Pro Q ue st Num b e r: 10142987 All rig hts re se rve d INFO RMATIO N TO ALL USERS The q ua lity o f this re p ro d uc tio n is d e p e nd e nt up o n the q ua lity o f the c o p y sub m itte d . In the unlike ly e ve nt tha t the a utho r d id no t se nd a c o m p le te m a nusc rip t a nd the re a re m issing p a g e s, the se will b e no te d . Also , if m a te ria l ha d to b e re m o ve d , a no te will ind ic a te the d e le tio n. Pro Q ue st 10142987 Pub lishe d b y Pro Q ue st LLC (2016). Co p yrig ht o f the Disse rta tio n is he ld b y the Autho r. All rig hts re se rve d . This wo rk is p ro te c te d a g a inst una utho rize d c o p ying und e r Title 17, Unite d Sta te s Co d e Mic ro fo rm Ed itio n © Pro Q ue st LLC. Pro Q ue st LLC. 789 Ea st Eise nho we r Pa rkwa y P.O . Bo x 1346 Ann Arb o r, MI 48106 - 1346 © COPYRIGHT by M. Taimur S. Khan 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To Prof. Nasir Jamal Khattak PAKISTANIZING PASHTUN: THE LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DISRUPTION AND RE-INVENTION OF PASHTUN BY M. Taimur S. Khan ABSTRACT This dissertation explores how the Pakistani nationalist project and state making practices disrupt Pashtun culture and Pashto language, and how Pashtun respond to these cultural and linguistic disruptions. Focusing on two indigenous Pashtun areas in Pakistan, namely Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Swat, this research draws from thirtytwo in-depth interviews and data collected from over a hundred Pashtun users of social networking sites. This study demonstrates the following: (1) Pakistani state uses educational institutions and electronic media as sites to deny Pashtun their language and culture in order to construct an Urdu language based Pakistani national identity; (2) Pakistani state uses the ruralurban divide as a means to encapsulate indigenous Pashtun homeland and disrupt Pashtun’s traditional social, cultural, and economic practices; (3) Pakistani state imposes a normative state-sanctioned temporality that erases Pashtun’s pre-Islamic and secular past in an attempt to construct the Muslim based Pakistani identity. Ultimately, this project argues that despite being pressured by the state to identify with the larger Pakistani identity that preys upon their ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage, Pashtun of Pakistan have managed to preserve their linguistic and cultural traditions by redefining and reinventing their cultural institutions and practices to find continuity in the face of unprecedented disruptions caused by the intrusion of, and contact with, the Pakistani state. In short this dissertation foregrounds the asymmetrical relations of power between Pashtun and the Pakistani state at multiple points of contact. By doing so, it aims to dislodge the assimilationist discourse that disguises and obscures the oppression of Pashtun at the hands of the state and to call for a transcultural investigation that focuses on the disruptions and reinventions of Pashtun in their struggle from a position of disadvantage against the state and its enormous institutional resources that deny Pashtun their ii culture, language, and traditional socioeconomic way of life in the name of assimilating them into the mainstream Pakistani society. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It would be difficult to name all the people who made this dissertation possible. I am very fortunate to have mentors, friends, and loved ones who all contributed to this project through their intellectual and emotional support as well as practical assistance. I want to express deep respect and gratitude to Prof. William L. Leap, my advisor and dissertation chair, to whom I owe a huge intellectual debt. His timely feedbacks and insightful comments helped a great deal in finishing this project. It has been a great privilege to learn from him. I am also grateful to Prof. Daniel Sayers and Prof. Sue Taylor for agreeing to be on my dissertation committee and for providing helpful comments and guidance. I deeply thank Prof. Hadar Harris, Executive Director, Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law, American University, for her support throughout my doctoral project. She provided much needed administrative and emotional support without which the project would have been difficult. To my mentor and my dissertation committee member, Prof. Nasir Jamal Khattak, Vice-Chancellor, Kohat University of Science and Technology, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, I owe very special thanks. No words can justify my gratitude to him. I owe this dissertation to him. Without him these pages could not have existed. I thank him for preparing me for the academic world and for providing full support whenever I needed it. I am very fortunate to have him by my side. I can’t thank enough Lorie Merrow and Thomas DuVal, who always extended to me remarkable support and friendship. They call me their “adopted son” and like parents they have always been by my side whenever I needed help and support. During several difficult months iv when I struggled emotionally and financially, they came to my rescue. Without them I doubt I would have finished this project. I am also thankful for the generosity and hospitality of George and Libbie Merrow, who invited me every summer to their beautiful home at Marblehead along the coast. Their pleasurable company gave me respite from the strains of the academic world. I am also grateful for the friendship of Mariellen Duval, a lovable and kind lady who always reminds me of my grandmother, with whom I often have enjoyable conversations. I am also thankful to John and Joanne Knauf who provided me a place to live so that I could finish writing my dissertation. Since the first day I met them, they have been very generous and supportive friends. I am fortunate to know them. I am also thankful to Mrs. Nellie Razwick, in whose home I finished writing my dissertation. She did not live long enough to see me defend my dissertation, but I am happy that she did see the draft of my entire dissertation. I am also thankful to Prof. Michael and Debra Medley for their friendship and support. I had very fruitful conversations with Prof. Medley. He also invited me to his class as a guest lecturer that helped me shape one of my chapters. Discussion with him and his students were very helpful in organizing my thoughts. Thanks are also due to Prof. Faizullah Jan, Prof. Anoosh Khan, Prof. Syed Irfan Ashraf, and Prof. Dervaish Khan who read chapters of my dissertation draft and provided me detailed and insightful feedbacks. Moreover, their company has always been very refreshing and rejuvenating. I am also indebted to Kate Fenner, Melissa Del Aguila, and Andreea Marusceac who all took care of administrative issues that would have been challenging if I had to do them on my own. I am also very thankful to Behroz Khan, who helped me with different aspects of v Pashto language. Hamid Naveed deserves particular mention for proof-reading sections of my dissertation. Iftikhar Muhammad had been very helpful with fieldwork. I appreciate his help in connecting me with my research participants via Skype. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my mother, Farhat Salam, my sisters, Sarwat Salam, Shahwar Salam, Umama Salam, and my brother Usman Salam. They graciously kept alive my gham-khadi (Sorrow-and-Joy networks) on my behalf and allowed me time and space to devote myself to finishing my dissertation project. Unfortunately, my father did not live long enough to see me earn my doctorate. He would have been happy and proud. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH: THE PAKISTANI SATE AND THE TRADITIONAL PASHTUN SOCIETY.......................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 MUZZLING PASHTO: NECROLINGUISTIC POLICIES OF THE STATE AND PASHTUN’S RESPONSE................................................................ 66 CHAPTER 3 MOCK PASHTO: COMEDIC LANGUAGE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN’S MAINSTREAM URDU LANGUAGE MEDIA .................................... 101 CHAPTER 4 REINVENTING PASHTUNWALI: THE RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE AND THE DISRUPTIVE STATE INFLUENCE ........................................... 135 CHAPTER 5 PASHTUN TEMPORALITY: PAST AS A DISINDETIFICATORY NODE ..................................................................................... 161 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: INCLUSIVE EXCLUSION AND THE DENIAL OF DIFFERENCE .......................................................................................................... 187 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 196 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Medium of Instruction in the Educational Institutions of Pakistan ................. 73 Table 2.2 Percentage of Native Speakers of Languages Spoken in Pakistan ................... 74 Table 2.3 Translating Urdu to Pashto ............................................................................... 83 Table 3.1 Mock Pashto Features......................................................................................112 Table 5.1 Concordance Lines for the word community………………………………...172 Table 5.2 Concordance Lines for the word qawm…………………………………..….172 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1 Map of Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Swat……………………….4 Figure 1.2 Map of the pre- and post-Partition Subcontinent .............................................. 4 Figure 1.3 Map of the Pashtun Belt .................................................................................. 17 Figure 2.1 Screen grab of the video clip showing a child translating an Urdu lesson…...78 Figure 3.1 Pashtun character in a comedy show…..……………………………………118 Figure 3.2 Pashtun character in a comedy show………………………………………..118 Figure 3.3 Pashtun character in a comedy show………………………………………..118 Figure 3.4 Pashtun character in a comedy show………………………………………..118 Figure 3.5 Urdu-speaking character in a comedy show …………………….………….118 Figure 3.6 “Pashto keyboard”…………………………………………………………..128 Figure 5.1 “Behind this terrorism is the uniform”…………………………..………….170 Figure 5.2 A fictitious picture of a man dressed in Pakistani flag colors……...….……180 Figure 5.3 A screen grab of Facebook page “Pashto Purification”………………….…185 ix CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH: THE PAKISTANI SATE AND THE TRADITIONAL PASHTUN SOCIETY In this dissertation, I study how the Pashtun culture in Pakistan is disrupted by the Pakistani nationalist project and state making practices and how Pashtun respond to these cultural disruptions. I investigate how the contact, the disruptions, and the responses to these disruptions unfold in the educational institutions and Pakistani electronic media with particular focus on the institutionalized suppression and demonization of Pashto language (the language of Pashtun) and the valorization of Urdu language, the national language of Pakistan. Furthermore, I explore the ways in which Pashtun respond to the state’s attempt to encapsulate them by subjecting them to rural-urban divide and Pakistani historiography, the official temporality that erases Pashtun history. I argue that despite being pressured to integrate and subsume their ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities into the larger Pakistani identity, Pashtun of Pakistan have managed to preserve their cultural identities by redefining and reinventing their cultural institutions and practices to find continuity in the face of unprecedented disruptions caused by the intrusion of, and contact with, the Pakistani state. In short, this dissertation concerns the ways in which the Pakistani state and Pashtun culture “meet, clash, and grapple with each other… in context of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt 1991:34) with a focus on two indigenous Pashtun areas: (i) the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA, hereafter Tribal Areas) and (ii) Swat district (see figure 1.1 below) as my research sites. Pakistan came into being in 1947 with the departure of the British colonial Raj and the Partition of the Indian subcontinent into two postcolonial states of Pakistan and India. The creation of Pakistan was the result of Pakistan Movement led by Muslim nationalist elites in the pre-Partition colonial subcontinent. Driven by Two Nations Theory (Pakistan’s founding myth that claims that Muslims and non-Muslims, especially the numerically dominant Hindus, of the subcontinent were two different nations who practiced two separate and distinct religions, cultures and languages and therefore could not exist together in one polity), Pakistan emerged as the first modern state that was made in the name of religion. The Theory was based on the 1 belief that the Muslims of the subcontinent are “a foreign and diasporic nation with no special attachment to India’s territory” 1 (Verkaaik 2004:31) and are therefore distinct and separate from the indigenous non-Muslim population. Official Pakistani nationalism termed as the ideology of Pakistan in the constitution of Pakistan since then is committed to the idea that attachment with the histories, cultures, and languages of the territories that became part of Pakistan are “divisive regionalism.” It prescribes that the multi-lingual and multi-cultural population of Pakistan align themselves culturally and historically with the early Islamic Arabia from where they are supposedly descended (Ayres 2009:148). Pakistan Ideology is based on the following fundamental principles: (i) the valorization of Muslim identity as opposed to indigenous cultural identities that are ‘compromised’ by the influence of the non-Muslims of the subcontinent; (ii) the promotion of Urdu language, the national language of Pakistan, as the language of the Muslims of the subcontinent that unlike the ‘deficient’ and ‘restricted’ regional language codes safeguards Islamic traditions and values as well as provides the most refined and formal language rich in literary traditions; (iii) elevation of Urdu-speaking Urban culture (the culture of the nationalist elites of Pakistan Movement) as the culture of Islamic modernity and cosmopolitanism and the simultaneous devaluation of indigenous cultures as rural/rustic, un-Islamic, and coarse/primitive; and lastly (iv) the construction of teleological historiography in which Pakistan is the telos towards which the history was driven from the time of the advent of Islam in Arabia, and the representation of regional histories as oppositional temporalities that were overcome with the materialization of Pakistan. Keeping in mind the dominant nationalist narrative, one can argue that Pakistani nationalism is “a form of belonging that required a territory but could not be identified with it” (Devji 2013:40; also see Werbner 2002:12). This nationalist narrative of disunity in plurality finds demands for autochthonous cultural, linguistic, and historical expressions and similar affective attachments with the territories that Pakistan came to occupy as tantamount to the unmaking of Pakistan. In this way, Pakistan Ideology is inherently based on the “denial of difference and a desire to bring multiplicity and heterogeneity into unity” (Young 1990:229). 1 This narrative of being foreign and diasporic draws on the trope of Hijrat (migration), in which the prophet of Islam migrated from his ancestral homeland, Makka, to the adopted city of Medina in modern day Saudi Arabia (Halverson et al 2011:46). 2 In line with the Pakistan Ideology or official Pakistani nationalism, all the indigenous cultures that became part of Pakistan are undergoing systematic and institutionalized denial of cultural, linguistic, spatio-temporal, and historical differences (Saigol 2010:115). However, Pashtun ethnic-nationality in Pakistan, the focus of my dissertation, is especially subjected to the Pakistani nationalist project for two main reasons: the Durand Line, the de facto border between Pakistan and Afghanistan that arbitrarily divides the Pashtun territory and its Pashtun population between the two countries, has remained disputed, with Afghanistan claiming the Pakistani Pashtun territories to be part of its state. Secondly, Pashtun nationalists in Pakistan have been raising the slogan of both independent Pashtunistan (the Land of Pashtun) as well as unification with Afghanistan (Jalal 1985:282). For these reasons, Pashtun nationality in Pakistan has historically remained suspicious in the eyes of the Pakistani state and therefore is subjected to Pakistani nationalist project more vigorously than any other ethnic nationality in Pakistan.2 The project of Pakistanizing Pashtun has involved two parallel but complimentary aspects: one is to render Pashtun ethnic identity and Pashto language undesirable and clownish so that Pakistani Pashtun distance themselves from claiming their ethnic nationality as well as identifying with the Pashtun majority Afghanistan with which it has cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. The other aspect of the nationalist project is to erase Pashtun culture, language, history, and heritage by withdrawing any official patronage or recognition. 2 In March 2015, the Pakistani state made it mandatory upon the Pashtun of North Waziristan, one of the Tribal districts, to take the oath of loyalty to the Pakistani state. Following is an excerpt from the text of the oath titled as the “Social Agreement North Waziristan 2015:” “Being responsible citizens of Pakistan, we will remain loyal to the country at any cost and will abide by the Constitution, FCR and customs. Moreover, we will play a positive role for the development, prosperity and security of Pakistan.” The oath further states, “You [the people of Tribal Areas] will not become part of any action intended against peace and security of Pakistan and will prevent enemies of the state, Constitution and institutions or local and foreign terrorists from using your soil against the country” (Dawn, 2015b, March 30: page 22). 3 Figure 1.1: Map of Federally Adminstered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Swat (Source: BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7673130.stm, accessed June 11, 2015) Figure 1.2: Map of the pre- and post-Partition subcontinent (Source: BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/untold_stories/asian/asian_community.shtml, accessed June 11, 2015) Pakistani Nationalism and the Denial of Differences Pakistani nationalism inspired by the Westphalian model of the nation-state to construct a coherent and uniform Pakistani identity in itself is the outcome of the contact (and resultant disruption) between the British colonial Raj and the subject population of the subcontinent. In the lines below, I discuss how the four basic elements of Pakistan Ideology, namely, (1) Muslim identity, (2) Urdu language, (3) Urdu-speaking urban culture, and (4) official 4 temporality with Pakistan as the telos took shape in the socio-political arena of the prePartition subcontinent. Muslim identity and Urdu language Urdu language and Muslim identity as two of the most important pillars of Pakistani nationalism can be easily traced back to the British colonial era in the subcontinent. Upon their arrival, the British colonizers set themselves the task of categorizing, codifying, and standardizing the languages of the subcontinent. Based on the colonizers’ ideologies of language and race, this categorization was entirely arbitrary (Ayres 2009:20). It made little sense to the subject population who had been engaged in multiple discursive practices for centuries without any clear language boundaries (Garcia 2010:194; Muhlhausler 2000:358; Romaine 1994:12). However, for the British colonizers the codification of the diverse languages was essential for controlling the subject population and their resources. 3 The British categorized the “Indian languages” into those that were written in the Arabic script and those that were written in the Devanagri (a Sanskrit script). This language codification led to a new consciousness that in the subcontinent Hindi with Devanagri script was the language of Hindus, and Urdu with Arabic script was the language of Muslims; the two mutually intelligible language varieties suddenly became two distinct languages with two distinct heritages, Muslim and Hindu. As Ayres observes, one is left to wonder: If Urdu was not Hindi, but at one time it was, then what was Hindi, how could it be distinct from Urdu, and how could each language be the proxy for religious community…. There was fluidity of these [language] boundaries; writers experimented with using both [Arabic and Devanagari] scripts, with incorporating vocabulary from Sanskrit, Persian, English, even Portuguese sources, all illustrating that the idea of HindiUrdu as separate languages, and even that different scripts mean linguistic difference, was well a work-in-progress rather than a natural form of existence. Following this period of reformation and codification, however, such fluidity would become almost unimaginable (2009:19, 22-23). The codification further solidified the gap between Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent when both religious groups demanded the official patronization of their scripts; 3 For this purpose the British colonial government established Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800 as a language institute to train the colonial bureaucrats in the local languages as well as the languages of Persian and Arabic that were influential in Mughal empire that the British displaced. 5 dubbed as Hindi-Urdu Controversy by the then British colonial government, the language issue later emerged as one of the key elements of Muslim and Hindu nationalism in the subcontinent that eventually led to its partition into India and Pakistan in 1947. The All India Muslim League (AIML), a political party that claimed to be the sole representative of the Muslims in the pre-Partition subcontinent, citing the growing cultural, linguistic, and religious conflicts under the British colonial government put forward the demand for a separate and autonomous state for the Muslims. This demand was justified on the basis of, what the Muslim Leaguers called the Two Nations Theory: the claim that both Muslims and non-Muslims of the subcontinent are two distinct nations that are antithetical and therefore could not co-exist. However, the linkage between Urdu language and Muslim identity was, to say the least, artificial. In fact, the vast majority of the Muslim population of the subcontinent did not speak or even understand Urdu; as the 1951 census of Pakistan reported, only 3 per cent of Pakistanis spoke Urdu as their mother tongue. Moreover, the Hindi-Urdu controversy was restricted only to the urban centers in the Muslim minority provinces (from where majority of the political elites of the Muslim League belonged), particularly to the present day north India. The controversy never reached the same level of intensity in the Muslim majority provinces that would later become Pakistan.4 Though artificial, this valorization of Urdu language as the language of the Muslims of the subcontinent (for whom Pakistan was created) has remained the foundation of Pakistani nationalism that views the regional languages in Pakistan as un-Islamic and therefore antithesis of Pakistani nationalism. Consider for instance an excerpt from the speech of Jinnah, officially recognized as the founder of Pakistan, delivered on 24th March, 1948: The State language… must obviously be Urdu, a language that has been nurtured by a hundred million Muslims of this sub-continent, … a language which, more than any other provincial language, embodies the best that is in Islamic culture and Muslim tradition and is nearest to the language used in other Islamic countries (Jinnah 1976:90) As Ayres puts it: 4 The territories that became part of Pakistan after the Partition included: East Bengal (modern day Bangladesh), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (the then North-West Frontier Province), Western Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan. All these provinces had their own regional languages as well as political parties that were not in favor of Partition. 