Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T03:19:23.018Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language, the Nation, and Symbolic Capital: The Case of Punjab

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2008

Alyssa Ayres
Get access

Abstract

A movement to “revive the spirit of Punjab and Punjabi” in South Asia has enabled a surprising thaw between the two Punjabs of Pakistan and India. That this revival movement has been catalyzed from within Pakistan rather than India raises intriguing questions about language, nationalism, and the cultural basis of the nation-state. Although the Punjabiyat movement bears the surface features of a classical nationalist formation—insistence upon recovering an unfairly oppressed history and literature, one unique on earth and uniquely imbued with the spirit of the local people and the local land—its structural features differ markedly. Pakistan's Punjab has long functioned as an ethnic hegemon, the center against which other regions struggle in a search for power. Yet the Punjabiyat movement presents Punjab as an oppressed victim of Pakistan's troubled search for national identity. This essay argues that a theory of symbolic capital best explains this otherwise peculiar inversion of perceived and actual power, and underscores culture's critical role in the nation's political imagination.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 917 - 946
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ahmad, Aijaz. 1989. “Some Reflections on Urdu.” Seminar 359:23–29.Google Scholar
Ali, Imran. 1988. The Punjab under Imperialism, 1885–1947. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd ed.London: Verso.Google Scholar
Ayres, Alyssa. 2004. “Speaking Like a State: Nationalism, Language, and the Case of Pakistan.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Ayres, Alyssa. 2006. “Two Punjabs: A Cultural Path to Peace in South Asia?” World Policy Journal 22 (4): 63–68..Google Scholar
Aziz, K. K. 1993. The Murder of History: A Critique of History Textbooks Used in Pakistan. Lahore: Vanguard.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Trans. Gino, Raymond and Matthew, Adamson. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 1974. Language, Religion and Politics in North India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chaudhry, Nazir Ahmad. 1977. Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab (1849–1974). Lahore: Government of Punjab, Directorate of Archives.Google Scholar
Deshpande, Satish. 1993. “Imagined Economies: Styles of Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century India.” Journal of Arts and Ideas, no. 25–26: 5–36.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 1995. Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dawn. 1998. “Safdar Mir Passes Away.” August 10.Google Scholar
Eley, Geoff, and Grigor Suny, Ronald eds. 1996. Becoming National: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gal, Susan, and Irvine, Judith T. 1995. “The Boundaries of Languages and Disciplines: How Ideologies Construct Difference.” Social Research 62 (1): 967–1001.Google Scholar
Gazdar, Mushtaq. 1997. Pakistan Cinema, 1947–1997. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays by Clifford Geertz, 105–57. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Goindi, Farrukh Suhail. 1988. Panjāb kā maslah: DīpoliṬisizeshan aur awāmī tahrīk kā na calnā [The problem of Punjab: Depoliticization and the non-movement of the people's movement]. Lahore: Jamhūrī Pablikeshanz.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan. 1998a. Population and Housing Census of Pakistan 1998. Vols. 1–5. Islamabad: Population Census Organisation.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan. 1998b. Population and Housing Census; Advance Tabulation on Sex, Age Group, Marital Status, Literacy and Educational Attainment (Figures Provisional). Vol. 6. Islamabad: Population Census Organisation, Statistics Division.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan. 2000. Pakistan 2000 Agricultural Census. Islamabad: Federal Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan. 2007. “Average Circulation of Newspapers and Periodicals by Language/Type, 1996–2006.” http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/fbs/statistics/social_statistics/periodicals_by_language.pdf [accessed April 10, 2008].Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Department of Films and Publications. 1972a. Education for the Masses: The New Policy. Karachi: Government of Pakistan.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Education Division. 1952. Six-Year National Plan of Educational Development for Pakistan. 2 vols. Karachi: Government of Pakistan Press.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. 1960. Report of the Commission on National Education, January–August 1959. Karachi: Government of Pakistan Press.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. 1972. The Education Policy, 1972–1980. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. 1975. Development of Education in Pakistan, 1973–75. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education (Curriculum Wing), Examination Reforms and Research Sector.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. 1977. Major Trends in Education: Report Presented at the 36th Session of the International Conference on Education, IBE/UNESCO Geneva, September 1977. Islamabad: Printing Corporation of Pakistan Press.Google Scholar
Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. 1981. Development of Education in Pakistan (1978–80); Country Report for the 38th Session of International Conference on Education, Geneva, 10–19 November 1981. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education.Google Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1985. Selections from Cultural Writings. Ed. Forgacs, David and Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey. Trans. Boelhower, W.. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hanaway, William L., and Mumtaz, Nasir. 1996. “Chapbook Publishing in Pakistan.” In Studies in Pakistani Popular Culture, eds. William L. Hanaway and Wilma Heston, 343–437. Lahore: Lok Virsa/Sang-e-Meel.Google Scholar
Hasan, Khalid. 2003. Interview, March 19.Google Scholar
Herrera, Yoshiko M. 2005. Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J. 1992. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. 2nd ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. 2002. Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation? New Delhi: Manohar/Zed Books.Google Scholar
Jahan, Rounaq. 1973. Pakistan: Failure in National Integration. Dhaka: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jalal, Ayesha. 1995. “Conjuring Pakistan: History as Official Imagining.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1): 73–89.Google Scholar
Jalal, Ayesha. 2000. Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kahut, Chaudhry Nazir. 1992. Āo, panjābī ko qatl karen! [Come, let's kill Punjabi!]. Karachi: Wāris Shah.Google Scholar
Kammi, Sa‘id Farani. 1988. Panjābī zabān nahīn maregi: Panjābī kā muqaddamah Panjāb men [The Punjabi language will never die: The case of Punjabi in Punjab]. Jhelum: Punjabi Esperanto Academy.Google Scholar
Kamran, Gillani. 1993. Pakistan: A Cultural Metaphor. Lahore: Ravian English Masters Association/Nadeem Book House.Google Scholar
Khan, Adeel. 1999. “Ethnicity, Islam and National Identity in Pakistan.” Special issue, South Asia 22:167–82.Google Scholar
Laitin, David D. 1988. “Language Games.” Comparative Politics 20 (3): 289–302.Google Scholar
Laitin, David D. 1998. Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Latif, Aamir. 2001. “Alarming Situation of Education in Pakistan.” http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/en-news/pakistan.shtm [accessed April 10, 2008].Google Scholar
Malik, Fateh Mohammad. 1989. Punjabi Identity. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel.Google Scholar
Mansoor, Sabiha. 1993. Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan: A Sociolinguistic Study. Lahore: Vanguard.Google Scholar
Mir, Farina. 2002. “The Social Space of Language: Punjabi Popular Narrative in Colonial India, c. 1850–1900.” PhD diss., Columbia University.Google Scholar
Mirza, Shafqat Tanveer. 1992. Resistance Themes in Punjabi Literature. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel.Google Scholar
Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
National Workshop on Curriculum Development. 1976. Report of the National Workshop on Curriculum Development Held under the Joint Sponsorship of the Ministry of Education and UNICEF, 6–25 May 1974. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education, National Bureau of Curriculum and Textbooks.Google Scholar
Nayyar, A. H., and Ahmed, Salim. 2002. The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan (Urdu, English, Social Studies and Civics). Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute.Google Scholar
Oldenburg, Philip. 1985. “‘A Place Insufficiently Imagined’: Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971.” Journal of Asian Studies 44 (4): 711–33.Google Scholar
Pakistan Academy of Letters. 1996. Ban Lifted after 18 Years from Fakhar Zaman's 4 Books: Full Text of the Writ Petition and the Judgment of Lahore High Court. Islamabad: Pakistan Academy of Letters.Google Scholar
