5 Landmarks in its Journey
BD Sharma
Noam Chomsky has beautifully observed that a language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It relates to all aspects of heritage; tangible, intangible and natural and all the associated myths, legends and memories. Dogri, our mother tongue is a part of our heritage as well as the vehicle for transmitting our heritage from the past to present. It is helping us to value and enjoy it in the present and will help us to preserve and pass it on to the future generations. It is quite gratifying that Dogri language performed this task smoothly. While performing this task it did also grow and flourish. There are five discernible turning points in its recent history. It covered its first milestone in 1944 when Dogri Parishad, later rechristened as Dogri Sanstha, was formed. This provided a platform to the Dogra litterateurs to interact and express themselves and to chisel and embellish their writings. It resulted not only in the development of Dogri but also helped it to become more popular. In 1970 the language was recognized by the Sahitya Academy. It helped the Dogri writers to get recognition at the national level. In 2003 the language got included in the eighth Schedule of the Constitution and in this way it got the honour of becoming a member of the most prestigious and exclusive club of Indian languages. Recently Dogri was given the honour of becoming official language of the UT, along with four other languages. And the fifth turnaround to Dogri shall take place when it is introduced as a medium of instruction in schools in accordance with the provisions of NEP, 2020.
So far as the declaration of five languages as official in the UT is concerned it remains hazy as to how its implementation has been visualized. At the face of it, it doesn’t seem practical to use five languages simultaneously in running the day to day work of Administration. So we must neither be hopeful nor enthusiastic to expect that every work in the government will start being done simultaneously in five languages in full measure. The system may go topsy turvy if, for instance, in the Revenue department we allow one Patwari to prepare the Revenue record in Urdu and let the next Patwari do it in Hindi, still the next one to shift to Kashmiri and so on and so forth. In order to carry out the government work smoothly we have to impose some properly designed restrictions in a given department. For instance I don’t see any possibility in the foreseeable future of Urdu being replaced as the language of Revenue, lower Judiciary and Police departments. In order to facilitate use of other four languages we will have to seek the help of modern technology. The basic work in any department should be done in a specified language, for example in Revenue department it be done in Urdu but the record /proceedings must be made available electronically in all the other four languages. With computer sciences having made wonderful progress, this arrangement of transliterating the record simultaneously in the other four languages must not be difficult. The access and availability of records in Dogri, the language of the common man, will help him to know all the details of his land. Despite many reforms like framing of RTI Act, Public Service Guarantee Act, computerization and digitization of records and provision of online services the common man still remains in the firm grip of a Patwari. Common man finds majority of the government employees very secretive. Employees devise ways and means to evade compliance of the instructions of the government. The rent-seeking malady of yore, the meagerly “Rasam-o-Rasums” has taken the avatar of a monster for the farmers. Online services have not improved the situation significantly. Online service doesn’t move forward until the concerned employees give the clearance that all the formalities, some of them very ticklish, have been completed by the applicant. These formalities get fulfilled only when the applicant establishes contact with the employee.
The other glaring deficiency remains, perhaps, in the fact that the farmer is not aware of the particulars of his land and the rights he enjoys over it despite many efforts of the government such as issuance of land pass books and availability of online information. It is so because the language in which the record is available is much mystified and the common man is lost in the labyrinth of terminology and parlance /phraseology used by the Revenue employee. Moreover, the laws/rules relating to land remain obfuscated to the simple minded farmer. Introduction of the local language can mitigate this problem to some extent. Though it is not feasible to substitute age old terminology prevalent in the Revenue department such as Khewat, Khata, Khasra, Inteqal, Shajra nasab, Girdawari, Jamabandi, Misal-e-haqiat, Waja-Tasmiya etc yet phraseology/jargon used in the department can be made simple for the common man by employing the language understandable by him.
As a first step all the farmers in Dogra land be provided with land pass books in Dogri in simple language. Field maps and ownership details of the land in the village, number khasra wise, must be depicted in Dogri in the Panchayat Ghars and other public places. All the Panches, Sarpanchs, Lambardars, Chowkidars and prominent persons in the village should be educated with regard to the important practices, procedures and provisions of revenue law in the local language. Pamphlets on the subject should also be made available free of cost in the local language. As the saying goes that knowledge is power so these steps will help to empower the poor farmer.
The other department in the government to which the common villager comes across daily is the Panchayati Raj /Rural Development department. Though many malpractices in the department have been eradicated with the coming into force PM’s ambitious DBT program yet many ills still inflict the department particularly when the Gram Sevak and Sarpanch/Panch become hand and glove with each other. The remaining evil can be rooted out by making the common man aware of the duties and obligations of the government functionaries and their elected representatives. This course of action will yield results if the awareness is conducted in the local language. The proceedings of the Village Assembly, in which details of works/ beneficiaries are prepared, must be conducted and recorded in Dogri. Pamphlets and boards must be prepared in the local language and details of work plans and allocation/expenditure of funds depicted on them. Similar steps must be taken in the other departments also so that the decision of declaring Dogri as the official language yields results and does not remain confined to the files only.