6 This linkage of religion to nation to language revealed an overt language ideology as a neatly logical proposition: [If Muslim then language = Urdu]. The logical contrapositive, [If language ≠ Urdu, then not Muslim] would structure the politics of language and culture in Pakistan over the subsequent decades (2009:27). Driven by the Two Nations Theory, in 1947 Pakistan emerged as the first modern state that was made in the name of religion. It was to be a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent and the language of the Muslims of the subcontinent was declared the Urdu language. However, the very name, Pakistan, brings to the surface the internal contradictions of this linkage between Urdu language, Islam and Pakistani nation. First proposed in 1933, 5 the word Pakistan is a combination of two root words: pak (meaning “pure”, its antonym is na-pak meaning “un-pure”, “dirty” or “defiled”) and stan, meaning “place of” or “land of” (Ayres 2009:26-27; Platts 1911: 219). Ironically, pak is derived from the Sanskrit and Persian cognate pavaka, and stan from Sanskrit and Persian cognate stan (Ayres 2009:26-27). As Ayres (2009:27) states, “That the very word [Pakistan] meant to signal purification and separation from Hindu India should be itself linked to a common origin would seem to overtly undermine the two-nation theory.” What was unprecedented in the official Pakistani nationalist project was the complete denial of any linguistic or cultural difference. Even Mughal Empire, Sikh Empire, and the Raj, all of whom ruled over parts of the territories that became Pakistan, never attempted to impose a uniform language. Though each of these regimes privileged a particular language, none of them denied the vernacular languages space in the administrative or cultural expression. It is therefore not surprising that from its very inception, internal conflicts and demands for economic, political, and ethnic inequalities in Pakistan are expressed through the idiom of linguistic pluralism (Ayres 2009:4). All the provinces of Pakistan have (and continue to) challenge the valorization of Urdu language that has denied space for other regional languages.6 The pre-Partition Hindi-Urdu divide based on the opposition between Muslim and 5 The coinage of the name “Pakistan” is attributed to Chaudry Rehmat Ali, a Cambridge University student from the subcontinent, who in a pamphlet under the title “Now or Never” proposed the name Pakistan for the yet to be achieved country for the Muslims of the subcontinent. 6 In fact, the first street demonstration against the language hierarchy and the ranking of languages that privileged Urdu over the indigenous languages that were demoted as “regional languages” and the exclusion of 7 non-Muslim is replicated (or in the words of Irvine and Gal (2000:38) “fractally recurring”) on the indigenous languages of Pakistan such as the Urdu-Bengali divide,7 Urdu-Pashto divide, Urdu-Sindhi divide, Urdu-Saraiki divide; 8 all of these languages in comparison to Urdu language are “too Hindu” and “too uncivilized” 9 and therefore potentially threatening the existence of Pakistan that came into being on the basis of supposedly extreme differences with the Hindus of the subcontinent that rendered co-existence of the two ‘nations’ impossible 10 (Ayres 2009:28; Werbner 2002:188). Urdu-speaking Urban Culture and the Rural-Urban Divide As suggested earlier, Urdu language was not indigenous to the territories that became part of Pakistan after the Partition. It was the language of educated Muslim elites living in the Bengali, the language of more than 55 percent of the population of the newly created Pakistan, was held on December 5, 1947 within the four months of the creation of Pakistan (Islam 1986:148). Eventually, East Pakistan despite violent suppression succeeded in establishing their own state of Bangladesh in 1971. 7 The implication of linking Urdu with Islam was that Bengali was un-Islamic as it was written in Indic script with a number of lexical borrowings from Sanskrit (Oldenburg 1985:716; Toor 2011:19, 25). It was to purge Bengali of its Hindu influence that Pakistani government formed the Language Committee in 1950 to devise the Arabic Script for Bengali and to purge its lexical roots of Sanskrit (Rahman 1997:89; Toor 2011:29). The move resulted in Bengali language agitation that was violently suppressed by the Pakistani state. On February 21, 1952 (February 21 or ekushe which is Begnali for “21”), Pakistani government opened fire on Bengali language activists killing four. The day is remembered the world over as the Language Day. The state ultimately grudgingly recognized Bengali as a national language along with Urdu in the 1956 Constitution of Pakistan; however, it was not implemented in its spirit which further antagonized the East Pakistanis (the Bengali majority province). In fact, the state continued to view Bengali as a “Hindu language” and went to the extent of banning the Bengali literary giant Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry from being played on Radio Pakistan despite the fact that Bengali was now constitutionally one of the national languages of Pakistan (Ayres 2009:45; Toor 2011:26, 28). 8 The then-interior minister, Fazlur Rahman, in the inaugural address in the educational conference held on November 27, 1947 states: “We have been far too prone in the past to think in terms of Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis and Pathans and it is to be deeply regretted that our education has failed to extirpate this narrow and pernicious outlook of provincial exclusiveness which, should it persist, will spell disaster for our new-born State. There cannot be a greater source of pride and a better object of undivided loyalty than the citizenship of Pakistan, no matter what political, religious or provincial label one may possess” (Rahman 1947:8). 9 Textbooks, for the public schools, in Pakistan blatantly characterize Hindus as “scheming, and conniving people.” For instance, Urdu textbook for grade 5 mentions that, “Hindu has always been the enemy.” Similarly, a grade 5 Social Studies textbook blames Hindu religion for not teaching good things” (Naseem 2010:152). As the children in the public schools advance to higher grades, the hate content against Hindus and Hindu religion increases in intensity. Take for instance, the comment “the Hindus through their cunning and deceit” in the Urdu textbook for grade 8 (Saigol 2010:122). 10 The Two Nations Theory, however, failed to create a coherent Pakistani nation as is evident from the separation of East Pakistan as an independent state of Bangladesh in 1971. A common saying among those critical of the Two Nations Theory in Pakistan quips, “even if there was a Two Nations Theory, it sank in the Bay of Bengal.” 8 urban centers of north-Indian subcontinent. North Indian subcontinent being a Muslim minority region was allotted by the outgoing British colonial government to India. But north Indian Muslims were at the forefront of the Pakistan Movement and most of its intellectual and popular support came from these urban centers. Committed to the realization of a Muslim homeland, millions of the Urdu-speaking population migrated and settled in the urban centers of Pakistan. As this section of the population was the most educated and skilled, therefore despite their minority as an ethnic group, the leadership of the newly created Pakistan fell to them. They promoted Urdu language not only as the language of the Muslims of the subcontinent but also as the language of modernity, “cosmopolitanism and distinction… compared to which ‘regional’ languages were inferior” (Verkaaik 2004:29). The indigenous languages and cultures were deemed too “Hindu” and “rural” to become the engine of Pakistani modernity and to materialize the purported role of Pakistan as Islam ka Qilla (fortress of Islam) in South Asia (Naseem 2010:155; Toor 2011:180). The promotion of urban culture became the focus of the drivers of the Pakistani nationalism. State controlled electronic media especially played a significant role in naturalizing the Urdu-language based urban culture as the culture of modernity and Islam. For instance, the stereotypical and normative depiction of urban culture was “the genteel poetic Urdu aesthetic, epitomized by actors like Nadeem: 11 handsome, well-spoken, educated, often dressed in Western suits, and clean-shaven” (Ayres 2009:93). The characters of Urdu speaking genteels were contrasted with the local indigenous aesthetics caricatured as rural/rustic, inarticulate, and superstitious; this further normalized the perception that indigenous cultures and languages were primitive and “un-Islamic” and therefore not fit to take the ‘nation’ towards Islamic modernity.12 For instance consider the comments of a Pakistani film critic condemning the fledgling vernacular cinema: 11 Nadeem Baig, was a popular Pakistani actor, who dominated the Pakistan film industry in late 60s and early 70s. 12 Ironically, the negative representation was later claimed by the indigenous population and led to the rise of vernacular cinema that seriously rivaled the dominant Urdu language based cinema and its aesthetics. This vernacularization of Pakistani cinemas can be seen in the character of Sultan Rahi, especially his iconic movie Maula Jat. Maula Jat is a Punjabi-speaking peasant-warrior hero armed with gandasa (Punjabi for long-handled ax typically used to cut sugarcane) and dressed in traditional Punjabi dress, lungi-kurta (Ayres 2009:93-94). In Pashto cinema, Badur Munir, a popular Pashto cinema hero, epitomizes vernacular aesthetics. Badur Munir, like Sultan Rahi, popularized Pashtun aesthetics whose behavior and worldview in the movies are governed by the Pashtunwali code. 9 [vernacular cinema] defines…. [the Pakistani/national] culture as something primitive, noisy, vociferous, and highly pugnacious… The choice of the language is still another major defect of these films: it is crude, vulgar, morally degrading and without any decorum (Kamran 1993:247). In short, one of the important implications of the valorization of Urdu language and Urdu language based culture was creation of the rural-urban divide. The rural signified indigenous cultures that were demonized as primitive, superstitious (and therefore drenched in undesirable non-Islamic especially Hindu influences), speaking restricted and deficient language codes. In contrast, Urban stood for Urdu language, culture of subcontinental Islam, modernity, and cosmopolitanism. Official Temporality with Pakistan as the Telos of History The official version of Pakistani history is arguably the most critiqued and discussed part of Pakistani nationalist narrative particularly for its production of temporal and spatial disjunctures for the indigenous cultures within the Pakistani state (see for instance Ahsan 1996; Ayres 2009; Aziz 1993; Devji 2013; Hoodbhoy and Nayyar 1985; Jalal 1995; Nayyar and Salim 2002; Rahman 2002, 1999, 1997; Saigol 2010; Toor 2011; Yousaf 1991). Temporal disjuncture in the sense that official Pakistani history begins with the rise of Islam in Arabia in seventh century and culminates in the teleological construction of Pakistan; the regional histories, particularly pre-Islamic histories such as Indus Valley and Gandhara civilizations, 13 are either erased, or demonized as undesirable un-Islamic past 14 (Lall 2010:103; Saigol 2010:116,137; Toor 2011:27). This teleology can be best understood from an excerpt from the subject “Pakistan Studies” taught as compulsory subject in the undergraduate and graduate degree courses in Pakistan: The nation along with its ideology was already there for centuries but the country came into existence afterwards. Hence Pakistan’s geography is a result of its ideology” (Yousaf 1991:2). 13 Indus Civilization existed five thousands year ago (3300–1300 BCE), its remains still exist at the archeological site at Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan. Gandhara civilization flourished between 1500-500 BCE under the Kushan dynasty mostly in the present day Pashtun areas with Peshawar, Swat valley, Charsada, Jalalabad, and Bagram as its most prominent cultural centers. 14 In a debate in the National Assembly of Pakistan over the inclusion of pre-Islamic history in the syllabi, a member of the Assembly belonging to a religious party, walked out shouting ““That [pre-Islamic history] may be your history, (but) ... our history (starts) from Makkah and Medina” (Dawn, 2007, February 22:A2). 10 In this narrative, an Arab invader, Muhammad Bin Qasim, who invaded the present day Sindh Province of Pakistan in 712 C.E., is presented as a hero and ancestor of the Muslims of the subcontinent 15 (Ahsan 1996:18; Ayres 2009:125; Aziz 1993:171, 198, 200; Hoodbhoy and Nayyar 1985:166-167; Jalal 1995:77). As Ahsan laments: Our earth, we are told, was not our own until people from distant lands came and conquered it (and us), for us. Our ancient heroes cannot be our heroes because they preceded our own civilization to our faith (1996:18). This temporality inevitably leads to spatial disjuncture as well. The legacy and connection with the Islamic Arabia, according to the official narrative, are kept intact in the urban culture centers of pre-Partition north Hindustan which are spatially located outside the existing Pakistan as Ayres states: This would produce a national past thoroughly disconnected from the territories that it actually came to occupy; not only that, but this new past derived the greater part of its historical narrative from achievements in lands of today’s India, producing a confusing national epistemology.… The invented past pointed instead to the cultural history rooted in that very India from which the new Pakistan had effectively seceded! By proffering a past located outside the geographical boundaries of the new Pakistan, the territory contained within was in important ways deprived of a notion of cultural heritage, of a past, connected with its own soil (2009:122-123). Pashtun Ethnic-nationality and Official Pakistani Nationalist Project The simultaneous demonization and erasure of Pashtun ethnic nationality and its heritage in the postcolonial state of Pakistan is also the continuation of the British colonial legacy. To demonize the Pashtun ethnicity, the postcolonial state of Pakistan utilized the negative stereotypes of Pashtun decimated by the British colonial government who found governing the Pashtun Belt a formidable task. The British had sanctified the stereotype of Pashtun as a savage which was primarily earned for the stiff resistance offered against them during the millenarian movements lead by religious figures with charisma. In the British colonial imagination, the Pashtun were an exotic people who spoke “the language of hell.” 16 They were 15 It is for this reason that the province is termed as Babul Islam (Door to Islam). 16 Hamza Shinwari (1907-1994), a famous Pashtun poet from the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, in one of his Pashto couplet rejects the colonial demonization of Pashto language as “the language of hell” in these words: wai Aghyar chey da dozakh jaba da/ za ba janat tha da pukhtu sa ra zum (The outsiders/colonials say that it [Pashto] is the language of hell, I will go to heaven with Pashto). 11 described as “fierce, savage-looking” (Raikes 1858:132) with “uncouth manners” (Wink 1999:19) and “criminal” propensities albeit “simple” and “naïve” whose “wildness” could be won over by mere “love” (Shah 1999:183). The character of “Mahbub Ali” in Kipling’s novel Kim provides a typical sketch of Pashtun stereotype: a hypermasculine character, marked by fierceness, wildness, and bravery. Moreover, being deliberately kept isolated from the rest of the colonial subjects, 17 Pashtun appeared equally alien and exotic to the people of the subcontinent. Bannerjee (2000:2-3), for instance, gives the example of a short story Kabuliwallah (literally, “The man from Kabul”) by the legendary and celebrated literary figure, Rabindranath Tagore. The central character in the story, Kabuliwalah is a “Pathan” who in a rush of fury and a sudden lapse of temper commits a murder that leads to a tragic end. Following the colonial legacy, the Pakistani state has continued to present Pashtun in undesirable and negative ways often contrasted with the genteel and refined manners of mainstream Urban Urdu-speaking characters. These negative and distorted representations of Pashtun culture and their language especially pervade the mainstream electronic media. Pashtun ethnic identity, their culture, and language are constantly subjected to mockery that has rendered Pashtun as the clowns of Pakistani nationalism: rustic, country-bumpkins, who live in spatial and temporal zone that is primitive and ludicrous. Despite the strong response from Pashtun activists, as the one given below, reported in a daily newspaper in Pakistan, the mockery of Pashtun identity continues unabated: In a letter sent to the federal minister, Babak 18 said that since its inception, the PTV 19 had been presenting plays, shows and comedy programs which portray the Pashtun in a negative manner with an intention of making fun of their culture, language, vocations and sensibilities. The PTV dramas represent Pashtun as uneducated and uncultured domestic servants speaking Urdu in a distorted way, he said, adding that Pashtun consider this type of stereotyping an insult to them (Daily Times, 2008, April 23:A2). 17 The colonial subjects living directly under the British colonial sovereignty were not allowed to visit Pashtun territories without the prior permission from the government. The postcolonial state of Pakistan has continued with this colonial practice of keeping the Pashtun Tribal Areas as No-Go areas for non-residents. To this day, the gate way to the Tribal Areas reads Ilaqa Ghair, (The land of the other). 18 The then information minister of NWFP (North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, now renamed as Khyber Pakthunkhwa through the 18th constitutional amendment passed on April 19, 2010). 19 PTV stands for the state-owned Pakistan Television. 12 Similarly, in the educational institutions Pashtun culture, language, and history remains unacknowledged. For instance, consider the passage given from a textbook taught at undergraduate and graduate levels in Pakistan: [Pashtun] are devout Muslims… noted for religious inclinations and are universally acclaimed the freedom-loving people besides being noble and upright… they were treacherously made to fall prey to the supremacy of the Sikhs and the Hindus (Yousaf 1991:135). In line with the official nationalism of “Muslim Identity,” Pashtun are primarily represented as devout Muslims with no mention of their cultural heritage. “They were treacherously made to fall prey to the supremacy of the Sikhs and the Hindus” is a veiled reference to the influence of the formidable Pashtun politician/educationist and renowned proponent of non-violence and united India, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was allied with the All India Congress, a party that claimed to represent the entire population of the subcontinent as opposed to the Muslim League that was explicitly for the Muslims. Khan’s role in the textbooks in Pakistan is simply brushed off as an anomaly, rather the influence of Hindus. As noted by Ayres (2009:136), it is no wonder that the official history of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pashtun majority Province in Pakistan, released on the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan Movement under the title “NWFP’s Part in the Pakistan’s Movement” (Sabir 1990) provides an extensive bibliographic database on the regional history with a glaring omission of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The erasure of Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) movement in the official history is an example of the denial of differences in the official nationalist narrative. An ardent supporter of education in the mother-tongue (Pashto) in the educational institutions and a supporter of United India and later autonomous Pashtunistan (land of Pashtun), Abdul Ghaffar Khan does not fit in the Pakistani nationalist narrative. In her extensive work on Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his movement, anthropologist Banerjee states: For this impertinence [struggle for autonomous Pashtunistan], along with their apparently Gandhian method and close and continuing links with Congress, the Khudai Khidmatgars were branded traitors and Indian sympathizers, and were punished by successive Pakistani governments with imprisonment and the confiscation of their land. 13 Badshah khan 20 himself spent many years in jail before, in old age, finally entering exile among his fellow Pathans across the border in Afghanistan (2000:1). In her laborious research, Banerjee (2000) tracks down the elderly Khudai Khidmatgars. The interviews are an oral history where Khudai Khidmatgars are surprised to find that someone would take interest in their struggle when their own younger generation has little knowledge or curiosity about their passionate activism in the past that subjected them to both colonial and postcolonial oppression: Most of the Khudai Khidmatgars had not had many previous opportunities to tell their stories of struggle and heroism. They described to me with passion what it was like to be swept up in the revolutionary anti-British fervor and to follow an utterly charismatic leader, and they vividly conveyed the exhilaration of self-sacrifice. But from their own grandchildren and great grandchildren they seemed distant, unable to communicate with the fast-changing younger generation who are swept by the stern rhetoric of Islamic Fundamentalism or the easy virtue of entrepreneurship and foreign goods…. It is important to stress, however, that these differences are not the natural result of age differences or the fact that veterans are now very old and speak slowly and quietly, their thoughts occasionally wandering. In fact, there is an inherent respect for anybody of such advanced age. Rather, such hazy awareness reflect the systematic efforts the Pakistani state has made to promote its own vision of the nationalist struggle, a vision which criticizes and marginalizes the Khudai Khidmatgars. After partition nearly all activists had their homes raided and all personal papers were removed and burnt in a clear attempt to destroy any source which might provide an alternative conception of the historical events…. In all these ways the state has denied to subsequent generations any access to the historical truth of the KK 21 movement and presented a very critical and partial picture of it. State-sponsored history has intervened forcefully to suppress an emotive episode from the past which it fears would arouse feelings of Pathan pride and autonomy. Thus younger people have been cut adrift from their activist forbears” (Bannerjee 2000:7-8). These oppressive techniques attempt to destroy the historical archives and memories that could create alternative temporality in opposition to the teleology of the state.22 In short, the project of Pakistani nationalism and state-making creates disjunctures at several levels that 20 Badshah Khan (King Khan) is a title given to Abdul Ghaffar Khan by Pashtun in honor of his political and educational contribution to the region. 21 KK stands for the Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants of God) movement lead by Abdul Ghaffar Khan against the British colonialism. 22 Also see Ghaffar (1969) and Khan (1986) for a detailed discussion of the Pakistani state’s oppression of Pashtun and their language and culture. 14 encompass social, individual, familial, and generational domains. Pakistani nationalism and state-making is inherently based on the denial of cultural, linguistic, religious, spatial, and temporal differences. In the next section below, I discuss the traditional Pashtun society as it existed in the Tribal Areas and Swat (my two research sites) prior to the contact with the British colonial Raj and its successor, the postcolonial state of Pakistan. The foregrounding of the pre-contact Pashtun culture and its institutions would help in understanding the scale and nature of the disruptions to the Pashtun culture as a result of the Pakistani nationalism and state-making. The Pashtun Pashtun also call themselves Pakhtun, or Pukhtun depending upon the regional Pashto language variety. Historically, Pashtun have used the term Afghan to refer to themselves as an ethnic nationality (Bartlotti 2000:84). However, the usage fell into disuse as the term Afghan was used specifically as a reference to the multi-ethnic and multilingual Afghan citizens with the emergence of modern nation-state of Afghanistan. 