B D Sharma
Mother tongue is always a source of blessing. Along with our culture, our values and our experiences it makes up our identity.It helps us to know our people, our accumulated traditional knowledge and our history in a better way. Best of all it brings us closer to our people.I hadearlier narrated some of the experiences when Dogri helpedus to build up relationships and trust with our people with easeon communicating with them in our own language.NowI venture to share some moreepisodes inwhichthe charms and graces of Dogri were enjoyed.
After the Panchayat elections in 2001, awareness camps were being organized at district and provincial levels to educate the newly elected Sarpanchs and Panchs with regard totheir duties and privileges. One such camp was organized at Kathua and as Deputy Commissioner I extended welcome to the Deputy CM, two/three Ministers, senior officers and the Sarpanchs and Panchs.Ministers, senior officers,three/ four Sarpanchs addressed the gathering. Majority of the speakers including my little self expressed their views in Hindi/Urdu but few speakers addressed the gathering in Dogri. One of them was my friend and colleague Mr Pradeep Gupta, the then Director Rural Development. Whenhe started speaking in Dogri I was a bit surprised because I had never imagined that he was well versed in the language. Though his family had roots in Ram Nagar, the bastion of chaste Dogri, yet he was born at Poonch, got his school education in a SainikSchool in Orissa and College/University education in Delhi. Moreover he had long tenures in the Secretariat only where one got hardly any opportunity to speak in Dogri. So I never thought that he was proficient and confident enoughto address a gathering in Dogri. Buthe spoke with confidence, inmeasured tone and tenorexplaining the objectives of the conference in local flavour. It went very well with the audience who were simply mesmerized by his address. He got the most thunderous applause from audience anda littlejealousy from me, a thorough bred Dogra. Some short-sighted Dogra officers have been seen addressing even the semi-literate personsin similar functions in English and had to face alot of scorn from people. But here was my friend who well understood the significance of communicating with people in their own language and earned, in the process, a lot of appreciation from them. Though I was proficient in Dogri, had an impeccable rural background, had served for almost all my service career in the village centric departments and ratedmyself better in earthly wisdom than my friend yet I couldn’t create thesame kind of impactas my friendhad.All this magic and charmhad been createdbecause he communicated with the people in their mother tongue.
A friend of mine, a retired army officer would often denigrate the politicians. He was particularly harsh and ruthless on late Madan Lal Sharma, then a Congress party MP.These semi-literate fellows who had remained batman/orderly of army officers, he would say, had become our leaders. How could such personshave the vision to solve our problems.But one day he started praising Madan Ji and told me that he had seen him making a powerful speech in Dogri in a public meeting.He simply cast a spell over the audience. His command over Dogri was absolute and his addresswas replete with local titbits, sarcastic remarks, Dogri “Khoaans” and taunts to thebureaucrats.My friend further added that other leaders there had not succeeded in carrying the audience with them. But when Madan Lal Ji was speakingthere was pin drop silence.The audienceunderstood every single word he spoke and responded collectively through loud applauses and claps. Though he was not a highly qualified person yet he carried the day because he spoke in the language of the people. In this way he earned a lot of respect from them.The first quality in a leader is thathe must have a connect with the people which was possiblethrough one’s mother tongue only.
Elections to Jammu Municipal Corporation had taken place in 2005 under the newly framed Act.A gala function was organized for administering oath to the newly elected Corporaters. Chief minister, Dy CM,some ministers, senior officers, prominent citizens and family members of theCorporaters had been invited. The format of the oath had been got translated into Hindi, Urdu and Dogrito let the Corporaters choose the languageof their choice for taking oath. All Corporaters were briefed about the procedure and contents of the Oath so that they may not cut a sorry figure during the proceedings. Two Corporaters well known to me, sought my guidance as to what language they might take the oath in. They were comfortable to take oath in any one of thelanguages. I suggested them to take the oath in local language, Dogri. But when the time for oath taking came they stood up with the group taking the oath in English. The last group of about twenty Corporaters took the oath in Dogri and they got tremendous applause from the audience.After seeing this response of the audience, both my friends got dispirited because they felt that they had lost the opportunity to earn the appreciation of the audience.Strangely enough they shifted some of the blame on me as to why I had not pressed upon them sufficientlyenough to take the oath in Dogri. Incidentally the other resounding applause in the function was heard when I made a reference to Maharaja Partap Singh for establishing the Jammu Municipality in 1886 during the course of my welcome address. It was stealthily observed that Mufti Syedhad shown a frown when I mentioned the name of Maharaja and was aghast as to why such honorific reference was made to a Feudal Lord. The people in the audience didn’t carry the same sort of view. They adored and cherishedtheir history, their culture and their languageand reflected their feelings witha lot of verve and fervour.