Pakistan Educational Conference. 1983. Proceedings of The Pakistan Educational Conference, Held at Karachi, From 27th November to 1st December 1947. Repr. ed. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of the Interior (Education Division).Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon. 2003. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon. 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rafat, Taufiq. 1983. Qadir Yar: Puran Bhagat (Rendered into English Verse by Taufiq Rafat). Lahore: Vanguard.Google Scholar
Rahman, Tariq. 1996a. Language and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rahman, Tariq. 1996b. “The Punjabi Movement in Pakistan.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 122:73–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rahman, Tariq. 2002. Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ramey, Mohammad Hanif. 1985. Panjāb kā muqaddamah [The case of Punjab]. Lahore: Jang.Google Scholar
Rao, Velcheru Narayana, David, Shulman, and Sanjay, Subrahmanyam. 2001. Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600–1800. Delhi: Permanent Black.Google Scholar
Samad, Yunus. 1996. “Pakistan or Punjabistan: Crisis of National Identity.” In Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change, ed. Gurharpal, Singh and Ian, Talbot, 61–86. New Delhi: Manohar.Google Scholar
Shackle, Christopher. 1970. “Punjabi in Lahore.” Modern Asian Studies 4 (3): 239–67.Google Scholar
Sibt-e Hasan, Sayyid. 1986. The Battle of Ideas in Pakistan. Karachi: Pakistan Publishing House.Google Scholar
Siegel, James T. 1986. Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1979. “Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology.” In The Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels, ed. Clyne, Paul R., Hanks, William F., and Hofbauer, Carol F., 193–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Suny, Ronald Grigor. 2001. “History.” In Encyclopedia of Nationalism, vol. 1, ed. Motyl, Alexander J., 335–58. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Suny, Ronald Grigor, and Kennedy, Michael D. eds. 1999. Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Syed, Najm Hosain. 1968. Recurrent Patterns in Punjabi Poetry. Lahore: Majis Shah Hussein.Google Scholar
Syed, Najm Hosain. 1972. Takht-e-Lāhor: Dulla dī Vār. Lahore: Majlis Shah Hussein.Google Scholar
Syed, Najm Hosain. 1973. Sīdhān. 2nd ed.Lahore: Majlis Shah Hussein.Google Scholar
Syed, Najm Hosain. 2000. Ik rāt rāvī dī. 2nd ed.Lahore: Rut Lekha. [Original edition, Idarah-e-Punjabi Adab, 1983]Google Scholar
Tahir, Athar. 1999. “A Coat of Many Colors: The Problematics of Qadiryar.” In Punjabi Identity in a Global Context, ed. Singh, Pritam and Singh Thandi, Shinde, 55–68. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Talbot, Ian. 1998. “From Pakistan to Punjabistan? Region, State and Nation Building.” International Journal of Punjabi Studies 5 (2): 179–91.Google Scholar
Talbot, Ian. 2002a. Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Karachi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Talbot, Ian. 2002b. “The Punjabization of Pakistan: Myth or Reality?” In Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation? ed. Jaffrelot, Christophe, 51–62. New Delhi: Manohar/Zed Books.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1996. Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Trivedi, Lisa N. 2003. “Visually Mapping the ‘Nation’: Swadeshi Politics in Nationalist India, 1920–30.” Journal of Asian Studies 62 (1): 11–41.Google Scholar
Verkaaik, Oskar. 2001. “The Captive State: Corruption, Intelligence Agencies, and Ethnicity in Pakistan.” In States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State, ed. Blom Hansen, Thoma and Stepputat, Finn, 345–64. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Weinbaum, Marvin, and Gautam, Sen. 1978. “Pakistan Enters the Middle East.” Orbis 22 (3): 595–612.Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. “Introduction: Language Ideology as a Field of Inquiry.” In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, ed. Schieffelin, Bambi B., Woolard, Kathryn A., and Kroskrity, Paul V., 3–47. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zahidi, Syed Masood. 1988. Pākistān kā muqaddamah [The case of Pakistan]. Lahore: Classic.Google Scholar
Zaman, Fakhar. 1984. The Prisoner [English translation of Bandīwān]. Hasan, Trans. K.. New Delhi: Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Zaman, Fakhar. 1987. Bandīwān [Punjabi original]. 2nd ed.Lahore: Nigarshaat.Google Scholar
Zaman, Fakhar. 1989. Qaidī; [Urdu translation of Bandīwān]. Habib, Trans. S.. Lahore: Classic.Google Scholar
Zaman, Mukhtar. 1985. Thoughts on National Language Policy [Qaumī zabān kī pālisī ke bare men cand khyālāt]. Trans. Faizi, S.. Islamabad: National Language Authority/Muqtadira-e-Qaumi Zaban.Google Scholar
Zia, Shakil Ahmed. 1987. Sindh kā muqaddamah: Hanīf Rāme ke muqaddamah-e-Panjāb par ahl-e-Sindh kā jawāb-e da'va [The case of Sindh: The people of Sindh's response to Hanif Ramey's “Case of Punjab”]. Karachi: Shabil.Google Scholar