23 Pashtun are also known as Pathan, a term sanctified and popularized by the British colonial authors and administrators. The colonial term Pathan is still widely used by other ethnicities in Pakistan to refer to Pakistani Pashtun. Unlike Pashtun of Afghanistan, Pakistani Pashtun may also introduce themselves to other ethnicities in Pakistan as Pathan due to its wider currency in the mainstream Pakistan (Bartlotti 2000:56; Poullada 1977:126). In this dissertation, I will use the term Pashtun for Pashtun ethnicity. I will, however, retain the original spelling as it is used in the sources that I quote from directly. Pashtun call the north-west and south-west (parts of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, Pakistan), as well as eastern, southern, and western Afghanistan as their watan (‫)وطن‬, a Pashto term for “ancestral homeland,” (Barth 1959:13); collectively these Pashtun areas are also termed as the Pashtun Belt which is a reference to the contiguous native Pashtun land striding the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that extends from the north (the Tribal Areas) to the South (Kandahar and Quetta) forming a belt (see Figures 1.3 below). 23 Afghan (also spelled as Awghan) as a term for Pashtun ethnic nationality is gaining currency once again. It is especially used by Pashtun nationalists and Pashto language activists to underscore the commonness between the Pashtun across the Durand Line. The term is further qualified by Lur Afghan and Bur Afghan. Lur (Lower) is used for Pashtun of Pakistan, and Bur (upper) is used for Pashtun of Afghanistan. 15 Pashtun have inhabited the present day eastern and southern Afghanistan for centuries; some of the Pashtun tribes (such as the Yousafzai Pashtun tribe of Swat) dispersed from these territories in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to their present day Pashtun populated areas (Ahmed 1980:86). A de facto border, known as the Durand Line, arbitrarily divides Pashtun into Afghan and Pakistani nationals. Drawn in 1893 by the agreement between the king of Afghanistan and the British colonial Raj, the Line demarcated zones of influence (as opposed to the official formal state boundary) between the two power centers. The Durand Line continues to be a disputed border as Afghanistan claims the part of Pashtun Belt included in the Pakistani territory as part of Afghanistan. There has been no current reliable data regarding the number of Pashtun in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pashtun in Afghanistan are estimated to be 38% (9.8 million); they have remained numerically and politically a dominant ethnic group since the Durrani tribe of Pashtun established Afghanistan as a state in 1747 (Bartlotti 2000:56; Dupree 1980:334-341; Ghani 1978:269). According to the 1981 census of Pakistan, Pashtun comprise 13.14 percent (over 18 million) of the total population of Pakistan. There is a sizeable Pashtun population that has migrated from its ancestral Pashtun land to urban centers such as the port city of Karachi, Pakistan. Mostly working as internal migrant workers in Karachi, their population is estimated to be 3 million 24 (Addleton 1992:36; Bartlotti 2000:55). The international Pashtun migrants mostly live in the Arab Gulf states as migrant workers, their numbers are estimated to be more than 1.2 million (Addleton 1992:93; Bartlotti 2000:55; Lefebvre 1999:21). 25 24 Karachi is now home to the largest number of Pashtun urban migrants in Pakistan. In fact, the Pashtun population in Karachi exceeds that of any other Pakistani city including the indigenous Pashtun areas (Akhtar 2008:223). 25 There is some sizable population of Pashtun origin in UP (United Provinces), India, however, there is no reliable data available on their numbers (Josh 1964:341, cited in Rahman 1997:134). Raverty (1860:ix, cited in Rahman 1997:134), a British colonial bureaucrat in the subcontinent, also notes that “in the territory of Rampur Nawwab, whole towns and villages may be found in which the Afghan language [Pashto] was spoken up to 1860.” 16 Figure 1.3: Map of the Pashtun Belt Pashtun Belt indicated by the light-grey shade straddling the de facto border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and extending deep into the southern and western Afghanistan. (Source: Ahmed 2006:xix) Pashto: The Language of Pashtun The language of Pashtun is known as Pashto, Pukhtu, or Pakhtu. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, I use the term “Pashto” to refer to the language. I use other variants of the term only if I quote directly from a source that uses the alternative form. Pashto belongs to the Indo-Iranian language family and is written in Perso-Arabic script; however, there are a number of additional characters that are peculiar to Pashto script. The total number of Pashto speakers worldwide is estimated to be over 27 million (Bartlotti 2000:1). Pashto is one of the official languages of Afghanistan since 1936 (Dari is the other official language), whereas in Pakistan Pashto has no official status or patronage despite the fact that a large number of population (18 million or 13.4 percent) speak the language as their mother tongue.26 26 Pashto, however, remained the official language in the Princely State of Swat under the Wali (the official title of the ruler of Swat State prior to the dissolution of its independent status within Pakistan) as opposed to the Persian or Urdu language that were “traditionally the subcontinental court languages” until the Swat State was merged into Pakistan in 1969 (Ahmed 1976:125; Miangul 1962:116). 17 There are mainly two varieties of Pashto language: one is termed as hard Pashto, a variety of Pashto that is spoken in the north-west of Pakistan and north-east of Afghanistan, also termed as Peshawari dialect, and the soft Pashto or Kandahari dialect spoken in the southwest of Pakistan and south-east of Afghanistan 27 (Ahmed 1980:116, 1976:73; Bartlotti 2000:65; Shah 1999:14). Despite this distinction between these two language varieties, there are slight variations in the pronunciation, and “over the whole area in which it [Pashto] is spoken, the language is essentially the same” (Grierson 1921:7). The main difference being the different ways in which the sound kh is pronounced. In the “soft Pashto”, kh is pronounced “like the German ch in nacht,” and in “hard Pashto” as “sh as in the English shame” 28 (Bartlotti 2000:65). It is important to note here that in Pashto the word for the language and the Pashtunwali code (loosely translated as the “Way of Pashtun”) is the same; Pashtun talk not only of “speaking Pashto” but also of “doing Pashto” and “having Pashto” (Barth 1959:82; Bartlotti 2000:2, 60; Grima 1993:1). Pashtun Social Organization Pashtun have been described as the largest tribal society in the world (Ahmed 1976:6; Anderson 1978:168; Bartlotti 2000:1; Hart 1985:3, Spain 1975:22). However, the term tribal is seldom used by Pashtun to refer to themselves; Pashtun of the Tribal Areas in Pakistan sometime refer to themselves as qabayul (‫)ﻗﺑﺎﯾل‬, meaning tribal, an official term used in Pakistani bureaucracy, but it is not indigenous to Pashtun. Largely used in a negative sense, the usage of the term tribe for Pashtun is deeply connected to the ways in which they are represented in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. As argued by Mamdani (1976:3) the words tribe and tribal carry negative connotations and are used to distinguish the “tribes” from the “civilized” Western societies. For instance, Morgan (1871:122) defined tribe as societies that were at an earlier evolutionary stage (“a barbarian state” as he termed it) as opposed to the societies with “higher” and “civilized” centralized systems. Other negative connotations 27 Mackenzie (1959:231-235), however, identifies four “dialect areas” based on differences in the five consonant phonemes: South-west with Kandahar as its center, South-east with Quetta as its center, North-west with Central Ghilzai as its center, and North-east with Yusufzai areas as its center. Penzl (1955:8-9), on the other hand, distinguishes three main “dialect types” namely Yusufzai dialect, Kabul dialect, and Kandahar dialect. 28 Other important studies on the Pashto “dialects” are by Grierson (1921), Henderson (1983), Kieffer (1985), Kreyenbroek (1994), Morgenstierne (1985), Shafeev (1964), and Skjaervo (1989). 18 that Ahmed (1980:87; Gluckman 1971:xv) have pointed out are that the tribal societies are preliterate, pre-industrial with an egalitarian economy and a mode of production based on primitive technology that produce primary and simple goods for consumption. Another common assumption about tribal societies is that they are lawless, unstable, and chaotic (Caroe 1977:352: Evans-Pritchard 1970:293-4). This definition of Pashtun tribe is prevalent to this day in both national and international news media which consistently refer to Pashtun tribal areas in Pakistan as “lawless Frontier” and/or “lawless tribal areas.” (Amnesty International 2013; BBC, December 13, 2012; Dawn, September 15, 2014a; New York Times, December 3, 2009). As argued by Ahmed (1980:87) none of these definitions accurately explain the tribal Pashtun society. Ahmed asserts that contrary to the notion that tribal societies are a primitive stage, the Pashtun tribal society is not a “stage in a typological sequence, band-tribe-chiefdomstate,” but a socio-cultural category that has not only sustained itself over the centuries but has also incorporated other elements due to the internal and external economic and political changes (Ahmed 1980:87). In other words, as opposed to a static and stagnant society lagging behind other “sophisticated” societies, tribal Pashtun society is vibrant and dynamic. Furthermore, Pashtun tribal society is not “pre-literate” as Pashtun have been producing written literature for the past many centuries (Ahmed 1980:87). Moreover, Pashtun society cannot be categorized as pre-modern or pre-industrial in its mode of production that is capable of only producing and consuming primary goods when sophisticated industries exist in the Tribal Areas. 29 Lastly, Pashtun tribal society cannot be characterized as “lawless” as it is governed by tribal code, Pashtunwali, and tribal institutions such as Jirga (Ahmed 1980:87). In this dissertation, I use the terms tribe and tribal in reference to the traditional Pashtun social organization that has historically remained acephalous, i.e., not organized under a centralized authority or state structure (Mamdani 1976:3). I am, however, aware of the limitations of the usage tribal for Pashtun social organization: Pashtun do not have a monolithic social structure applicable to all Pashtun population. Tribal Areas are primarily acephalous but the same cannot be said about Swat district which was acephalous before the British colonial 29 For instance, the armed factories in Darra Adam Khel, a town in the Tribal Areas, produce replicas of arms circulating in the international markets (Ahmed 1980:87). 19 contact in the early 1800s but which now exists under the centralized state structure of Pakistan. Before I engage the scholarly literature on Pashtun society and their social organization, I want to clarify that most of the literature on Pashtun focuses on Pashtun men with very rare insight into Pashtun women’s perspectives. Furthermore, Pashtun straddling the Durand Line have significant social, economic, political and ecological variations (Barth 1981:103-105; Bartlotti 2000:57; Evans-Von Krbek 1977:5). Moreover, Pashtun inhabiting diverse geographical terrains have responded differently to external and internal stimuli and therefore have taken different trajectories. Furthermore, the purpose of the following discussion is not to artificially impose the criterion of who is a Pashtun or what is their social organization, but to provide a workable definition based on the anthropological literature on Pashtun that can serve as a starting point of discussion and further investigation into the cultural disruptions in the contemporary Pashtun societies of the Tribal Areas and Swat in Pakistan. However, despite the variations mentioned above and the internal contestations, Pashtun see themselves as one people who share similar language, kinship, culture, and history30 (Bartlotti 2000:57; Barth 1981:105; Khan 1998:33; Poullada 1977:126). As noted earlier, Pashtun rarely define themselves as a tribe, but instead they use the terms qawm (‫)ﻗﺎم‬, wolus (‫)وﻟس‬, khpalwan (‫)ﺧﭘﻠوان‬, nazdey (‫)ﻧژدے‬, and larey (‫ )ﻟرے‬to refer to themselves and their social organization (Ahmed 1980:164; Bartlotti 2000:50; Tapper 1991:47). The usage qawm is borrowed from Arabic language. In Arabic qawm is a term that is used in a variety of ways. It can mean any of the various kinds of groupings whether human (such as family, sect, tribe, and nation) or other animate creatures such as insects and even supernatural creatures (Lefebvre 1999:42; Lelyveld 1978:27-28; Tapper 1991:47). Among Pashtun, qawm is used as a broad term with one defining feature i.e., each member of a qawm must patrilineally descend from a common ancestor (Bartlotti 2000:50; Lyon 2010:29; Tapper 1991:292; Tapper 1989:233). Any person who claims to be a Pashtun traces their descent from 30 In terms of religion, majority of Pashtun are Muslims. However, a minority of Pashtun population also subscribe to other faiths, particularly Sikh religion. 20 the father line to any of the tribes.31 Ahmed (1980:86) states that the “the single most important criterion for the definition of a Pukhtun tribesman is patrilineal descent from Pukhtun ascendants.” Similarly, Barth (1959:16) argues that qawm according to Pashtun is patrilineal, hereditary, and endogamous. Lindholm (1982:218) in his ethnography on the Pashtun of Swat notices that patrilineal descent carries immense importance in Pashtun social structure, “If a [Pashtun] man is accused of dishonorable dealing, he will defend himself, not by evidence, but by recitation of his lineage and the cry of ‘Am I not a Pukhtun.’” Patrilineal descent, in this way, legitimizes one’s claim of being a Pashtun.32 The term qawm in Urdu language is also used in the official Pakistani narrative that defines the Pakistani nation as a qawm. However, the usage qawm in Urdu is defined differently. Before the Partition, qawm in Urdu was used to refer to the Muslims of subcontinent and did not restrict itself to a common descent (Hall 2002:225). We see this in the Two Nations Theory propounded by the pro-Pakistan politicians in the pre-Partition subcontinent which claimed that the Muslims of subcontinent were a distinct and separate nation/qawm from other nationalities of the subcontinent, particularly the numerically dominant Hindus (Saigol 2010:115). With the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, the term qawm underwent a change and was redefined as a broad term for the Muslim majority population of Pakistan (Verkaaik 2004:2). The redefined post-Partition official meaning of qawm is closely related to the term Ummah which is a reference to the entire Muslim population on the globe as a group (Toor 2011:9). Each member of the Ummah in his/her “submission to God’s will was to override bonds of kinship” (Lelyveld 1978:27-28). 31 One of the earliest written works on the history of Pashtun is by Al-Harawi (1980), who lived in 1600s and worked at the Mughal court. Al-Harawi, who compiled his work from Persian sources, reports that Pashtun are descended from the apical-cum-mythical ancestor, Qais bin Rashid, who is believed to have lived in Ghor in modern day Afghanistan and who travelled to Arabia in the seventh century and was converted to Islam by the Prophet of Islam. Though Al-Harawi’s theory of putative Pashtun ancestor is often cited in anthropological literature (see for instance, Ahmed 1980:86; 1976:6; Tapper 1991:292; Tapper 1989:233), this theory is not shared by Pashtun in general. Moreover, this mythical origin theory ignores the pre-Islamic history of Pashtun. For the pre-Islamic history and idolatrous ancestry of Pashtun see Biruni (1910), Bosworth (1984), and Dupree (1980). 32 One may not speak or “do Pashto”, but they would be considered Pashtun if they belong to Pashtun lineage, though they would be socially censured and ridiculed if they fail to uphold the Pashtun cultural practices. Deviation from Pashtun cultural norms are usually censured as plar neka nama ay o sharmola (he/she has dishonored the name of his/her forefathers). In this way, the dead and the living, past and the present are temporally connected in the Pashtun social structure both influencing each other. This temporal connection is one of the significant factors in contesting claim to an ideal Pashtun behavior. 21 The Pashto term wolus is borrowed from the Turkish word ulus which means people, nation and/or tribe. Wolus like qawm denotes a group with a common descent, however, it has the additional meaning of a group organized politically; In other words, wolus is a kinship based group which comes together for a collective political action or goal (Tapper 1991:47). As the popular Pashto proverb says da wolus zore da khuday zor wee (‫( )د اوﻟس زور د ﺧدائ زور وي‬The people’s strength is God’s strength), wolus underlines the ideal that members of a group unitedly confront any challenge to the group especially from the outside (Tapper 1991:51). Khpalwan is a Pashto term that literally means “one’s own people”; it is a term collectively used for agnates and affines. The term is further qualified by the spatial metaphors nazhde, meaning “near” and larey, meaning “far” to refer to social distance (Ahmed 2006:85; Tapper 1991:51, 94, 193). For instance, one’s cousins would be nazhde khpalwan (‫)ﻧژدے ﺧﭘﻠوان‬ and a distant relative would be a lare Khpalwan (‫)ﻟرے ﺧﭘﻠوان‬. 33 32F Social organization and social hierarchies According to the anthropological literature on Pashtun (Ahmed 1984, 1980, 1976; Ahmed 2006; Anderson 1978; Banerjee 2000; Barth 1981, 1969a, 1959; Bartlotti 2000; Edwards 1996; Grima 1993; Lindholm 1982; Spain 1962; Tapper 1991), Pashtun society is organized socially into three distinct groups: 1) The core-lineage group who claim their patrilineal ancestry from any of the Pashtun tribal patriarchs who in turn are the descendants of the apical ancestor; 2) The Barthian saintly group (also termed as holy-lineage), who claim to be the descendants of the prophet of Islam (Barth 1959:4, 21); 3) And finally, the client group who provide services to the core-lineage group in exchange for political (and economic, but not always) patronage. However, it is important to note that this distinction privileges the point of view of the core-lineage group. In everyday life, Pashtun do not make these distinctions, to make such distinction in public could be deemed as highly insulting especially to the client group; issues of one’s lineage are discussed privately only when establishing marital relations (as the core-lineage group are traditionally endogamous), or organizing Jirga, the council of elders, which largely comprises of members from the core-lineage group. Moreover, in language practice, life-style, and general behavior and appearance, there is no significant 33 Maintaining connection with Khpalwan is essential in Pashtun social organization. The principles of tapos (enquiry visit) and gham khadi (sorrow/joy) demand that Pashtun maintain their kinship ties. 22 difference between members of any of the above-mentioned groups. Some anthropologists (Ahmed 1980; Barth 1959; Lindholm 1982; Tapper 1991:87) term the non-core-lineage groups as non-Pashtun. However, in this dissertation, I do not make the Pashtun and non-Pashtun distinction. I regard any person as Pashtun who is indigenous to the Pashtun Belt and identifies themselves as Pashtun irrespective of their membership in any of the groups. The core-lineage is a hereditary, segmentary, and endogamous group; membership in this group is solely based on patrilineal descent. Ideally each member must trace their ancestry to any of the tribal patriarchs. It is this group that is primarily responsible for upholding Pashtunwali, the ideal Pashtun behavior (to be discussed later in the chapter). The saintly/holylineage and client groups are not expected to uphold the principles of Pashtunwali, but for the core-lineage groups traditionally respect and honor is earned through adherence to Pashtunwali. This group internally is democratic and egalitarian (at least in theory if not in practice); every member is a co-equal as “no Pukhtun is master of another” (Ahmed 1980:96). However, the “principle of respect,” a major tenet of Pashtunwali, based on age hierarchy contradicts the principle of equality and egality. The feature that keeps in check any tendency towards social hierarchy within the group is tarburwali (‫( ) ﺗرﺑوروﻟۍ‬agnatic rivalry, and/or agnatic solidarity): rivalry as well as solidarity between patrilineal parallel cousins (Lindholm 1982:66). Tarburwali manifests itself as agnatic solidarity only when faced with outside aggression (Tapper 1991:183). At a macro level, tarburwali translates into segmentary tribal rivalry/solidarity. Each tribe competes with another tribe, but one tribe supports another in case of external aggression. The core-lineage group also distinguishes itself from the other groups by monopolizing political and coercive power. No other group can be a pretender to power (Ahmed 1980:90; Barth 1959:75). Traditionally, political and coercive power is the monopoly of the core-lineage groups. It is for this reason that only the core-lineage groups can be the members of the Jirga convened to address inter-tribal issues or concerns regarding external threats; similarly, nonlineage groups are not allowed to carry a gun to prevent them from establishing coercive 23 power 34 (Ahmed 1980:97-98). However, holy-lineage and client groups do participate in Jirga convened to address mundane issues such as property disputes or feuds. Also, it is important to note that the hierarchy between the groups is social rather than economic (Ahmed 1980:97). Other groups (saintly group/holy-lineage and client group) are politically dependent on the core-lineage group but this dependence is not necessarily economic. Rather, the other two groups have fared better economically than the core-lineage group. This is chiefly because Pashtunwali, that only applies to the Pashtun lineage groups, “is expensive to maintain in terms of life and wealth” (Ahmed 1980:98). Moreover, the core-lineage group traditionally considers trade and marketing as ungentlemanly and this sphere is largely left to the other two groups who have monopolized the sphere (Ahmed 1980:90). The client group has three distinctive features: (1) they are politically dependent on the core-lineage group; (2) they provide services in return for payment in cash or kind; and (3) they do not have extended network of kinship that they can rally for support (agnatic solidarity) in times of crisis. For these reasons, they do not enjoy a co-equal status. The core-lineage group members if become politically or economically dependent (and therefore lose their autonomy and independence) then their household would be considered a client-household, and conversely, if the client group household establishes economic and especially political independence then it would enjoy the privileges of the core-lineage group though its non-corelineage descent would still be held against it as a disadvantage 35 (Barth 1959:20-21). Moreover, if a core-lineage group loses its agnatic solidarity due to weakening of agnatic connections that may result from migration or geographical dispersal as a result of calamities or persecution from its ancestral rural homeland, then it would risk becoming a client group. Agnatic support which is the prime defense against the client status has especially become a significant factor in the migration of core-lineage groups to the urban centers where they not only risk losing their political and economic independence and agnatic solidarity in the anonymity of the urban life 34 However, in the contemporary times, the core-lineage groups are fast losing their political monopoly due to the rise of militancy in the Pashtun Belt. 35 On this mobility between the groups, Barth (1959:20-21) in his ethnography on Pashtun of Swat observes, “The people of Swat are indeed fully aware that the caste of a family can be changed. One hears statements such as ‘they used to be herders, but now they are farmers,’ or ‘they were really Pakhtuns, but ate up all their lands, and now they are smiths.’” 