After retirement two Generals of our area, Goverdhan Singh Jamwal Ji and Jagdish Singh Jamwal Ji got engaged in addressing the environmental issues particularly in Kandi area. They were often interacting with us in order to promote these activities. Once Maj Gen Goverdhan Singh jiorganised an awareness camp in a village near Lakhanpur in Kathua district in order to make the villagers aware of the need of preserving water. I had been invited to preside over the function by Gen saheb. While delivering my presidential address I remember of emphasizing two points to the audience. One that in our Kandi area we are uprooting recklessly some of the shrubs like “Garana, Kakoa, Barenkad, Sentha, Phalayeand Phoarhian” etc.and due to this lot of soil erosion is taking place. These shrubs were part and parcel of our ecosystem and were providing us fuel wood, rare type of fruits and teeth-cleaning twigs. They were also efficient soil binders and helped us in the preservation of soil water. Second point I made did relate to the management of scarce drinking water. Few decades back people inKandi area used to get drinking water out of deep wells. It was an arduous task to draw water out of them. Each household could manage only three/four pitchers of water every day.In order to save and judiciously use the scarce well water, it was kept in small room like structure called “Kadiali”. It consisted of about three/four feet raised platform under a roofand the floor of the platform had a thick layer of sand over which water was sprinkled. On it four/five pitchers full of well water were placed.By doing this our ancestors efficiently managed the scarce commodity.We had, however, forgotten about this “Kadiali” and the related activities, I observed. On the conclusion of the function, a respectable elderly person of the village came to me and told me that all the local plants/shrubs I had mentioned in my address were found in the well protected “Jhaarh” maintained by his family.Secondly he told me that there was still a water keeping “Kadiali” at his home. He implored and insisted upon me to accompany him to his houseto have a glimpse of it.He showed a lot of eagerness and it seemed that he had appreciated every bit of my speech.Consequently he had developed instantintimacy with me. Government employees have occasionswhen people showera lot of respect and love in case they are paid undivided attention. These occasions may be few and far between but they give a lot of happiness and sense of job satisfaction. In the instant case, however, I had not shown any favour to the elderly Thakur and despite that he had developed an instant liking and nearness to me. This, in fact, was due to the reference/sharing of cultural and linguistic traits with him. Unfortunately I couldn’t go to his house located nearby and promised him that I would pay a visit to his place at my earliest convenience.Even later on, he sent his son once or twice to my office to convey them about the day and time when I intended to visit their place. I couldn’t make it possible and to this date I curse myself for not reciprocating the love and the “Appanapan” the elderly Thakur had shown towards me.I had never imagined that the mother tongue and the shared cultural values could be the ground for establishing such a strong bond betweenpeople.
Late Col Malook Singh Salathia would often visit me at Samba during my posting as Tehsildar there.He had developed close relations with me because we belonged to the same Kandi area and his son Prem Singh Jamwal was,like me,a Revenue Officer. He often used to share the experiences of his life during these interactions. Once he narrated to me an incident which occurred at the time of pushing back the Pakistanis from the hillocks surrounding Poonch during 1947-48 war. Poonch had remained encircled by the enemy for months together. Indian army had broken the encirclement for some time and reached Poonch via Haji Pir. On their arrival they had taken over the commandandcontrol and the State Forces were working under them. Once the situation got a bit stabilized, steps had to be taken to push the enemy away from the hillocks surrounding the town. While assigning tasks to different formations one hillock had been earmarked for his company and an officer from the Central Forces briefed his company about the assigned task with the help of maps and compass etc. Next day his company undertook the operation but they failed miserably. The following dayagain a briefing was given and the attack was undertaken but the company unfortunately could again make no headway. Officers of the Central Forces started making fun of the State forces, “Raje di Fauj”, as they called it sarcastically. It was decided that the task be assigned to some other formation as the “incompetent” State force was found good for nothing. Due to the failure of his formation and hearing of many derogatory words made against his Company, CaptMalook Singh, as he was then, got much dejected. Shattered he came back to his company and his Subedar inquired about the reason of his dejection. The Captain pointed out towards the hillock and lamented that they could not take possession of it. The Subedar thought for a while and confirmed from his company commander whether he meant taking possession of that particular hillock. Subedar asked him to request the higher authorities for giving them another chance to accomplish the task. The Officer of the Central Forces was requested who agreed to grant another chance to the Dogras very reluctantly. Subedar held his counsel with his colleagues and the next day the task of capturing the hillock was accomplished within few hours without much difficulty and loss. Everybody was astonished on this quick success. When it was inquired from the Subedar as to why there was earlier a miserable failure, that too twice, in taking over the hillock, he submitted that they had not fully understood what was the officer of the Central Forces explaining to them. Nor were they able to understand the nuances of map and compass readingwhile giving them the briefing before attack. They got only a vague idea of the hillock and the details of the track to be adopted through a Nullah here, a spring there, a bend here and a large tree there. The Subedar further added that on being told about the details of their task in simple Dogri, he had found out that it was not a difficult task for his band of brave Dogras. It goes without saying that in the performance of critical tasks the men at the cutting edge should be apprised/briefed properly which is possible in the language they understand. It is for this reason that the officers in the Forces are made to learn the language of the troops which they have to command. It is well said that when the situation is serious it is only your mother tongue that works and comes to your rescue.
Some of our youngsters do think that they can pullon easily without the knowledge of Dogri. That may be true many times. But they must bear in mind thatDogri would provide them efficiency, helpthem to understand the local problemsbetter and facilitate them to come closer to their people. Other languages like English and Hindi/Urdu are important when we have to enterthe wider world of science and technology and national affairs.I have presented all these episodes with the hope that our youngsters may understandthe importance of our mother tongue in our day to day life and enjoy the invaluable richness thatDogri can provide to us.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