Another opportune turn for Dogri is likely to take place when it is introduced as a medium of instruction in the schools. In fact Dogri is already being taught as a subject in our educational institutions. Fortunately many academicians, well versed in science and math etc take interest in Dogri language also. So preparation of books by them in Dogri will not be a problem. My experience of going through Dogri Pushtak Mala part-5, for Eighth class may be of some interest to the readers. It was a pleasure to see that the book has been prepared with due diligence by the editorial board consisting of such literary luminaries as Prof Veena Gupta, Prof Archana Kesar, Dr Shashi Pathania, Dr Shiv Dev Manhas, Sh Parkash Premi and Sh Kuldeep Vaid. The contents in the book speak about the local traditions, local history and local geography. Topics such as Raja Ranjit Dev da Nayaan, Duggar De Parayattan-Sathal, Rutt Raade, Duggar di Chitarkala, Maharaja Partap Singh etc obviously acquaint our children with our history, geography, culture and land. I wish I had the facility to study such books in my childhood. Moreover, the chapters on Air Pollution, Evolution of Organisms, Computer etc. help the students to grasp the modern scientific concepts.
It may however be not out of place to mention that the contents in the book have been authored collectively by the board of Dogri litterateurs. How nice it would have been if suitable topics both in prose and poetry, written by individual authors, had been included in the book. Small prose pieces, some extracts of translations of biographies of our leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, some simple poems would have made the book more interesting and productive. Poetry is a great stimulus for the growth of young minds. Learning poems and reciting them in rhyme and rhythm, I remember, used to be an experience of exceptional order. So poems should have been given special treatment. It was so in our times. We had poems penned independently by individual poets, included even in primary class books. A poem “Hamari Ghai”, ‘Rab ka Shukar Ada kar Bhai: Jisne Hamari Ghai Banaei,’ by Ismail Merthi in our Urdu/Hindi book of 2nd primary was very captivating. Similarly in 3rd primary we had two very interesting poems, first ,”Jago Sonay Walon Jago, Waqt ke Khonay Walon Jago” by Hafiz Jalandhari and the other “Lab pe Aati hai Dua ban ke Tamanna meri” by Dr Iqbal. Such simple and educative poems must be included in the Dogri text books also. If suitable poems are not available in the language then it is time that Dogri poet must rise to the occasion and try his hand on such types of poems.
Many poets of Dogri remain stuck to the traditional subjects as invoke melancholy, love (dominant theme being unrequited or unattainable love featuring a pining lover and an uncaring or coquettish lover), longing, nostalgia and metaphysical questions. Others have come out of the web of traditional classical form of poetry and tried their hands on new genres thereby infusing the language with fresh life and modern spirit. They take us to the realm of glories of nature, her hills and mountains, flowers and birds, the seasons and the wild winds, the countryside in general, to the human beings, their day to day problems, treating all the subjects idealistically and realistically. We are thus coming across writings in almost every genre in Dogri. But some people feel that much needs to be done yet. My friend often confronts me as to why there are not many quotable quotes, apart from the traditional “Khoaans”, in Dogri as enticing as are available, say, with Mirza Ghalib. And he would bombard me with: Kaun jeeta hai Teri zulaf ke sar hone tak, Unke dekhe se Jo Aa jaati hai munh par Raunaq, Ji dhundata hai phir wahi Fursat ke raat din, Hazaron Khwahishen aisi ki har Khwahish pe dam Nikle, Hum ko Maalum hai jannat ki haqiqat lekin, Ishaq ne Ghalib nikmma kar diya, Ye na thi hamari qismat ke Visal-e-Yaar hota, and a lot more. I tell him that the comparison is inappropriate and irrelevant and marshall the few arrows I have in my quiver such as Mandi dha Miyan Moa Mundde dha ge Aakdu, Chatni bakh Neode Trey Tejan ne Sutti Changi Te, Paani ooper Roz Lakiran, Mera Dogra Desh Jagai jaayan etc.
Still my friend has a point and there are gaps which should be filled by the Dogri writers. They should strive and come out with short poems with pithy, terse and short aphorism, clichés, quotes as may swirl freely on the tongues of common people. We don’t have many poems in praise of Dogra heroes, Prayer songs for morning assemblies in schools etc. Poems/songs glorifying our mother tongue are also few and far between. Fortunately Ashok Angurana Ji has come out recently with a beautiful poem, “Maa Boli ne Khair Pye”, in which he expresses beautifully his love for the mother tongue. Jammu University doesn’t have a song of the institution in Dogri. Kashmir University has a beautiful Taraana by Rahman Rahi, Ye Moje Kasheeri…. By listening to it one experiences as if it is resonating in the sprawling lawns of the University against the backdrop of Dal lake and Zabarwan hills. Will somebody oblige Jammu University with a similar piece of poetry?
If the readers allow me, I may add an aside. At this juncture when a relook is being given to the education sector, the authorities, the intellectuals and even the people of Jammu must think seriously of initiating our children both in Devnagari and Persian scripts. Since Hindi and Urdu have exactly the same grammatical structure and share 80 percent vocabulary at beginner level so learning of Urdu will put no burden on the children. By learning the script, the children will be able to pick up an additional language, the language which is of lot of importance to us in our UT. In addition the knowledge of Persian script can facilitate learning of Kashmiri also. Students of Jammu till 1970s used to learn both the scripts by sixth class. But these days our children are familiar with Nagri script only. It may be stated that Persian script is a lot easier to learn than we might think. Once you understand a few basics of the script, you’ll discover how much progress you can make quickly in it. So the earlier we do it, the better it will be for all of us.
And finally we can’t lose sight of learning English. Importance of English is beyond any shadow of doubt in the modern world. But the Govt need not worry much about this language. Parents particularly the moms, the nursery schools, the academies and the English speaking courses are already taking care of teaching English to the children, even to those who are still in the cradle. And those who can’t afford to go to such institutions and do not have the means of studying English early, need not be disillusioned. The students of yore started learning even the alphabets of English from the 6th class only. Still they were able to acquire adequate proficiency in English and were successful in all those fields/professions where knowledge of English was essential and critical.
(The author is a former civil servant.)
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