24 but they also risk becoming clients as they serve the state as its employees and therefore become clients to the patron state (Tapper 1991:87). The client group can be further divided into (1) occupational groups called qasabgar, (‫( )ﮐﺳب ګر‬craftsman), and (2) khidmatgar 36, (‫( )ﺧدﻣت ګﺎر‬server) who serve a particular corelineage household in exchange for political and economic patronage (Ahmed 1980:168). In this way, the core-lineage and the client group have a patron-client relationship. The client groups are considered socially inferior as they are at the bottom of social hierarchy; however, there is no “concept of corporate pollution in Pukhtun society” (Lindholm 1982:206,270; also see Banerjee 2009:29; Lefebvre 1999:41; Lyon 2010:29). Barth’s assertion that patron-client relation is a “caste hierarchy” is often misunderstood as a term for caste system based on purity and pollution, despite his unequivocal statement that it is a quasi-caste category based not on purity but on the concept of honor that rests on political and economic independence, co-equality, and agnatic solidarity (Barth 1959:22). Both, patrons and clients, are socially interdependent, if patrons fail to provide patronage, the clients are not bound to serve them 37 (Lindholm 1982:215). Furthermore, all are almost dressed similarly; patrons or elders do not distinguish themselves by dress. They meet and interact with each other in their everyday life without any visible signs of social hierarchy as Lindholm states: In general, powerful men are not easily distinguished from their dependents. All men wear essentially the same clothes…. Even men with great ability, wealth, and power cannot compel others to follow. Poor men can and do shift allegiances if they feel it is to their own advantage. Of course, powerful men can use many methods to place the weak under obligation, but there is no sense that followers are somehow naturally inferior…. Pride is demonstrated in the ordinary bearing of the men [of client status], who carry themselves erect, walk with a swagger, and look one another straight in the eye. There is no evident servility or cast consciousness” (1982:214-218). Khidmatgar are sometime also termed as hamsaya (‫( )ھﻣﺳﺎﯾﮫ‬which in Pashto literally means “neighbor”) as they live close to the core-lineage household that provides them patronage in exchange for services. 36 37 I have witnessed member of Pashtun core-lineage groups pleading with the members of client groups to continue to serve them. 25 Like the core-lineage group, the saintly/holy-lineage group 38 is informed by the ideology of patrilineal descent. This group traces its ancestry to Arabia and ultimately to the prophet of Islam (Ahmed 1980:98; Lindholm 1982:93-94, 96; Metcalf 2010:51). It is primarily for their tracing of descent to a non-Pashtun patriarch that holy-lineage group members are excluded from the membership in the core-lineage group. Like the other two groups, the holy-lineage in Pashtun society is a “distinct group with distinct functions” (Ahmed 1980:164). Unlike the core-lineage group whose ideal behavior is guided by the principles of Pashtunwali, the holy-lineage is expected to uphold their ideal behavior based on the Islamic principles. The ideal type of holy-lineage group member is peaceful and pacifist who embodies moral proprietary, and reminds the society of its religious duties as Muslims. (However, it is important to note that all Pashtun are not Muslims by faith; a small minority of Pashtun belongs to other faiths). Moreover, the members of this group do not take side in feuds or quarrels that might erupt between the segmentary core-lineage groups (Ahmed 1980:165; Lindholm 1982:95-96). They are expected to be neutral and disinterested in power, as Barth (1959:99) observed they are “not pretenders to political authority.” However, despite their role as arbiter and mediator especially in disputes, the holy-lineage group does not possess any coercive authority to back its mediation and arbitration. More importantly, the holy-lineage is believed to possess baraka, or religious blessings that is needed in times of political crisis, or for medicinal purposes 39 (Lindholm 1982:38-39). The need for the holy-lineage group to function as mediator and arbiter is necessitated by the fact that the core-lineage group is segmentary and therefore inherently partial when it comes to issues that are of inter-tribal concerns. Therefore, the core-lineage group requires an impartial mediator that is external to its social structure and social expectation of ideal type (Lindholm 1982:95-96). According to Lindholm (1982:227), the holy-lineage group serves an additional purpose of balancing the contradiction between core-lineage ideal of 38 The holy-lineage group is further divided into Sayed, Mian, and Sahibzada. They are collectively called stanadars. 39 The holy-lineage might be confused with a mullah (religious cleric). Unlike the holy-lineage member, the mullah belongs to the client group, who neither possesses religious blessing nor is he a descendant of the prophet of Islam. Moreover, unlike holy-lineage group member, the mullah is a client who performs routine services such as leading prayers or conducting rituals of rites de passage and is compensated for his services either in cash or kind (Ahmed 1980:165). Mullah in this way clearly has a client status whose patron is a core-lineage Pashtun patriarch. 26 independence/autonomy and the need to supplicate before God for favor, such a supplication automatically confers a client status as it would be tantamount to “taking on themselves the dishonor of begging for favors.” The core-lineage resolves this contradiction by letting the holylineage mediate between core-lineage members and their deity on their behalf. The holylineage though lacking in any coercive power are respected and even feared by the core-lineage group as they are understood to be in direct relation with deity and therefore any deliberate harm or disrespect would result in a curse that can ruin one’s life (Lindholm 1982:227). However, if a member of the holy-lineage group deviates from the normative expectations, the respect due to them can be withdrawn. This traditional relation between the holy-lineage and core-lineage groups carries especial importance in the context of colonial and post-colonial contact; these two distinct groups and their roles have been seriously disrupted, resulting in the rise of puritan movements that are not mediated by the Pashtun cultural institutions and traditions. This point would be discussed in detail under the heading of millenarian movements later in the chapter and would provide a basis for chapter 5 that deals with the unprecedented disruption between the Pashtun riwaj (traditions) and religion or between the secular and religious domains. Pashtunwali: The Framework of the Ideal Pashtun behavior Pashtunwali (also termed as code of honor) is a ‘code’ of Pashtun social behavior that dates back to at least more than a thousand years (Ahmed 1976:56; Banerjee 2000:9). The suffix -wali in Pashtunwali and in Pashto language in general may be added to a common noun to change it into an abstract noun (Bartlotti 2000:2; Shafeev 1964:20). In this way, as its name suggests, Pashtunwali is the abstract quality of Pashtunness (Bartlotti 2000:2). Some of the most discussed elements of Pashtunwali are badal (‫( )ﺑدل‬reciprocity), melmastia (‫( )ﻣﻠﻣﺳﺗﯾﮫ‬hospitality), and nanawati (‫( )ﻧﻧواﺗﯽ‬refuge). Observance of these three elements is considered essential for a Pashtun’s claim to respectability and ideal behavior (Lindholm 1982:211). Besides these three pillars, other important elements of Pashtunwali include namus (‫( )ﻧﺎﻣوس‬protection of womenfolk and property, a principle demanded only of the male members), mashr-kashr (‫( )ﻣﺷرﮐﺷر‬principle of respect relating to age hierarchy), and 27 gham-khadi (‫( )ﻏم ښﺎدی‬maintaining kinship relations). 40 Most of the anthropological literature on the Pashtun society (see for instance, Ahmed 1984, 1980, 1976; Anderson 1978; Banerjee 2000; Barth 1981, 1969a, 1959; Bartlotti 2000; Edwards 2002, 1996, 1986; Lindholm 1982; Spain 1962) has discussed Pashtunwali from a male perspective and therefore restricts itself to Pashtunwali as a “male code of honor.” This is mainly because most of these anthropologists are male and therefore are limited by the institution of purdah (‫( )ﭘرده‬gender segregation) that restricts social interaction between unrelated men and women. Ahmed (1980:97), on the other hand, implies that there is no female version of Pashtunwali as he states “the direct laudatory equivalent to “Pukhto” [i.e., “doing Pashto”] is manhood.” At other point Ahmed (1980:6) asserts that the principles of Pashtunwali “revolve round the concept of manhood and honor which in turn involves man’s ideal image of himself.” The first groundbreaking study of Pashtun society from a female perspective was by Grima (1993:1) who conducted her ethnographic research “as a result of dissatisfaction with the existing anthropological literature on the Paxtuns, which treated male honor in detail, but which seemed oblivious to women’s honor.” According to Grima (1993:1) the ideal woman of honor is principally characterized by her ability to endure hardship and persist against the sufferings that life throws towards her. Following Grima, Ahmed (2006) studied Pashtunwali as performed by women in contemporary urban milieu in Pakistan; she argues that the Pashtun women assert their womanhood through gham-khadi (sorrow-joy) in which a woman maintains her honor by keeping the kinship network intact (Ahmed 2006:3). More recently, Khan (2012) investigates the ways in which Pashtun women’s subject formation is informed by the Pashtun patriarchal institutions and how these women engage and contest the ideologies situated in the patriarchal structure. Before I proceed to explain each of the principles mentioned above, I want to emphasize that Pashtunwali is an “ideal type” (Weber 1947:92). As argued by Ahmed (1980:89; 1976:56-57), Pashtunwali is “part-fiction and part-reality”; it is a Pashtun ideal type in the sense 40 A Pashtun who remains faithful to these principles of Pashtunwali is called a man of honor, and the code is also referred to as code of honor. One’s honor includes nang (‫ )ﻧﻧګ‬and gherat (‫)ﻏﯾرت‬. Nang refers to the willingness to sacrifice one’s life to uphold Pashtunwali, gherat, on the other hand, refers to one’s ability to live a life according to the principles of Pashtunwali (Lindholm 1982:237). A man who fulfils the demands of nang is called nangyaley (‫( )ﻧﻧګﯾﺎﻟﮯ‬the opposite is beynanga) and one who upholds gherat is called ghairati (‫( )ﻏﯾرﺗﯽ‬the opposite is beyghairata). 28 that it describes a normative ideal Pashtun behavior which serves as a yardstick against which deviance can be measured. Pashtun ethnic identity and Pashtun social behavior is “not of an unchanging, primordial character” but has been subject to change (Nichols 2008:5). Though not formally written down, this ideal exists in the popular imagination as well as in songs, metaphor and proverbs41 despite the deviation from it in actual life; in other words, it is a “subjective or native exegeses of their [Pashtun’s] social system (Ahmed 1980:88; Bartlotti 2000:5-6; Lindholm 1982:212). More relevant to my dissertation, I discuss the code as a backdrop against which I discuss the actual practices, innovations, and the disruption caused by the growing political, economic, and social influence of the Pakistani state among the Pashtun. Moreover, the code in its ‘pure’ form allows us to see how Pashtun reinvent their code and what elements they emphasize and what they de-emphasize in order to claim Pashtunness despite finding it increasingly hard to practice the code in its purity. However, I also want to emphasize that though the code is not static or timeless, it had remained uninterrupted for at least four centuries before the emergence of Afghanistan as a modern state, British colonial government, and later postcolonial state of Pakistan (Ahmed 1980:80; Banerjee 2000:15). Again, this is not to say that the code is immune to change, it is “emergent and unfinished” and it would be unjust to regard Pashtun as the blind followers of the code (Banerjee 2000:15). The code, indeed, has been interpreted and reinterpreted with the shifting social, economic, and political contexts. Usually translated as “revenge” (Ahmed 1980:90; Atayee 1979:11; Banerjee 2000:29: Spain 1962:46), badal, one of the major principles of Pashtunwali, can be better understood as exchange. Revenge is one part of the exchange, and therefore, badal cannot be reduced to it (Grima 1993:72; Lindholm 1982:211). Badal demands that every harm or favor done to a person must be reciprocated. To fail to do so is to accumulate debt and ultimately accept the superiority (in terms of power or fairness) of the other. Such a scenario goes against one of the basic principles of traditional Pashtun organization which is co-equality and egality (Ahmed 1976:56). Badal as revenge allows the closest kin to compensate for a person’s killing. However, this ‘right’ to take revenge is trumped by the principle of refuge (to be discussed later). 41 “Proverb usage can therefore be viewed as a rhetorical expression of Pashtunwali, a way of “doing Pukhto” in the verbal arena… proverbial “truths” and proverb “use” together have significance in defining what it means situationally to “be Pashtun” and to “do Pakhto,” as well as in reinforcing the symbolic boundary of the Pashtun community” (Bartlotti 2000:5-6). 29 The principle of gham-khadi, (sorrow-joy) and tapos (‫( )ﺗﭘوس‬enquiry visit), mostly undertaken by women, are part of badal as exchange which demands that one should maintain close relations with ones agnates and affines by frequently exchanging visits and extending support in times of sorrow and participating in celebration of one’s kin. Melmastia (hospitality) is one of the most prominent features of Pashtunwali. Failing to offer a generous hospitality to a guest results in the loss of honor and a person who is not hospitable and generous is called the derogatory term shoom (‫( )ﺷوم‬miser). Male guests are entertained in hujra (‫( )ﺣﺟره‬communal quarter for men), whereas female guests inside the house (Ahmed 1980:90). The principle of hospitality overrides badal (in the sense of revenge) and one cannot even turn down hospitality to one’s enemy 42 (Baneerjee 2000:29). Generous hospitality earns a person respect and is given the prized title of melmadost (‫()ﻣﻠﻣﮫ دوﺳت‬a friend of guests) (Ahmed 1980:90). Hospitality is so much valued that Pashtun can spend a great fortune over their life on hospitality. Barth (1959:12) in his classic ethnography on Pashtun of Swat has argued that hospitality is given for instrumental reasons, i.e., to maximize one’s political power and influence as he states: “this striking hospitality and reckless spending only seems intelligible if we recognize that the underlying motives are political rather than economic.” It is safe to say that Pashtun do invite people who are deemed respectful and powerful to establish rewarding friendship. However, as argued by Ahmed (1976:58) and Lindholm (1982:228; also see Ghaffar 1969:1), the instrumental value of hospitality is secondary as Pashtun would offer equal degree of hospitality to a person whether influential or a mendicant. Moreover, offering hospitality for purely instrumental reasons would imply that the hosts are weak and dependent on other’s favors which risks putting them in a client group and the guest in the patron category. 43 42F 42 However, once the guest-cum-enemy takes leave and therefore absolves the host from the responsibility of melmastia then the badal (in the sense of revenge) is resumed. In other words, melmastia suspends the principle of badal as long as the enemy enjoys the status of the guest (Lindholm 1982:232). 43 Pashtun prize personal autonomy and independence; therefore, offering hospitality for a reward would place them in a client status. It is for this reason that any attempt by a guest to offer recompense in return for hospitality is deemed offensive as it would imply that the host is “offering himself for hire,” which is a characteristic of a client (Elphinstone 1815:330; Lindholm 1982:232). To stay clear of the accusation of being hospitable for instrumental reasons, the guests may not even be asked about their names before they are adequately entertained (Lindholm 1982:229). 30 Nanawati is derived from the Pashto verb nanawatal which means “to go in” (Ahmed 1980:90; Banerjee 2000:29). Translated as “refuge” or “sanctuary”, nanawati or the principle of refuge comes into force in three situations: 1) when someone whose life is in danger asks for protection; 2) when one’s enemy, even if a mortal one, comes in to sue for peace or settlement of a dispute usually with the Quran in hand; 3) when a person asks for alliance in a feud against a powerful enemy (Ahmed 1980:90; 1976:58; Banerjee 2000:29; Elphinstone 1815:297; Lindholm 1982:234). In all the above cases, Pashtunwali demands that nanawati be granted usually with the slaying of a goat. Like hospitality, nanawati must be granted regardless of the social/economic status, religion, or nationality of the one who invokes nanawati (Lindholm 1982:234). Nanawati is an extension of the principle of hospitality but has the added obligation of being responsible for the security of the one who asks for nanawati. It is disgraceful and dishonorable for a host to refuse nanawati or fail to offer security once the nanawati is offered. Like memlastia, nanawati also overrides the principle of badal; nanawati must also be extended to one’s enemy. Refuge, like melmastia, also has instrumental but secondary value of political maximization; however, it is offered even when it is politically and economically unwise and dangerous (Ahmed 1976:58; Lindhom 1982:235). Nanawati thus demands that the host must show magnanimity especially because the one who is asking for nanawati is sacrificing the most precious Pashtun virtue, namely personal autonomy and independence; by asking for nanawati, one is “admitting in the most graphic way possible, his weakness and reliance on his host” (Lindholm 1982:236). Namus (‫ )ﻧﺎﻣوس‬is the male sense of honor that derives from a man’s (especially the male elder of the household) ability to protect his personal property, such as home and land as well as the sanctity of the domestic life including women and children of his household; Harm to any of these is attack on one’s namus (Tapper 1991:106-107). As stated by Edwards (1986:75), “Namus … comprises all those things with which a Pakhtun man surrounds himself—rifles, land, women—and that collectively constitutes his sense of honor.” Sharam (‫ )ﺷرم‬is a term for female’s sense of honor. Sharam “implies timidity, shame, modesty, and subservience” 44 43F (Grima 1993:36). A woman who embodies sharam is considered a woman of honor and is 44 Pashtun share this female sense of honor grounded in modesty and subservience with Middle Eastern tribal societies (Abu-Lughod 1980; Grima 1993:36) 31 appreciatively called pukhtana khaza (‫( )ﭘښﺗﻧﮫ ښځﮫ‬Pashtun woman). However, as Grima (1993:137-138) notes the performance of sharam can be suspended in times of gham (personal calamity or deep sorrow) as “her gham making her capable of crossing all boundaries and transgressing rules of parda 45…. Women use the shedding of feminine symbols such as veil and 4F modesty to portray intense emotion.” Mashr-Kashr (‫( )ﻣﺷرﮐﺷر‬elder-younger) in Pashtun societies is the principle of respect based on age hierarchy (Ahmed 1980:95; Banerjee 2000:7; Barth 1959:23; Lindholm 1982:213). This principle applies to all elders; it is not confined to one’s kin but it extends even to the elders that are political competitors and rivals (Ahmed 1980:95). It is important to note that the principle of respect is purely based on age difference; even an influential and powerful person, if younger, must obey the principle of respect (Lindholm 1982:214). In the domain of language practice, the principle of respect involves the use of the register of respect or what Barth (1959:23) calls “name avoidance.” This principle demands that the name of the mashr (‫)ﻣﺷر‬ (elder) must not be stated both in his/her presence as well as absence. Instead, the kashr (‫()ﮐﺷر‬younger) must use honorifics that are usually affectionate terms of kinship such as baba (‫()ﺑﺎﺑﺎ‬father or grandfather), daji (‫()داﺟﯽ‬father), kakajee (‫()ﮐﺎﮐﺎﺟﯽ‬uncle), for male elders, and adey (‫ ()ادے‬grandmother or mother), trore (‫ ()ﺗرور‬aunt), abai (‫()اﺑﺊ‬a term of respect for an “elderly woman”) for female elders. In spatial practices, the principle manifests itself in the seating arrangement such as at public gatherings, rituals, and everyday life where best and prominent seats are reserved for the elders. For instance, in the daily congregational prayers of men, a mashr must sit in the first row behind the prayer leader to offer prayers. Similarly, in hujra, men’s quarter, elders sit in the center and on the comfortable end of the cot. Another important feature of the principle of respect is demonstration of restraint. Unlike the “name avoidance” practice, restraint is reciprocal, i.e., both elders and young maintain a grave demeanor in presence of each other. 45 Parda in Pashto literally means “veil;” performance of parda for a woman means exhibiting modesty, restraint, and sobriety in front of unrelated men. 32 Young people are especially expected to desist from any playfulness or jocular behavior.46 However, this does not mean that younger people are not allowed to argue; they can disagree and may argue heatedly but they are not expected to be disrespectful or overly familiar, as Lindholm (1982:215) notes, an elder can silence younger people if they exceed the limits of propriety by reminding them of their youth (immaturity) as in dey omur tha dey o gora ( ‫دے ﻋﻣر‬ ‫( )ﺗﮫ دے ووګوره‬Look at your age!). Lastly, the principle of respect demands that young people and even children must serve their elders such as running errands, entertaining guests or doing their biddings (Lindholm 1982:213-216). The features discussed above are the most well-known elements of Pashtunwali; however, Pashtunwali is not limited to them. And especially in the contemporary Pashtun society, in the aftermath of Pashtun urban migration, displacement, disruption of their cultural institutions and the growing influence of the state, many other features have come into prominence that will be discussed later in the dissertation; these new features are either reinterpretation of the traditional elements of Pashtunwali or else entirely novel elements that have emerged in response to the cultural and spatial disruptions. Moreover, the incorporation in the Pakistani state’s legal and judicial structure has made it difficult for Pashtun to practice the traditional features in letter and spirit. For instance, the incorporation of the Pashtun areas in the Pakistani legal structure is inhibiting Pashtun practices such as convening of Jirga to resolve disputes that has now come into the purview of the state security and judicial institutions. Jirga (The Council of Elders): The Traditional Pashtun Institution Jirga or the council of elders is the most august institution that has the power of law in the traditional Pashtun acephalous society. Informed by the tribal customary laws that are derived from Pashtunwali, Jirga is the institution that regulates the Pashtun society. Jirga takes its decision after holding a maraca (somber discussion). The decision of Jirga is binding and is backed by coercive power; Jirga may impose fines, or may order the eviction of the guilty party (Ahmed 1976:75). The number of jirgaeez (the members of jirga) varies but it usually ranges 46 As noted by Lindholm (1982:216) young people in the presence of elders are expected to act prudently and even avoid indulging in activities like the use of tobacco or snuff. Similarly, if an elder stumbles upon a joyful gathering of young people, it would immediately become somber and constrained. 