongue; but perceptive teachers will take care not to allow such inflictions. No such project nevertheless, can be worked out in isolation. May be the NCERT also will have to lend a helping hand in this regard by reconsidering some of its rigidities and taboos in the context of simultaneous introduction of at least two scripts, Nagari and Roman, for instance. In case the script of the link language happens to be different from that of the mother language, the pupil may have to learn a third script also, as (for instance) in the case of Panjabi and Bodhi. But, to lighten the instructional burden and optimise the learning output viable strategies of teaching a script can be suitably devised and gainfully employed.

 Linguistic predicament of the State, thus, calls for appropriate logistics of pedagogy involving a thorough overhaul of curricula and syllabi at the initial stage. 

EPYcQ