33 from five to fifty (Ahmed 1980:90-91). Each member is an elderly patriarch spin giray (‫)ﺳﭘﯾن ږﯾرے‬ (white beard) who heads his respective household. A malak (‫)ﻣﻠﮏ‬, a local influential and respected man heads the Jirga. It is important to note here that malak is not a man of authority nor does he possess any coercive power; he is recognized as a malak solely on the basis of his leadership qualities and wisdom as Ahmed (1976:74-75; also see Ibbetson 1883:201) observes, “The ‘Malik’ is seldom more than their leader in war and their agent in dealings with others; he possesses influence rather than power; and the real authority rests with the ‘Jirga.’” The institution of malak contrasts with that of khan (‫( )ﺧﺎن‬landlord) which emerged in those Pashtun territories who under the influence of British colonial Raj and later Pakistan developed a centralized (as opposed to the traditional acephalous) political system. Therefore, the Tribal Areas which have largely remained autonomous and egalitarian have malak and Swat which is now fully incorporated in the Pakistani state system has khan, a feudal lord, instead of a malak. It is for this reason that Pashtun of Tribal Areas sometime disparagingly refer to their cousins in the Settled Areas (a term of British colonial origin for territories that are directly under the Pakistani state governance as opposed to the autonomous Tribal Areas) of Swat as people who “speak Pashto” but do not “do Pashto” as they in their un-egalitarian, hierarchical and centralized system fail to maintain the most prized Pashtun value: individual autonomy, and independence. Jirga is a democratic institution that arrives at a decision through consensus and maraca. However, a Jirga member, as mentioned earlier, comprises of elderly patriarchs. It mostly excludes women, younger people of both sexes, and non core-lineage groups, i.e., holylineage and client groups (Ahmed 1980:91; Tapper 1991:32-33). A kashr (younger person) may participate only as a representative of a malak or elder of a household who is either unable to participate or has passed away. Similarly, the non core-lineage groups can participate as members only in matters of minor importance such as issues pertaining to dispute settlements. Issues concerning inter-tribal affairs, internal and external threats are deliberated only by the core-lineage group members. However, any person can convene a Jirga to address a perceived injustice. The jurisdiction of Jirga extends from the most mundane to the most pressing and existential concerns. But a Jirga would not intervene if a person bypasses Jirga in exercising an 34 action sanctioned by the principles of Pashtunwali; in such a case the society may not approve of the act but would honor the person’s adherence to the principles of Pashtunwali (Ahmed 1980:94). In contemporary Pashtun societies, both in the Tribal Areas and Swat, the institution of Jirga is struggling to survive. In the Tribal Areas, the institution is threatened by the Taliban, who have emerged as one of the sovereign nodes, as they attempt to impose shariah (Islamic Laws) unmediated by the Pashtun cultural institutions such as Jirga, and in Swat, Jirga is fast becoming obsolete due to the centralized authority of the state governed by its legal and bureaucratic structure. The recession of Jirga is also an indication of the loss of the political monopoly of the core-lineage Pashtun group (as mentioned earlier, Jirga members are from the core-lineage groups) and dominance of religious over the secular authority which in turn is creating a disjuncture between Pashtun and Muslim identities. Pashtunwali and Islam: Competing Frames? Some of the anthropologists working on Pashtun societies have argued that Pashtunwali and Islam 47 are distinct and competing forms of moral authority that have largely remained incompatible (Anderson 1979:130-131; Barth 1981:119-120; Bartlotti 2000:2; Edwards 1996:24; Eickelman 1989:260-262; Tapper and Tapper 1986:62-63); they argue that Pashtun have traditionally alternated between the two competing “alternative frames of reference” as the context demands (Bartlotti 2000:2; Tapper and Tapper 1986:62-63). For instance, Dupree (1980:104; also see Bartlotti 2000:75) argues that Islam among Pashtun prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was restricted to faith in Allah and Muhammad and that “most beliefs related to localized, pre-Muslim customs.” He further states that “the Islam practiced in Afghan villages, nomad camps, and most urban areas [prior to the Soviet invasion] would be almost unrecognizable to a sophisticated Muslim scholar.” Similarly, Ghani (1978:269) asserts that Pashtunwali as opposed to Islam was the judicial basis of Afghanistan at the times of its establishment as a state. Bartlotti (2000:78) writing in a similar vein notes that Islam among 47 Islamization of the modern day Afghanistan, regarded as the heartland of Pashtun, was completed by the year 1000 AD (Bartlotti 2000:74; Bosworth 1984:20). 35 Pashtun was “never ‘pure’” if judged according to an ideal standard of “orthodoxy.”” 48 On the other hand, scholars like Ahmed (1984:311) and Shah (1999:9) assert that there is no disjunction between Pashtun and Muslim identity; Ahmed (1984:311) states “Islam is another name for Pukhtun society.” However, at other place, he acknowledges that a Pashtun’s life is governed by Pashtunwali and the role of Islam is “often reduced to formal prayers” (Ahmed 1980:96). Similarly Verkaaik (2004:21), in his ethnography on Mohajir ethnicity in Pakistan, argues that religion and ethnic identity in Pakistan in general are not incompatible but rather religion provides the idiom through which the ethno-nationalist resistance is voiced, and that religion and ethnic-nationalism are interconnected, a kind of “ethnicized Islam.” Shah (1999:xxxiv), a scholar of Pashtun history, also emphasizes the role of Islam among Pashtun and considers it central to the Pashtun social norms. 49 However, the argument that Pashtunness and Islam are indistinguishable assumes that all Pashtun belong to Muslim faith. But, this is not the case; though predominantly Muslims, they do have a non-Muslim Pashtun minority such as Sikh Pashtun in the Tribal Areas. Moreover, the tension between Pashtunness and Muslimness is also reflected in the numerous popular Pashto proverbs, for instance: Pukhto neem kufar dey (‫( )ﭘښﺗو ﻧﯾم ﮐﻔر دے‬Pashto is half unbelief). 50 49F The question of the compatibility of Pashtunness and Islam in history is debatable, but one can safely argue that Pashtunness and Muslimness are becoming increasingly irreconcilable with growing influence of the Pakistani state in the traditional Pashtun populated areas (Edwards 1996:4; Tapper and Tapper 1986:62-63). As I discussed in an earlier section in the chapter, Muslim Identity and early Islamic heritage are two of the key features of official 48 See Bartlotti (2000:217-227) for the discussion of Pashto/Islam disjuncture in Pashto proverbs. 49 Shah (1999:xxxiv) writes, “The fact that religion was rarely used for communal purposes (except briefly in 1946-7) has led some scholars to accord primacy to Pashtoon ‘ethnicity’ over Islam in the making of Frontier politics. While it is certainly true that Muslim sectarianism never had much appeal, this does not imply that Pashtoons treated Islam as a marginal factor in their lives. Deeply religious and steeped in the history of Islamic lore, the Pashtoons viewed Islam as one of the principal constituents of their Pashtoon self-definition. To them a ‘Muslim’ way of life and Pashtoon culture were not opposites but complementary attributes of their identity.” 50 Bartlotti (2000:218-219) cites a number of Pashto proverbs that illustrate the disjuncture between “doing Pashto” and religious faith such as: “Whatever is in pakhto is not in the Book,” “A Pashtun obeys half the Qur’an, half he disobeys,” “Pashto is the fifth religion,” (the other four religions implied in this proverb are Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism), “A Pashtun says ‘May I lose my faith but may I never lose my Pakhto!’,” “A Pashtun (is) turned back from the door of God,” “May I miss the mark of faith, but don’t let me miss a shot,” “Whatever is (done) in Khost is not in the (Holy) Book” (Khost is a Pashtun city in the Paktia province of Afghanistan). 36 Pakistani nationalist narrative (the other features are Urdu language and Urdu-speaking urban culture, and the teleological construction of official history). According to this narrative, regional histories, languages, norms and traditions that do not trace themselves back to the early Islamic Arabia are deemed as the undesirable “Hindu influence” that need to be cleansed. In this sense, for the state, identities that are rooted in ethnic nationalities, regional languages and cultures are anti-Muslim identity and by implication anti-Pakistan. Secondly, Pakistani state has officially patronized jihadi culture for strategic purposes51 based on the Wahabi 52sect of Islam that is a militant, extremist and puritan version of Islam that considers any non-Islamic tradition as a corruption and pollution that need to be eradicated. In this way, this imported Wahabi puritan sect seeks Islam in its “purity” that is not mediated by the regional cultural and social norms. The Wahabi inspired Taliban, with the collusion of the Pakistani state, have emerged as the sovereign nodes both in the Tribal Areas and Swat; like their Middle Eastern ideologues, the Taliban have deemed Pashtunwali and Pashtun cultural institutions such as Jirga as practices against Islam. In this way, Pashtun culture (as well as all other regional cultures in Pakistan) is besieged by the imposition of Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the state sanctioned Wahabi propagation—both of which are causing a disjuncture between Pashtun and the now redefined Muslim identity. The Secular vs. the Religious authority: The Millenarian Movements (1877-1917) and The Rise of Religious (holy-lineage) Leadership in the Tribal Areas and Swat As discussed earlier, the religious groups in the traditional Pashtun society operate in a separate sphere. They provide blessing, mediate between tribes, and remind Pashtun of their Islamic duties but they are neither political pretenders nor are they allowed to have a say in the political matters that is entirely the prerogative of the Pashtun core-lineage groups. But this division of distinct and separate spheres between holy-lineage religious authority and corelineage secular/political authority was first disrupted during the British colonial contact with the Pashtun of Tribal Areas and Swat. Failing to establish direct control over the present day 51 Pakistani nationalist elites consider India and to a lesser extent Afghanistan an existentialist threat that can be effectively neutralized through Pakistan sponsored militancy. To recruit militants, Pakistan promotes Wahabi militant and puritan ideology imported from Saudi Arabia. 52 Wahabism is a puritanical Islamic sect that originated in modern day Saudi Arabia. Wahabism is literal in its interpretation of scriptures and seeks to reconstruct the early Islamic Arabia in its entirety and purity. 37 Pashtun of the north-west Pakistan, the British colonials from 1877 to 1917 intensified their efforts to subdue them. But British military advances in the “hitherto untouched and sequestered areas… were seen as a direct physical threat to moral and religious values” (Ahmed 1976:107). In conformity with the principle of agnatic solidarity in times of external threat, the Pashtun of north-west Pakistan that include the Tribal Areas and Swat provided a united front against the colonial threat. However, to successfully resist the formidable colonial army, Pashtun sought the help of the religious group 53 who Pashtun believe to be in direct relation with deity (Lindholm 1982:35, 39). Therefore, the core-lineage groups that possessed the political authority, for instrumental reasons, allowed this shift, although temporarily, of political power and leadership to the religious group. This resulted in the millenarian movements led by religious figures that maintained their momentum from 1877 to 1917. This was a radical transformation; instead of maintaining their traditional role of mediation and preaching, now “they became leaders who spoke for the community (Ahmed 1976:90-91). The millenarian leaders were believed to possess baraka, divine help and guidance (Ahmed 1976:108; Churchill 1972:29; Lindholm 1982:39). Stories circulated about their spiritual prowess and supernatural powers and it seemed inevitable that under their leadership, the Pashtun would defeat the colonial ‘infidels’ and return to “a happier order in the past” (Ahmed 1976:105-106; Cohn 1970:14). As noted by Ahmed (1976:112), these religious figures were men of charisma in the Weberian sense as Weber defines charisma as: a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader” (1947:358-359). The rise of religious political authority in the Pashtun Belt took two different trajectories in the Tribal Areas and Swat. Whereas in the Tribal Areas, the religious leadership was short53 It was not just the holy-lineage group members who emerged as religious leaders during the millenarian movements. Mulla, who belong to the client group (and therefore did not have holy-lineage), also occupied leadership roles. This elevation of a mulla from a client to a leader in times of crisis confirms Barth’s (1959:7) observation that a mulla may establish himself as a saint (holy-lineage member) in times of crisis by distinguishing himself as a man of baraka. He and even his progeny in such a case would be treated as members of saintly class. However, such a person usually takes the title of Faqir, a religious person with no material ambitions (Ahmed 1976:54).This also demonstrates that “caste hierarchy” in a Pashtun society is not fixed but is fluid and flexible. 38 lived and temporary as the core-lineage quickly restored their traditional political dominance upon the failure of the charisma to materialize, the religious leaders in Swat, however, did manage to institutionalize charisma. These two different trajectories can be partly explained by the relation of the two respective Pashtun societies with the colonial powers. The Tribal Areas straddling the Durand Line had no effective colonial control; the British colonial sovereignty functioned through spectacle, it was spectacular and temporary with no direct or permanent display of sovereign power. Excluded from the colonial laws that were in operation in the rest of the subcontinent, the Tribal Areas largely remained autonomous due to their marginality. Not directly linked to the colonial market economy, the Pashtun of these areas could continue with their traditional egalitarian and acephalous social organization that was independent of the colonial social hierarchies. This is not to say that the religious nodes of authority did not attempt to perpetuate their unprecedented and newly gained political power. Syed Ahmed Barelvi, a religious figure, with substantial following in the Tribal Areas did unsuccessfully attempt to establish a puritanical Islamic order with a centralized authority; he and his followers were resisted and ultimately ousted from the region by the Pashtun at the end of the millenarian movements as Ahmed (1976:53) states, Barelvi “was soon deserted by his tribal followers and killed within a year, is a stereotype of Pathan tribal reaction to continuing assumption of political power by ‘Saint.’” Similarly, Jalal quotes a Pashtun elder of the Tribal Areas who rebuffed the request for support by Barelvi’s emissary in these words: “We are Pakhtuns, and these Ulema [religious figures/leaders] are dependent on our beneficence and have no say in matters to do with the running of the government” (Jalal 2008:102). Swat, on the other hand, was a different story. The most prominent and influential man of charisma in Swat during the millenarian movement was the Akhund of Swat. He not only succeeded in institutionalizing charisma but it was his legacy that in early 1920s Swat in an unprecedented way emerged as one of the first Pashtun societies in the pre-Partition subcontinent that developed a centralized political system under the Wali (the title of the ruler of the Swat state).54 Like the Pashtun society of the Tribal Areas, the political system of Swat took shape in relation to the British colonial government in the subcontinent. Unlike the Tribal 54 The establishment of the princely state of Swat under the Wali was formally recognized by the British colonial government in 1926. 39 Areas where the emergence of a centralized authority “would have been a socio-political impossibility” (Ahmed 1976:81), Swat’s socio-economic and political situation had pre-disposed it to the departure from the traditional acephalous Pashtun society. There are several reasons that were influential in the ascendancy of the religious group in Swat that hitherto had not been a pretender to political authority (Barth 1959:99). The Tribal Areas were too peripheral to and distant from the colonial centers to be effectively incorporated; but Swat had developed connection with the urban centers of the Settled Areas and was under the influence of market economy and non-egalitarian set-up which gradually drifted it away from its traditional egalitarian political system. As a result Swat was fast becoming a feudal society with a wellestablished class hierarchy. 55 It was the dispossessed and impoverished Pashtun who were oppressed by the feudal khan (a far cry from the traditional institution of malak) that extended support to the Akhund with the hope of elevating their economic oppression with the rise of religious authority. Moreover, unlike the Tribal Areas, Swat was nested within the British colonial sovereignty that rewarded cooperation with the colonial laws and discouraged adherence to Pashtunwali. Aware of the powerful British colonial presence, the Akhund was willing to not challenge colonial authority as long as the colonial government did not interfere with his authority in Swat: a situation that was of mutual benefit to both the parties. Another reason for the rise of religious political head in Swat was the traditional role of religious class as the mediator between core-lineage group members; due to agnatic rivalry, the feudal heads from the core-lineage group could not accept a ruler from within their group members as it would have violated the principle of co-equality between the members; it had to be a non corelineage group member and the Akhund had already demonstrated his leadership qualities and therefore political leadership of Swat fell to him. 56 Finally, and most importantly, unlike Sayed 55 The egalitarian Tribal society and the feudal Swat is also reflected in the language use in these areas; Pashtun of Swat like other Pashtun of Settled Areas distinguish between two forms of “you” i.e., tasu (‫ )ﺗﺎﺳو‬to indicate respect, and te (‫ )ﺗﮫ‬as a general form. In Tribal Areas, there is no such distinction; te is used as the only form (Ahmed 1976:77). However, with the migration to the settled Areas, the usage tasu is becoming more common among the Pashtun of the Tribal Areas. Many of my research participants have narrated incidents in which their usage of te in conversation with the Pashtun of the settled Areas have been received as offensive and disrespectful. 56 The Akhund was given the authority by the united confederation of tribes to nominate the King of Swat. The Akhund selected Sayyed Akber Shah, a man from the saintly group and a staunch follower of Sayed Ahmed Baralvi, the same person who was ousted and defeated by the Pashtun of the Tribal Areas (Ahmed 1976:96). 40 Ahmed Barelvi in the Tribal Areas, the Akhund never interfered with the local Pashtun customs and the Pashtunwali and therefore succeeded in consolidating his power (Lindholm 1982:38). As Ahmed (1976:112) states, the Akhund translated and reordered “the symbols of power and authority in society into cultural idioms understood by his followers.” With the creation of Pakistan, both the Tribal Areas and Swat again underwent significant changes. Swat was directly incorporated into the state and the state institutions were fully functional in the Swat as in 1969, the Government of Pakistan merged Swat within its administrative structure, the Wali was removed from his office, and was replaced by a Deputy Commissioner appointed by the federal government (Ahmed 1976:128). The Tribal Areas too had now a contact in a different way with the successors of the colonial government. While to this day under the colonial laws known as Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) 57 and generally neglected, the Tribal Pashtun could now freely travel to the settled areas as Ahmed writes The Independence of Pakistan in 1947 changed little in the Tribal Areas. But for once in their history there was no military barrier between the Agency 58 and District Border. The message was clear. It was their country. Pakistan did not go to the tribes but the tribes began to come to Pakistan: in government service, the army, in business, in the professions…. Abruptly, and in a totally unexpected manner, the ideal-type model faced its most formidable threat in recorded history…. At a stroke the Pukhtun world was reordered. Now groups drift to town or migrate abroad looking for work rather than remaining in the villages” (1980:99-100). Postcolonial Contact, Urban/Global Migration, and Cultural Disruption The Pashtun Belt prior to the colonial and postcolonial contact was not an isolated and disconnected space where culture remained static. Rather, the unencapsulated circulation of Pashtun kept them connected with distant cultures and political economies. Over the centuries, Pashtun had established political and economic connections in particular with Central Asia, Persia, and Middle East (Easwaran 1984:58; Hanifi 2008:167; Nichols 2008:2; Watkins 2003:77). Moreover, these transnational networks have provided platforms for exchange of ideas that 57 FCR is a set of special laws for the Tribal Areas of Pakistan that are inherited from the British colonial government. FCR suspends the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Pakistan. FCR stipulates that the parliament and courts have no influence over the affairs of the Tribal Areas that directly function under the presidential ordinances. In short, FCR ensures that the Tribal Areas are an exception to the laws of the state and the constitutional rights. 58 Administrative districts in the Tribal Areas are termed as Agencies in the Pakistani bureaucracy. 41 have informed Pashtun society, their culture, language practices, and literature (Green and Arbabzadah 2013:xvi). With postcolonial contact, for the Pakistani Pashtun the socio-economic linkages with the mainstream Pakistan came with a cost: they subjected them to the social and economic pressures that allowed circulation within Pakistan only through assimilation and subordination. Now largely incorporated within the Pakistani state, the Pashtun of Pakistan are grappling with the emerging political, social, and cultural implications of the postcolonial contact. Since then Pashtun are under pressure to accommodate the various novel interests that contradict Pashtunwali while trying to seek continuity with their socio-cultural heritage (Addleton 1992; Ahmed 1981; Lefebvre 1999; Nichols 2008:148). One of the most disruptive elements in the postcolonial contact was the Pakistani Pashtun migration to the urban centers in Pakistan. Employment opportunities in the growing urban centers of Pakistan offered alternative sources of income from their traditional pastoral and agrarian village economies. Within the twenty years of the creation of Pakistan, more than 1.5 million Pashtun had already migrated to urban centers in Pakistan working for employment opportunities in government service, as well as in construction and transport sectors (Nichols 2008:16). This internal urban migration received further impetus with the massive Pakistani and especially Pashtun migration, 59 encouraged by the Pakistani state, to the Gulf countries with the Middle East labor boom from 1975-1985 to not only bolster the economy but to strengthen cultural ties with the Middle East in line with the ideology of Pakistan that seeks cultural and historical links with the Muslim Middle East. Mostly working as labor migrants, this “large scale labor migration to the Middle East became the single most important economic event in Pakistan during the 1970s and 1980s” (Addleton 1992:4). By the end of the 1980s, the total number of Pashtun migrants to the Gulf countries had reached to 1.2 million (Addleton 1992:93; Bartlotti 2000:55; Nichols 2008:231). By the late 1980s, in the wake of internal and external migration, the Pashtun living in their ancestral rural homelands no more relied solely on their pastoral-agrarian economy. With 59 The majority of these migrants to the Middle East were Pashtun and Punjabi. Sindhi and Baloch did not benefit from the Gulf labor boom. Interestingly, it was the Pashtun and Punjabi populated areas that saw a greater trend towards urban migration within Pakistan that immediately followed the international labor migration. Moreover, unlike Sindh and Balochistan, the voices of resistance to the state power gradually quieted down among Pashtun and Punjabi as they became integrated into the global economy (Akhtar 2008:167). 42 increasing reliance on the remittances from their migrant kin, the rural economy was now subjected to and “fully integrated into the ebb and flow of global forces” (Addleton 1992:17; Nichols 2008:16). Furthermore, the new income levels through market economy introduced new consumption patterns; local spatial arrangements such as communal hujra (Pashtun men’s quarters) gradually changed into individual household-owned guest houses, locally termed as baitak (‫)ﺑﯾټﮏ‬. With the shift from hujra to baitak, the traditional social and communal bonds gradually weakened (Lindholm 1982:229). Moreover, the newly acquired but uneven wealth also transformed the egalitarian social set-up into a society where “social rank is increasingly determined by inherited wealth” (Tapper 1991:288). The novelty of this new economic setup in the Pashtun society can be gauged from the fact that in Pashto language “class as a concept is not explicitly recognized except by newly educated urban youth. There is no term equivalent to ‘class’ in common speech” (Tapper 1991:30). In other words, market has started to dictate social interaction that is not mediated by traditional cultural institutions. This is drastically different from the traditional rural economies of Pashtun societies in the Pashtun Belt; the barter based equal exchange is replaced with money based market that was previously looked down upon as the da spee kaar (‫( )داﺳﭘﯽ ﮐﺎر‬the act of dog) (Lindholm 1982:123-124). Migrants returning with their savings were more inclined to settle in the Urban areas to avail the amenities of life that were needed with the integration in the market economy, resulting in new consumption patterns which further weakened the kinship solidarity and ties (Akhtar 2008:78; Nichols 2008:149; Zaman 2002:126). Moreover, the geographical distance from the ancestral homes diminished the social bonds between the urban migrants and the rural population. Disconnected from their rural homes, the newly Pashtun urban migrants were now subordinated to the well-established social, economic, and ethno-national hierarchies prevalent in the urban areas and the Gulf countries. This integration through subordination was accompanied with the sense of the loss of autonomy and regional culture. They were now becoming clients of the state and its institutions, a realization that would have been repugnant in the traditional egalitarian Pashtun society that values individual autonomy and independence (Nichols 2008:16). 43 The traditional Pashtun institutions based on Pashtunwali could not be practiced in the urban centers. Subjected to the state bureaucracy and state legal structure, the revered institution of Jirga was undermined. The orally based cultural institutions were further undermined by the written and formal bureaucratic codes as Tapper (1991:153) in her ethnography on Durrani Pashtun recalls a Pashtun elder lamenting that people no more value and respect verbal contracts; they now require written contracts in front of witnesses as he puts it: “people have now become clever and calculating.” 60 The migration to the Gulf also had significant impact on the religious and moral framework of the ancestral Pashtun societies. Returning migrants, as envisioned by the Pakistani state and in line with the official Pakistani nationalist ideology, came back with a heightened awareness of their Muslim identity (Akhtar 2008:158; Lall 2010:99; Watkins 2003:77). 61 Moreover, the Gulf states especially Saudi Arabia provided generous funding for individuals and groups to propagate Arab cultural norms through the Wahabi madaris (singular. madrasa), religious seminaries. These madaris have been proliferating since the 90s preaching puritanical Islam and jihadist ideology that is antithetical to the local Pashtun norms of justice and Pashtunwali. Despite the resistance to it among sections of Pashtun society, the “Arabization” is making inroads into the Pashtun (as well as other indigenous) areas. Even traditional attire and general behavior in the Pashtun society is undergoing gradual transformations under the influence of Saudi funded madaris as noted by Nichols: In addition to income, new cultural, intellectual, and spiritual influences circulated… Saudi forms of devotional and social practices were carried back to NWFP 62 district villages with varying consequences. A returned worker might occasionally be observed conversing in Arabic with another returned laborer (2008:17). 60 See Mazama (1998: 3-16), Narasimhan (2004:30, 45) and Tarrar (2010:159) for the discussion of the colonial binary distinction between Western ‘literate” societies and non-Western ‘oral’ societies in which literacy meant progress and civilization, and orality or (pre-literacy’) meant ‘pre-logical’ and ‘primitive mentality.’ 61 See Zaman (2002:124-127) for the discussion of how the returning migrants from the Gulf states actively sought urban religious identity that would strengthen their claim to membership in the middle class. This also led to the growing sectarian divide and violence in the urban Pakistan. 62 NWFP (North West Frontier Province) is the older name of the now renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan numerically dominated by Pashtun. 44 All these factors have given rise to conflicting interests that need to be accommodated and balanced. The now urban dwellers away from their ancestral lands, Pashtun have developed an ambivalent relation with the city; it is a place of opportunity but also a “place of alienation and anomie” where people lose their qawm identity and kinship networks. The result is the reinvention and reinterpretation of what it means to be a Pashtun and how to practice Pashtunwali in the contemporary Pashtun societies. However, as will be discussed in the following chapters, despite these disruptions, Pashtun of Pakistan are creatively seeking ways to find continuity in the face of unprecedented changes. The preceding discussion foregrounds the historical embeddedness of Pakistani state formation. By historicizing Pakistan, I emphasize the specific context in which the normative state making practices took shape and how these practices are vernacularized in day to day life. The official narrative of the state is a product of its unique history which is heavily informed by colonial legacy and the disruptions that colonialism initiated. Some of the categories that took shape during the colonial contact continue to have its impact on contemporary Pakistan such as rural-urban divide, secular versus religious authority, local versus official/national languages/cultures, unencapsulated circulation versus assimilation through subordination, and the traditional pastoral-agrarian economy versus market economy. All these are sites of both state regulation and control as well as sites of creative engagement and means of finding continuity with the past. In short, the Pakistani narrative that valorizes Muslim identity, Urdu language, urban culture and official temporality is historically and culturally embedded. In similar fashion, the engagement with the state’s demonization of regional cultures, languages, and temporalities are also articulated through historically sedimented discourses and institutions. In this way, the Pakistani Pashtun faced with cultural disruption and contradictory pulls make sense of their lived experiences and engage the state narrative through their historically informed positionality. De-Naturalizing the State: State-Formation, Sovereignty, and the Included Outside/Other of the State and National Community The state has been conventionally understood as a coherent, unified, and supreme entity that has the sole monopoly over the means of coercion and the legitimate authority to 45 govern within in its territorial borders (Abrams 2006:113; Corrigan and Sayer 1985:4; Mitchell 2006:169-171). This understanding of the state has its roots in the Europe that emerged after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. 63 Despite its historical and specific context, this concept of the state has become the dominant notion that implicitly functions as the universal yardstick against which the state formation and governance, especially in the postcolonial world, is measured. If studied closely, this commonsensical and reified notion of the state makes the following assumptions: the state is an ahistorical and universal phenomenon with a common set of attributes; “it” 64 is distinct and above the society which it governs; the state is the metaauthority or the locus of sovereignty with the power to legitimize or delegitimize other authorities within its territorial boundaries. In the following lines, I discuss how these assumptions have been critiqued and unsettled in the contemporary anthropological studies of the state and what this unsettling of the normative understanding of the state implies for the study of state-making and sovereignty with postcolonial state of Pakistan in perspective. 65 Political anthropology has a long tradition of theorizing political authority both as in acephalous polities as well as in societies embedded in kingship, tribe, and rituals producing centralized institutions of authority.66 Despite its valuable insights, early political anthropology “failed to provide an adequate matrix for understanding the political imagination of a world 63 The dominant understanding of the state system in the contemporary world had its origins in the seventeenth century Western Europe. Concluded in 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia granted the European rulers supreme authority in their territorial spheres. Moreover, these rulers mutually agreed to not interfere in each other’s respective political and territorial domains as all states were recognized as equals. In other words, the agreement of Westphalia recognized these states as self-governing, independent, and territorially defined political communities ruled by independent sovereigns whose territorial integrity was subject to non-interference by other (European) sovereign states. However, Westphalian agreement did not extend to the non-European territories. In fact, it has been noted that the Treaty of Westphalia paved the way for the colonization as colonies did not match with the European concept of political authority and community (Dean 2001:49; Hindness 2005:244; Mbembe 2003:23-24). 64 The use of deictic marker “it” for the state suggests a coherent and homogenous entity. As Brown (1992:12; also see Gupta and Sharma 2006:11) notes, “despite the almost unavoidable tendency to speak of the state as an “it,” the domain we call the state is not a thing, system, or subject but a significantly unbounded terrain of powers and techniques, an ensemble of discourses, rules, and practices, cohabiting in limited, tension ridden, often contradictory relation with one another.” 65 In this discussion, I focus on the internal constitution of the state and sovereignty. For the discussion of the reconfiguration of the state and state sovereignty in the global context with the emergence of supra- and transnational bodies see, for instance, Appadurai (2003); Chalfin (2010); Ong (2006); and Sassen (1996). 66 See for instance, 19th century evolutionists such as Morgan (1871); Tylor (1871), and 20th century anthropologists Barth (1959); Evans-Pritchard (1940); Fried (1960); Hocart (1936); Sahlins (1972); Service (1975); and White (1960) who theorized the tribe and the state. 46 after colonialism” (Hansen and Stepputat 2006:297; also see Geertz 2004:580). Since the 1990s, the anthropology of the political and the state is reinventing itself with a renewed focus on the quotidian and everyday forms of state-making. Gramsci (1971) and Althusser (1971) have been especially influential in this recent shift toward the anthropological and cultural study of the state whereas Foucault (1979, 1978, 1975) has animated the scholarly debate on sovereignty and the body as the site of sovereign manifestation. Gramsci (1971:253; Boggs 1985:156; Williams 1977:108-114) brought culture into the center of the study of state formation through his concept of “ideological hegemony”: a term broadly referring to the cultural domination and ideological manipulation through consent. The concept of hegemony had three major implications for denaturalizing the state that is relevant to our discussion: (1) the state is not a fixed entity but a fragile, contested and unfinished process that recreates itself continually; 67 and (2) the state-formation unfolds in the realm of the culture, i.e., in the mundane and the everyday occurrences and therefore the state is not above and distinct from the society that it governs. In other words, culture is not produced by the state but it in itself is the product of cultural processes and contestation in which a particular culture is naturalized and universalized; 68 (3) the state constructs itself primarily through consent (though ultimately state power rests on coercion) and therefore has a strong ideological and representational component. Similarly, Althusser (1971) foregrounds the constructed nature of the state that perpetually recreates itself mainly through what he terms as “Ideological State Appartuses” or ISAs such as church, family, and especially the educational institutions (Althusser 1971:141144). Althusser (1971:162) defines ideology as “a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.” In other words, ideology provides a framework through which people experience and interpret their relationship to the actual conditions of existence. For Althusser (1971:132, 142), ideology is closely connected to the 67 Hegemony is never complete or total and therefore the state that relies on it for control and regulation can also be never total but an ongoing unfinished process as Williams (1977:113) states, “The reality of any hegemony, in the extended political and cultural sense, is that, while by definition it is always dominant, it is never either total or exclusive.” 68 Classical Marxists and Weberians, for instance, saw culture as epiphenomenal (as something produced by the state) to the state formation. 47 power of the state. Ideology exists in state apparatuses and serves to control and regulate society through the ideological production and reproduction of the “submission to the rules of the established order.” The main function of ideology is the production of subjects. Individuals become subjects the moment they respond to the ideological “interpellation” and recognize it as obvious and commonsensical. 69 Moreover, Althusser also foregrounds culture in the statemaking process by asserting that ideology manifests itself by “actions inserted into practices” which are “governed by the rituals” (1971:168). In other words, ideology and its interpllation, the recruitment of subjects in the service of the ruling ideology, unfolds in the mundane and the everyday life (for a good discussion of the state’s ideological interpellation see Allison 1991, and Leap 2009). Building on the insight provided by Gramsci and Althusser, anthropologists have called for studying the state both ethnographically and “from below” (Trouillot 2003:95). In their detailed discussion of the ethnographic framework for studying the state, Hansen and Stepputat (2001:14) argue that we can conduct an anthropological study of the state by investigating the “language of stateness:” an ensemble of registers of governance and authority through which the state constructs and continually reproduces itself. They identify three registers of state authority or language of stateness: (1) discursive presence of the state through legal institutions and discourses; (2) material presence of the state through rituals such as buildings, monuments etc.; and finally (3) investing landscapes and cultural practices with a constructed and shared history and sense of community. Hansen and Stepputat (2001:8) further argue that it is broadly through these symbolic languages of stateness that the state reproduces “the imagination of the state.” Those segments of the population who lie outside 69 Althusser’s concept of ideology, though influential, has been criticized for being overly deterministic as he equips a subject with only two responses to the ideological interpellation: “yes” (accepting) and “no”(rejecting). However, in fairness to Althusser, it should be noted that Althusser in no way suggests that the ideological domination is complete; for him ideological interpellation and the production of subjects are not static but continuous processes. Moreover, though mainly concerned with the production of subjects, Althusser (1971:173) does not give a closed system as his following observation makes clear: “But to recognize that we are subjects... this recognition only gives us the ‘consciousness’ of our incessant (eternal) practice of ideological recognition… but in no sense does it give us the (scientific) knowledge of the mechanism of this recognition. It is this knowledge we will have to reach… in order to dare to be the beginning of a scientific… discourse on ideology” (also see Pecheux (1982:169) and Munoz (1999:163) both of whom, building on Althusser, provide a third mode of response i.e., “disidentification” in which a subject neither accepts nor rejects but negotiates with the ideological interpellation). 48 the “proper” languages of stateness and do not conform to the prescribed practices are subjected to state control and regulation. Somewhat similar to Hansen and Stepputat, Gupta and Sharma (2006:5) argue for studying the state as “cultural artifacts.” 70 Far from being “devoid of culture”, the state is heavily formed and informed by culture (Gupta and Sharma 2006:7). They argue that the state is a multilayered and even contradictory entity that largely constructs itself both materially as in everyday practices and rituals and ideologically as in representational realm such as in electronic and print media. They further argue that since the state is constituted culturally, and cultures differ therefore state-formation cannot be a universal despite their apparent structural similarities (Gupta and Sharma 2006:10). Or in the words of Hansen and Stepputat (2001:8) state-making may draw on the globally circulating languages of stateness but as the states are historically and culturally embedded therefore state-formation, especially in the postcolonial world, are informed by “indigenous languages of stateness” as well. Gupta and Sharma (2006:5) further argue that in the state with a diverse population with multiple cultural practices and historical residues, the state is experienced and imagined unevenly i.e., the state is instantiated differently for the subject-population that is socially and culturally positioned in different ways. Like the state, sovereignty has also been theorized in a number of ways. From Hobbes’s overlord who is granted sovereign power by subjects in exchange of stability and protection, to Boddin’s transcendent and “sovereign prince,” to popular sovereignty based on the will of the (elusive category called) “people,” and finally to the national sovereignty in which “people” became a homogenized, bounded, and distinct group recognized as a “national community” with shared history, culture, and language (Anderson 1983). In all of these, sovereignty is located in the state and is characterized by indivisibility, self-reference, and transcendence. Foucault, as mentioned earlier, has been influential in animating the debate over sovereignty. Unlike Gramsci and Althusser who theorize power as hierarchical, Foucault (1980:98) sees power as circulatory which cannot be possessed and therefore cannot be reduced to any particular sovereign source. In other words, Foucault (1980:121) as in his 70 Gupta and Sharma (2006) do not clearly state what they mean by “cultural artifact” or even “culture:” however, one can deduce that they emphasize the everyday life, rituals, and modes of representations as parts of culture as opposed to the formal institutional practices closely associated with the state. 49 statement “we need to cut off the king’s head” abandons the concept of sovereign power altogether. He argues that sovereignty, which is an arcane/pre-modern form of power that operates through “spectacle” and manifests itself through inflicting violence on the body, is superseded by modern disciplinary and biopolitical technologies of power. 71 This leads him to assert that modern state is a post-sovereign state that is not the power source of the regulatory techniques but their product. Drawing on Schmitt (1985) and Bataille (1991), Agamben (1998) contests Foucault’s argument that the state and the sovereign power no longer occupy an important position in the modern disciplinary age. Schmitt (1985:13) introduces the concept “exception” (Ausnahme) as the key element of sovereignty. Defining exception as a legal void in which sovereign power exist above the law, Schmitt argues that sovereignty does not reside in the law but manifests itself in this transcendence by deciding on when to intervene to suspend or to restore the law. In other words, sovereignty is not monopoly over coercion, but monopoly over decision as he states “sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (1985:5). Bataille on the other hand anticipating Foucault argues that sovereignty is fundamentally embedded in the body that “reproduces obedience qua its very gesture of disregard of danger and death” (1991:225; Hansen and Stepputat 2005:13). Building on Schmitt and Bataille, Agamben (1998:6) argues that far from being living in a post-sovereign world, sovereign violence on the body is fundamental to the modern biopolitical forms of governance. This sovereign violence manifests its self on the “bare life:” a category of undesirables who are excluded from political community and divested from their rights and therefore living in a zone of exception; for instance, enslaved people, colonial subject-population, inmates of concentration camp, or in the modern times the disenfranchised, people without states, and similar forms of life that are governed as life outside the ‘normal’ citizenship/community (Hansen and Stepputat 2005:18). Agamben (1998:9) further argues that it is the “state of exception,” 72 the sphere from where the 71 Biopolitical technologies are modern techniques of governing that encompass both the individuals as well as population and turns human beings into commodities by disciplining and optimizing their capabilities and focusing on their general well-being (Ong 2006:13). 72 For instance, in the colonial occupation colony is the place where the juridical order applicable in the metropolitan is suspended. Or as Mbembe (2003:24) states colony is “the zone where the violence of the state of exception is deemed to operate in the service of “civilization.”” 50 sovereign decides on exclusion, that is constitutive part of political community. In simple terms, it is the marking and exclusion of bare life (or its subjection to “necropower” that will be discussed below) against which political community subject to benevolent power (or biopower) is formed; in this way, bare life is the outside against which the inner community is defined; it is this “inclusive exclusion” (that is being crucial and central to the formation of political community yet excluded from it) that has become the norm in the contemporary world (Agamben 1998:7). In other words, sovereign power utilizes exception to create a political community by excluding those to whom it denies protection. In short, exception is the element of sovereign rule that decides on the bifurcation of humanity into those who are in a juridical order and those reduced to “bare life.” Expanding on Agamben’s notion of the normative basis of the sovereign violence in the cotemporary world, Mbembe (2003:12, 16, 18) argues that sovereignty in the late-modern world as the “right to kill, to allow to live, or to expose to death” hinges not only on the “state of exception” but also on “the state of siege:” the construction of a “fictionalized notion of the enemy” or the perception of the existence of the enemy/the Other (for instance, the national identity imagined against an identity as the Other) as a threat to one’s existence; identification and elimination of the Other removes the threat and by implication strengthens the continued existence of power.73 In this way, “terror thus becomes a way of marking aberration in the body politic” (Mbembe 2003:19). This violence against the marked whose existence is “an attempt on my life” especially unfolds in the spatial relations such as the establishment of geographical boundaries and zones of enclaves on which then classification of people is mapped upon (for instance, the colonial rural-urban divide) or as Mbembe (2003:26) states, “Space was… the raw material of sovereignty and the violence it carried with it.” It is in this reconfiguration of space that sovereign decides on the exception: that is “who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not” (2003:27). Mbembe (2003:12) further argues that Foucault’s 73 The state of siege, according to Mbembe (2003:18, 36), operates under the “logic of survival”: “the perception of existence of the Other as an attempt on my life, as a mortal threat or absolute danger whose biophysical elimination would strengthen my potential to life and security” and at another place Mbembe writes” “… in the logic of survival one’s horror at the sight of death turns into satisfaction that it is someone else who is dead. It is the death of the other, his or her physical presence as a corpse, that makes the survivor feel unique. And each enemy killed makes the survivor feel more secure.” 51 biopower 74 only explains the manifestation of power that finds value in life. It does not explain how power in the contemporary world operates through exception and state of siege in which the sovereign power deems certain population as unworthy to live and therefore disposable. Mbembe (2003:18, 22, 27) asserts that in late-modernity sovereign violence is made possible through a specific terror formation he calls “necropower”: that is the combination of the biopower, the state of exception, and the state of siege in which there is a bifurcation between the life-world (includes those who are biopolitically evaluated as productive) and the deathworld (includes those who are evaluated as suspects and therefore their value lies in their elimination and death made possible through the state of exception) (Edelman 2012:116). All of these together make possible the “contemporary forms of subjugation of life to the power of death” which he terms as “necropolitics” (Mbembe 2003:39). Hansen and Stepputat (2006:295; 2005:2-3) with their focus on the sovereign practices in the postcolonial states provide the following guidelines for revisiting the anthropological study of sovereignty. Firstly, they call for an historical approach that goes beyond the universalist understanding of sovereignty and state formation. They particularly emphasize the historicizing of the postcolonial sovereignties that are heavily influenced by the legacies of the colonial sovereignty. Secondly, they argue that sovereignty needs to be disentangled from the state; sovereignty is not a given and natural attribute of the state nor is the state “the privileged locus of sovereignty” (2006:309); like the state, sovereignty is a construct or an effect that manifests itself in the mundane and ritualized performances (and therefore can be studied ethnographically) grounded in violence not necessarily tied to the state. For this reason, they assert that the study of sovereignty should not be confined to the legal and formal sovereignties but it should take into account the actual practices of sovereignty whether formal/legal as in the legitimate right to govern or informal/de facto sovereignties that are not grounded in legality yet have the “ability to kill, punish, and discipline with impunity” (2006:295). Finally, they argue that sovereignty is an “unattainable ideal;” it is unfinished, 74 Biopower is a technology of power that manages, protects, and cultivates life in the service of power (Mbembe 2003:17). In other words, biopower is a technology of power by which sovereign power through discipline and regulation attempts to utilize the physical as well as intellectual capabilities of bodies. 52 unsettled, tentative, always emergent, and unstable project that both the formal and informal sovereign nodes aspire to achieve. Elaborating on the points they highlight, Hansen and Stepputat (2006:304) draw our attention to the colonial sovereignty that in its practice functioned through the Agambean “state of exception” as the indirectly ruled subject-population in the colonies were divested of the rights and membership in the political community accorded to the citizens of the metropoles. Furthermore, the indirect colonial sovereignty coexisted with different forms of sovereign powers within the colonies; these coexisting sovereign nodes acted as law unto themselves in their zones of influence and exercised the sovereign practices of visiting violence on the body with impunity as well as competed for ethno-religious loyalties; in other words, colonial sovereignty by its very nature was fragmented, dispersed, limited, and uneven in its efficacy although excessive and spectacular in practice (Hansen and Stepputat 2006:296; 2005:26). For instance, in the subcontinent one-third of the colonial territory and population existed under the native rulers such as rajas, chiefs, as well as under strongmen, insurgent groups, vigilantes and the likes who were either nested in the colonial sovereignty or existed as oppositional nodes but nonetheless functioned as “de facto sovereigns” (Hansen and Stepputat 2006:304). For these reasons, Hansen and Stepputat argue that postcolonial sovereignty needs to be studied in its historical context to effectively challenge the commonsensical but erroneous understanding of sovereignty as only formal and legal in which the state is its locus. In actual practice, the postcolonial sovereignty, profoundly structured by the colonial sovereignty that preceded it, is multiple and layered in which the informal de facto sovereign nodes have far more influence on segments of population than the legally grounded formal sovereignty even if not formally acknowledged by the state. Moreover, these sovereign nodes may exist in different forms of relationship (from assistance to resistance) with the state sovereignty ranging from the state’s tacit consent or total opposition; these nodes may have a relation of “tranquil conviviality” in which the state might find the informal sovereigns as advantageous allowing them to function in a zone of exception with impunity and therefore outsourcing the “control [of] territories or populations where the state does not have the capacity or will to exercise its sovereignty” (Hansen and Stepputat 2006:305, 308). 53 In the light of the preceding discussion, the postcolonial state of Pakistan also shares the attributes found in the states all over the globe, such as regulation and control of a given population and territory through the quotidian and everyday forms of state-making that aim to naturalize the state, which in essence is a social and cultural construct perpetually reproduced through languages of stateness. Despite the common attributes, all states are not alike as they are informed by their specific historical and cultural contexts and are therefore polyvalent in nature. Situating Pakistan in its historical and cultural contexts, we can better understand Pakistan’s state making practices that have exclusion and denial of differences at its heart. Being a postcolonial state, Pakistan is heavily influenced by the British colonial state and its sovereign practices. One of the important elements of the British colonial sovereignty in the subcontinent was the bifurcation of the colonial population along the rural-urban divide (Mamdani 1996:8; Thomas 2002:369). The urban areas were the “settled areas:” a colonial term (still in use in Pakistan) for the territories under the direct British colonial rule in the subcontinent. The people of the “settled areas” were differentiated from the rural population that formed the vast majority of the subject population. Unlike the rural population, the urban subject populations were treated as quasi-citizens with limited rights and were subject to biopolitical intervention for ‘improvement’ and for the formation of “embryonic civil society and a public sphere… capable of responsible public conduct” (Hansen and Stepputat 2005:2326). The rural population, on the other hand, was differentiated through their spatial distance, language differences, and general cultural embodiments such as dress and bodily comportment as too backward and primitive to be included in the urban ‘civil society’ and was often subjected to excessive sovereign force. In other words, the rural territory as a zone of exclusion within the colonial zone of exclusion (therefore doubly excluded) was biopolitically unworthy and therefore necropolitically disposable. This colonial urban-rural bifurcation has endured in the postcolonial state of Pakistan. The national elites of Pakistan, who came from the urban population that were ‘groomed’ under the colonial laws, seek to this day the production of ‘responsible,’ ‘respectable’ and educated ‘national community’ defined against the rural population as national and ethnic Other not yet ready for inclusion in the national politicalcultural community. In the words of Agamben, the rural territories and populations are 54 included in the national community through their exclusion i.e., the rural bad subject-citizens are central to the production of the Pakistani national community in whose name the state sovereignty is exercised and legitimated. More relevant to the dissertation, the rural Pashtun population of the Tribal Areas and Swat are the national and ethnic others/outsiders i.e., ideologically suspect, unassimilable, and antithetical to the sensibilities and ethos sanctioned by the Pakistani nation-state. As objects of necropolitical intervention, these territories and their populations are the site of death worlds both in banal and spectacular forms. In banal form, they are subjected to “letting die” through “ordinary forms of slow death” that is diffused and less spectacular such as state neglect, abandonment, and the “wearing out” through social exclusion (Haritaworn et al 2014:4,7). As objects of spectacular necropolitical intervention, they are the outside upon whose bodies the Pakistani state manifests its sovereign power; the on-going military operation in Swat and the Tribal Areas against the informal sovereign nodes of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda (the relation between the state and these informal sovereign nodes is a complex one that at times is characterized by collusion and at other times by opposition) indiscriminately targets and kills the local population through aerial bombing and door to door search operations. Another enduring colonial legacy in Pakistan is the fragmented, dispersed, and informal but de facto sovereign nodes that compete with the state sovereignty. In an earlier discussion in this chapter, we saw these sovereign nodes in the millenarian movements in which religious group and secular core-lineage groups in the Tribal Areas and Swat competed and at times cooperated with colonial and later postcolonial sovereignties. These informal nodes of authorities whether in the form of secular Pashtun leadership or in the Wahibi inspired militants function as nodes of sovereignty necessitating excessive state control and regulation mostly in the form of necropolitical technologies of death-making that also serve to “produce [state] legitimacy and to perform the sovereignty of the state” (Hansen and Stepputat 2005:31). In short, like all other states, Pakistani state constructs itself as a coherent and monolithic entity that is the locus of legitimate meta-authority. However, in actual practice the Pakistani state is far from a complete and finished project, it is emergent and unfinished that perpetually recreates itself in the material and ideological realms. With the insight provided by 55 contemporary anthropology of the state that emphasizes historical and cultural embeddedness of the state, as well as the actual practices of sovereign power whether legally grounded or informal, we see a complex process that is heavily informed by its indigenous language of stateness that took shape during the colonial contact. 75 Of particular importance is emergence of the officially sanctioned ‘national community,’ as an object of benevolent biopolitical technologies that is shaped in the context of colonial narratives of rural-urban/traditionalmodern through exclusion of the marked ethnic other as the object of authority and necropower. Background to the Research Project and Research Methodology This research in many ways is my own attempt to make sense of my life as a citizensubject of the Pakistani state. As a Pashtun and a native to a village in the north-west Pakistan, bordering the Tribal Areas, and residing in the city of Peshawar for most of my life, I have personally undergone the state nationalist project along with the exclusion, demonization, and contradiction of the state making. From an early age, my parents, especially my father, encouraged me to participate in village life despite being living in the city for most of the time. Being the eldest son, my father emphasized that I know “the ways of the village.” He would often say, “no matter where we go, the village would always be our home. We belong here. We will die here.” Knowing “the ways of the village” meant knowing the appropriate behavior so as to be an authentic member of Pashtun society; it included paying respect to the principles of Pashtunwali and local hierarchies of age, speaking Pashto language with ‘proper’ accent, not adulterated with city language practices. However, in the city school and general life, I was becoming aware of the markedness of my culture, language, and ethnicity. My culture was nowhere in the school curriculum, my native language, Pashto, was restricted to home with no presence in the state institutions, my traditional dress and mannerism, that my father insisted I perform, was subject of mockery and humor in the mainstream society, especially in the state controlled electronic media, and my rural background was the antithesis of the state sanctioned urban sensibilities. A thought, not fully articulated or conscious, was forming in my 75 This is not to say that colonialism determines the postcolonial state formation. As pointed out by Thomas (2002:367) the narratives of colonialism such as rural-urban and traditional-modern though influential in the postcolonial context are reworked with the changing socio-political contexts. 56 mind that I was somehow deficient, though not sure why it was so. I was lacking in something that is required to become an acceptable member in the mainstream Pakistani society. However, I was aware that my language had something to do with it, a thought strengthened in my school. I was studying in a local state-run school in Peshawar city along with my elder sister who was few years older than I was. During the recess time, I would spot her as her company was comforting in the unnerving school population of strangers. I would eat her lunch and converse with her in Pashto despite her strict orders that I speak with her in Urdu and not in our home language, Pashto, especially when she had her friends around her. Since Pashto was the only language I was fully conversant in, I would nonetheless speak in Pashto. Unable to change my speaking habit, my sister complained to my mother that I spoke with her in Pashto in school which she found embarrassing. This event along with the general practice of speaking only in Urdu with occasional English words in school that I realized that my language was kept away and locked outside the state institutions. In the words of Mugane (2005:160) my language was “muzzled” and was the object of “necrolinguistics,” the systematic and institutional means employed to destroy a language of the dominated people. Another question that occupied me as I was growing up was the relation between my ethnicity and the religion of Islam that I was born in. Elders both related and unrelated would often ask me the question: “are you a Pashtun first or a Muslim first?” 76 Mostly asked for fun and entertainment, this question implied that there was either a disjuncture between the two identities or one preceded the other in hierarchical fashion. Nonetheless, this question was equally relevant to my place in the Pakistani society. Sometime I would answer “Pashtun” and sometime “Muslim” while noticing my father’s response. He never explicitly favored one identity over the other but I suspected that he liked it when I answered “Pashtun.” The school on the other hand always valorized the Muslim identity; our education content was full of the exploits of Muslim heroes especially Arab conquerors and Islamic morality with the glaring omission of my Pashtun history and cultural heritage. 76 My Pashtun friends and colleagues have also narrated similar incidents in which they were asked this question. The issue of whether a person was Pashtun or a Muslim first probably dates back to the controversy that emerged during the Muslim League government in NWFP (modern day Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan) before the Partition. The then chief minister of NWFP, Qayyum Khan, refused to shake hands with a prominent Pashtun nationalist, Samin Jan Khan, when he proclaimed that he was a Pashtun as well as a Muslim (Legislative Assembly Debates 1952:35, cited in Rahman 1997:145). 57 As time passed, these different subject positions and contradictory identities pulled me in opposite directions while I struggled to reconcile them. This sense of inadequacy and occupying a liminal space increased as I moved ahead from school to college and finally to the university. After graduating from a public university in Peshawar, Pakistan, I applied for a United States based scholarship for a doctorate program in anthropology in which I was finally accepted. It was during my doctorate studies that I started to seriously investigate and make sense of my own and my fellow Pashtun’s place in the Pakistani society. During the coursework, I found literature on state making especially appealing to me as it addressed the issues that I was grappling with. As my interest deepened in the field, I realized that my rural background, my native language, my ethnicity, and the religion I was born in were deeply implicated in the state making in Pakistan. Since then my research has been geared towards giving voice to and making sense of the not yet fully articulated contradictory thoughts and affects that I and my fellow Pakistanis have been experiencing. In short, this dissertation is an attempt to capture the lived experiences of majority of Pakistani Pashtun population subjected to the state nationalist project and state regulation when found antithetical to the state sanctioned embodiment. The research data for this dissertation project comprises of semi-structured in-depth interviews and Facebook, an online social media network, postings that I collected between November 2012 and December 2014. In total, I collected 32 in-depth interviews, all of them were in the range of one hour to one and half hours. 16 of these interviews were conducted with participants from the Tribal Areas and the other 16 with the participants from Swat, Pakistan. All the interviews were conducted in Pashto language, the preferred language of my research participants, and were audio recorded, that I later translated and transcribed into English following the transcription convention developed by linguistic anthropologist Duranti (1994:40-43) and Hill (1995a:139-141). These authors provide a detailed description of the transcription of linguistic strategies and resources such as shifting between language codes, constructing stance through use of syntax and phonology such as intonation, pitch level, tempo, and dysfluencies all of which are relevant to the investigation of state regulation and the participants’ navigation and response to these regulations. Each participant was interviewed after discussing the project and obtaining their informed consent and their willingness to be 58 audiotaped. I used “chain referral” (Bernard 2011:147) for sampling my research population from the two sites, namely the Tribal Areas and Swat. I used chain referral as I could not have equal access to all the research population. Due to the ongoing military operations and raging militancy in the Tribal Areas and Swat, I could only interview those individuals who could participate in the research. The participants were exclusively male, a limitation partly due to the cultural constraints as a male researcher it was not easy to access non-related women. The choice and method of my data collection was restricted by my visa concerns and funding. In order to conduct the preferred participant observation tool of data collection, I had to go back to Pakistan for fieldwork. Returning to Pakistan, however, meant that I had to reapply for the United States visa, a process which could take years without any assurance that the visa would be eventually granted. I had already gone through the cumbersome and uncertain visa process for the United States when I was accepted in the anthropology program at American University. Despite being registered for Fall 2009 semester, I could not join my classes until Spring 2010 as my visa was inordinately delayed despite the relevant embassy having my completed documents for several months. The delayed start at American University also shortened my time frame for the completion of my doctorate degree. Pressed for time, and to make the best of my circumstances, I decided to collect my data through Skype. Though I did not conduct participant observation based research, in my dissertation, I have drawn on my years of experience of interacting with the local population as a member of Pakistani Pashtun society. Collection of data through Skype posed the problem of preselecting a certain category of research participants: westernized and affluent to be precise who had access to technology required for Skyping. To prevent limiting my data to a certain group of people, with the help of my colleagues and friends, I arranged for a computer with internet access at multiple places in Peshawar and requested the participants that I had already sampled through chain referral to provide interviews. My second source of data is the online social networking site, Facebook, popular among Pakistanis in general. The Facebook data was useful in studying the engagement and response of my research participants to the ideological messages concerning the state. Besides observing the online communication, I also initiated conversation by posting newspaper articles regarding 59 political speeches concerning the Pashtun ethnicity, state ceremonies, and public rituals to notice how people address the ideological details embedded in the posts. The online network provides each user a “profile” where they can post information about themselves for others to see. Facebook users can also post videos, audios, newspaper articles, documents and the like. The users can also initiate discussions or can comment on their “friends’” posts. Over the years, I have maintained a “friend” network with more than 100 Pashtun belonging to the Tribal Areas and Swat that I identified through the publicly shared information in the profile. On the face of it, the data collected through Facebook is largely restricted to the relatively privileged group who has access to computers, internet, as well as command over written language. However, this is not entirely the case. Over the years, internet cafes have mushroomed in Peshawar and its suburbs that provide computer and internet services for a minimum charge of 20 rupees (roughly 25 cents) per hour, which is far less expensive than owning a personal computer with internet connection. These cafes are frequented mostly by low income clientele who could not afford the technology otherwise. Moreover, in their written language practices, my research participants range from highly educated with privileged educational background to the less privileged with limited command of written language. Though this data from Facebook does mostly include the educated group, the semi-educated have actively participated in discussion and other social media activities through what Leap (2003:415) identifies as “flexible language:” language practices which draw on different language resources and traditions especially used by groups of people whose lives are disrupted by the tensions of late modernity characterized by the ethnic versus national, local versus regional, and such other tensions and allegiances. Thus, some Facebook users write their posts in a written form that cannot be identified with one single language tradition. They draw on Pashto, Urdu, and English language sources mostly written in the Roman script that are understood by other fellow users as their posts are actively engaged by other users. For analyzing my data, I used corpus linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Corpus linguistics as outlined by Hunston (2002) provides a structured and systematic way to identify themes in a set of data that may not be identifiable otherwise. My use of corpus 60 linguistics as a data analysis tool is largely confined to chapter 5; I will therefore discuss corpus linguistics in detail in the relevant chapter. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as its name suggests, is critical in its approach i.e., “it focuses on what is wrong with a society (an institution, an organization etc.), and how ‘wrongs’ might be ‘righted’ or mitigated” (Fairclough 2003:13; 2010:7). In other words, CDA is not politically neutral; it is rather explicitly political with the aim to generate social research that can address the inequalities and social injustices prevailing in a society. CDA aims to equip the relatively powerless with a critical knowledge that can be used as a means of intervention (Fairclough 2010:30; Johnstone 2008:30, 54; Jorgensen and Philips 2009:64). 77 As Fairclough (2010:9) asserts, the aim of CDA is “to not merely interpret the world but contribute to changing it.” As noted by Leap (2015:661), CDA is a discourse centered critical inquiry that engages normative authority and regulatory processes by foregrounding “the speakers’ experience as located within structure of power.” CDA as an approach includes a variety of diverse array of methodologies all of which rest on the understanding that in the contemporary late-modern era, language has become a potent ideological tool through which power achieves consent, and transmits ideologies that naturalize social wrongs and render them opaque (Fairclough 2010:44, 531). Understanding ideology as “meaning in the service of power” (Thompson 1990:5), Fairclough (2010:59) argues that “language is a material form of ideology, and language is invested by ideology.” It is for this reason that CDA critiques language practices as a means to intervene on the behalf of the oppressed and powerless people. For my research, I specifically draw on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis that among all the CDA approaches arguably provides the most detailed methodology for analysis of discourse. 77 According to Fairclough (2010:530), CDA should result in Critical Language Awareness (CLA): a set of resources that enable people to mount an effective language critique that can be used to question and challenge the implicit and opaque ideological assumptions that perpetuate social injustices. He further argues that since language is deeply implicated in the naturalization of unequal power relations, CLA is a necessary prerequisite for democratic citizenship (Fairclough 2010:100). 61 Fairclough’s CDA treats discourse 78 (actual instances of written/spoken language, signing, and other semiotic modes such as visual images, and body languages) as a discursive social practice that is in dialectical relation with non-discursive social practices. Discourse both constitutes and is constituted by the social practices. 79 Fairclough’s CDA is a methodology that provides detailed techniques for the linguistic analysis of language use. CDA is text oriented i.e., it systematically analyzes the linguistic characteristics of a text under consideration such as syntax, vocabulary, metaphors, and other language choices to investigate how texts are constructed (Fairclough 1992:190; Johnstone 2008:28; Jorgensen and Philips 2009:69). As mentioned earlier, Fairclough argues that discourse is in dialectical relation with larger social practice, therefore, textual analysis is eventually to be combined with social analysis. For this purpose, Fairclough (2010:88-89, 94; also see Jorgensen and Philips 2009:68-69) provides a three-dimensional model that provides a link between language use and social practice. According to the model, any communicative event (any instance of language use such as a video, a speech, a gesture and the like) has three dimensions: the communicative event is a text (a piece of discourse treated as a whole and bounded but not necessarily self-contained, for instance, a part of interview); it is a discourse practice (production and consumption of a text); and it is a social practice (wider social activities that have over the time acquired a relatively stabilized form and of which a communicative event is a part). This three dimensional approach provides a framework to investigate how discourse reproduces a social order and how it (social order) can be challenged. Drawing on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis and his three dimensional model, I study discourse in its multiple forms (written and spoken language as well as images and videos). Through linguistic analysis of text, I identify the ways in which discourses of ethnic and national hierarchy and privilege in Pakistan are constructed and embedded in discourse, how 78 “Discourse” as used in discourse analysis is “language use as a social practice;” in other words, discourse is an actual instance of language use in social interaction (Fairclough 2010:264). Discourse in this sense includes spoken/written language, signing, as well as other semiotic modes such as visual images, and body language. Discourse (as an abstract noun as it is used in the discourse analysis) is differentiated from “discourse” as a count noun that refers to language use from a particular perspective, for instance, Marxist discourse, feminist discourse and so on. 79 By social practices, Fairclough (2010:264) means social activities that have taken a relatively stabilized form. For instance, television news, and classroom teaching. 62 they are received by audience (discursive practice), and how these discourses align with normative authority and regulatory power (social practice). In this linguistic critique and critical inquiry of the normative Pakistani authority and mainstream society, I aim to contribute to a social research that not only uncovers the naturalized assumptions that perpetuate hierarchy and exclusion but also to contribute to the social research that provides resources for effectively challenging these assumptions and therefore are geared towards social change. Dissertation Overview The chapter titled as “Muzzling Pashto: Necrolinguistic Policies of the State and Pashtun’s Response,” draws on Mugane’s (2005:159) concept of “necrolinguistics:” a process in which people are systematically deprived of mastering their own languages and/or are poorly compensated with an impoverished and contaminated linguistic input (Mugane 2005:160). I particularly focus on the Urdu medium based primary and secondary level public schools in Pashtun majority areas of Pakistan. These schools serve as contact zones where the state and Pashtun ethnicity come into contact in a context characterized by highly asymmetrical relations of power. Moreover, these institutions are one of the primary means through which the state subjects Pashtun to its state ideology. I trace the various incongruities and disharmonies between language and culture that result from the institutionalized linguistic hierarchy in Pakistan that expels Pashto language from educational institutions. I argue that the systematic elevation of Urdu and simultaneous devaluation of Pashto creates conditions in which Pashtun are placed at a disadvantage resulting in the institutionalized production of failure at a massive scale. Furthermore, I discuss the ways in which Pashtun creatively respond to muzzling of their language by drawing on multiple language resources that they flexibly accumulate in their language practices. In the chapter “Mock Pashto: Comedic Language Practices in Pakistan’s mainstream Urdu Language Media,” I study the comedic performances in the mainstream Urdu language media (national and private television channels) in Pakistan that represent Pashto language and by extension Pashtun, the speakers of Pashto, in a humorous manner. I argue that the representation of Pashto language and its speakers in these comedic performances index Pashtun as linguistically deficient and clownish. At the same time, these performances index 63 the comedians as authentic citizens of the Pakistani nation by virtue of their proficiency in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, and their ability to critique the liminal status of Pashto and its speakers. Speakers of Pashto, represented as linguistically deficient and clownish, are thereby rendered inauthentic citizens. Viewed more broadly, I argue that this comedic rendition of Pashto creates an ideological link between Pakistani nationhood and Urdu language, while delegitimizing Pashto language by linking it with ethnic parochialism and social backwardness. Furthermore, in this chapter, I also investigate the ways in which Pashtun interpret and respond to this demonization of their language and ethnicity. In the chapter, “Reinventing Pashtunwali: The Rural-Urban Divide and the Disruptive State Influence,” I investigate the ways in which Pashtun imagine the rural-urban divide that informs and constitutes their construction of moral geography. I argue that this moral geography, marked with ambivalence and contradictions, represents a “structure of feeling”, a practical consciousness based on life experiences that are lived and felt in the times of cultural and social disruption (Williams 1977:128). Though emergent and in the process of formation in the sense of not fully articulated and defined, this structure of feeling speaks to the Pashtun’s sense of marginality as it is lived within the sociopolitical and economic structure of the Pakistani state (1977:130-131). In other words, the moral geography based on the binary of rural-urban provides the Pashtun a medium through which they voice the exclusion and abandonment that they experience in their material life. Moreover, I demonstrate that this active construction of rural-urban moral geography is an attempt to find continuity with the past as the new structure of feelings takes shape in the wake of cultural disruption. In the chapter, “Pashtun Temporality: Past as a disidentificatory Node,” I discuss the disidentificatory practices employed by Pashtun to counter the state’s teleological and prescriptive temporality that traces Pakistan’s origin to early Islamic Arabia, and thus excludes the indigenous histories and pre-Islamic past. Disidentification is a survival strategy especially employed in a contact zone where open resistance can threaten ones existence. I argue that Pashtun in their disidentificatory practices neither accept nor reject but rework the state temporality in ways that simultaneously disrupt the official temporality and allow for the assertion of the alternative Pashtun temporality. Some of the disidentificatory nodes that I 64 identify include: the deployment of the past as a realm of “potentiality” that animates and fuels the desire for a future free of oppressive temporality; the use of dominant state temporality as a raw material to expose the erasure of Pashtun past and to provide a platform to resurrect and enact Pashtun temporal identities; and lastly, the linking of Pashto language with indigenous Pashtun history in opposition to Arabic language that the state and the Taliban privilege to construct the “Arabic origin” narrative. In the final chapter titled as “Conclusion: Inclusive Exclusion and the Denial of Difference,” I revisit the key points discussed in the earlier chapters. In the light of the preceding discussion, I argue that the Pakistani state’s nationalist project is based on “inclusive exclusion” (Agamben 1998:7) i.e., Pashtun are included in the normative political community through their exclusion as the Other. In other words, indigenous Pashtun rural homelands, their people, and language are the outside against which the normative Pakistani society is defined. Furthermore, I argue that in this institutionalized inclusive exclusion, Pashto language and Pashtun culture are the objects and sites through which the state sovereignty manifests its self. In the last section of this chapter, I detail the ways in which the systematic and institutionalized denial of group differences translate into Pashtun’s day to day life with particular reference to powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. In the end, I highlight the ways in which Pashtunness survives in the “empty spaces:” (Ngugi 1986:37) vibrant spaces of cultural and linguistic activities where the reach of the state influence and surveillance is not as intense as in the institutions of the state. 65 CHAPTER 2 MUZZLING PASHTO: NECROLINGUISTIC POLICIES OF THE STATE AND PASHTUN’S RESPONSE In this chapter, I focus on the cultural disruptions of Pashtun that result from the institutionalized language hierarchy in Pakistan. In the first section, I discuss the “necrolinguistic” (Mugane 2005:159) policies of the state that aim to impose Urdu language and suppress Pashto language resulting in the disruption of Pashtun’s Pashto language skills and by extension their traditional way of life. Necrolinguistics, as explained by Mugane (2005:160), is an institutionalized process in which people are systematically deprived of mastering their own languages and are poorly compensated with an impoverished and contaminated linguistic input. Focusing on the Urdu medium based primary and secondary level state controlled educational institutions that serve as a “contact zone” (Pratt 1991:34) between Pashtun and the state, I trace the various incongruities and disharmonies between Pashto language and Pashtun culture that have come into existence due to the state’s use of education as a means of assimilating Pashtun. As explained by Pratt (1991:34), contact zones are “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power.” Moreover, I argue that the expulsion of Pashto from the institutional domains and deprivation of state patronage and the simultaneous elevation of Urdu language create conditions in which Pashtun are placed at social, cultural, and economic disadvantages, resulting in the institutionalized production of failure at a massive scale. In the second section, I discuss the ways in which Pashtun respond to these necrolinguistic policies with specific focus on the creative linguistic practices that Pashtun utilize in response to the limited and contaminated linguistic input. I argue that deprived of their Pashto language and poorly compensated with Urdu and English, they draw on multiple linguistic resources in a “flexible language” fashion as discussed by Leap (2003:417). They appropriate the dominant language genres and institutional practices for their own ends. However, despite their creative use of the resources of the dominant, the Pashtun linguistic practices remain unrecognized by the dominant institutions and officially sanctioned practices, which are some of the “perils of … the contact zone” (Pratt 1991:37). 66 There is already a substantial body of scholarly literature on the ideological use of Urdu language and educational content in the educational institutions of Pakistan that serve the Pakistani state’s nationalistic and militaristic purposes (see for instance, Ayres 2009; Aziz 1993; Hoodbhoy and Nayyar 1985; Lall 2010; Naseem 2010; Nayyar and Salim 2002; Rahman 2010, 2004, 2002, 1999, 1997; Saigol 2013, 2010; Talbani 2010; Tarrar 2010). However, what is not discussed so far is the cultural and linguistic disruptions that these ideological messages and language hierarchies generate. Moreover, this body of literature does not investigate the ways in which people receive and engage these language ideologies. In this chapter, I foreground not only the cultural and linguistic disruptions that result from the imposition of state ideology and language hierarchies, I also discuss the production and reception of these ideological messages. In short, in this chapter I discuss the Urdu medium state controlled educational institutions as technologies of discipline that serve the state’s nationalist agenda. In these schools, rural Pashtun are coerced into studying Urdu language, the national language of the state, that is not part of their day to day life. This mismatch results in various forms of incongruencies that disrupt Pashtun’s linguistic and cultural practices. On the other hand, English, the most sought after language and the language of upward mobility is deliberately kept out of reach while their Pashto language is withdrawn any official recognition rendering it ghettoizing. Left with no choice but to ‘learn’ in Urdu language, Pashtun grapple with this linguistic imposition in a context of highly asymmetrical relations of power. However, despite the imposition of state ideology and hierarchies of languages, people find ways to subvert and overturn the ideological messages and even make them serve their own end. Educational Institutions and Language Politics in Pakistan According to the Government of Pakistan (hereafter, GoP), literacy rate in Pakistan stands at 60 per cent 80 (GoP 2014:150-151). In the case of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the 80 In Pakistan, literacy is officially measured by the ability to read a newspaper and to write a simple letter by age 15 or over (GoP 2011:171). Pakistan ranks 113th out of the 120 countries in the UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2012:306-309). The ranking assesses education globally across four dimensions, namely: universal primary education, adult literacy rate (age 15 and above), gender parity and equality, and the quality of education measured by survival rate to grade 5. Furthermore, the recent EFA Global Monitoring Report (2014:54) estimates that nearly 5.5 million Pakistani children (23 per cent of rural and 7 per cent of urban) are out of school. Pakistan Economic Survey (2014:150) also notices that the “dropout” [read: “push out” (Phillipson 1992:238)] at primary, secondary, and tertiary level is second highest in the world (after Nigeria). Despite the abysmal state of 67 literacy rate is 66 per cent in the urban areas, and 49 per cent in the rural areas (GoP 2014:150151). In Pakistan, there exists a three-tiered education system, namely, the Urdu-medium schools, the English-medium schools, and the madaris (Rahman 2004:20). Here I will discuss each of them briefly. The Urdu-medium schools The Urdu-medium state-run public schools are by far the largest in number and are the primary means through which a vast number of Pakistani population especially of the rural areas, the geographically disadvantaged (74 per cent of the students in rural areas attend Urdumedium state-run public schools), acquire literacy (GoP 2014:147). The Urdu-medium schools, the most representative of all, provide education to the working and lower-middle class students (Nichol 2012:267; Rahman 2010:245, 2004:25; Saigol 2010:117). The textbooks and educational content of these public schools are strictly controlled by the Curriculum Wing of the Federal Ministry of Education that approves and prescribes guidelines to the curriculum set by the Federal and provincial Textbook Boards81 (GoP 2002:31; Naseem 2010:149). The educational content of these schools is replete with the Pakistani nationalistic and militaristic state ideology (Saigol 2010:117). In his study on the language-wise ideological contents of the textbooks taught in Pakistan, Rahman (2004:31) finds that Urdu-based texts have highest percentage of ideological content that celebrates Pakistani nationalism (40% for Urdu texts, and English based texts have the lowest ideological content i.e., 8%). The teachers in these Urdumedium schools, especially in the rural areas, also like their students, belong to the working and lower-middle class. Themselves the product of these schools, the underpaid teachers are “not fluent—indeed even tolerably competent” in the languages and subjects they teach (Rahman 2004:68-69). In short, the quality of education in the schools that produce common education, the government of Pakistan allocates only 2 per cent of its GDP to education most of which is spent on the administrative expenses (GoP 2014:150). 81 The Curriculum Wing for Social Studies (that includes history, economics, and civics and is taught from grade 3-8 as a compulsory subject) and Pakistan Studies (the official version of the pre-Partition and post-Partition history that is taught as a compulsory subject from grade 9-12) prescribes the following guidelines: “developing an understanding of Hindu-Muslim differences and the need for Pakistan; enhancing the understanding of the forces working against Pakistan; promoting realization about the Kashmir issue; evaluating the role of India with reference to aggression; and discussing the role of the present government in re-establishing the sound position of Pakistan and its freedom fighters before the international community” (GoP 2002:31, cited in Naseem 2010:151-152). 68 citizenry as a vehicle of disseminating state nationalism and ideology and occupy lower level jobs in the bureaucracy is abysmal. The Madaris The Madaris, 82 religious seminaries, provide religious education and they mostly attract the poorest of the poor 83 in Pakistan (Ahmad 2000:185; Rahman 2010:245; 2004:91). Besides imparting religious education, the madaris also function as charity organizations that provide boarding and lodging almost free of cost to the students. 84 The madaris mostly function independently of the Pakistani state and therefore set up their own syllabi, and examination system. These madaris use Arabic as the formal (and Urdu as an informal) medium of instruction. There is no credible data regarding the number of madaris but they are estimated to be 10,000 in number with over one and a half million children in attendance (Lall 2010:106). Upon graduation, some of the students are absorbed in their parent institutions as teachers while others remain associated with the provision of religious services and rituals. The English-medium schools English is the language of power and the key to upward mobility in Pakistan and therefore English-medium schools are the most sought after by the Pakistani students and their parents. These schools are the polar opposites of the madaris and serve exclusively the rich and powerful elites of Pakistan. In his extensive study on the Pakistani education system, Rahman (2004:48), a well-known Pakistani linguist, argues that English-medium schools are “the parallel system of elitist schooling” that are the basis of “educational apartheid” prevalent in Pakistan 82 Madrasa (plural. madaris) is an Arabic word, which literally means “place of study” (ma from the stem mafla meaning “place of,” and dars meaning “to study”). The madrasa dates back to ninth century as a religious institution of organized learning. As an institution of higher learning, madrasa has mostly focused on the study of the Quran; traditions of the prophet of Islam (ahadith); Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); and linguistics, primarily the study of classical Arabic language (Talibani 2010:56). 83 In Pakistan, poverty is officially measured on the basis of calorie consumption with a minimum requirement of 2350 calories per day. On the basis of calorie consumption-based methodology, the Pakistan Economic Survey for 2013-14 estimates that “absolute poverty” in Pakistan stands at 12.4 per cent of which 7.1 per cent live in Urban areas, and 15.1 per cent in rural areas (Government of Pakistan 2014:xiv). However, the Finance Minister in unveiling the survey to the media noted that if measured against the international standard of $2 per day, then 60.19 per cent of the population falls below the poverty line (Dawn, 2014b, June 3:A2). 84 Madaris in Pakistan are largely financed by zakat (alms), khairat (charity), and atiat (gifts) given by ordinary citizens as a religious duty. Some madaris also get funding from foreign states. Saudi Arabia, for instance, provides funding to the madaris of Sunni sect (especially to Ahl-i-hadith), and Iran to the madaris of Shia sect (Lall 2010:106; Rahman 2004:90) 69 where parents buy English language for their children at exorbitant prices. Much desired but out of the reach of common people, this parallel schooling coerces a great majority of people into Urdu-medium public schools (Rahman 2004:22). Even the Pakistani government has acknowledged that there exists an “almost caste-like distinction” between the English-educated elites and the Urdu-educated masses (GoP 1969:14). 85 The English-medium schools are of three kinds, which are almost exclusively set up in the urban centers (Hussein 2010:185; Zia 2010:270). The first kind is the state controlled English-medium public schools, mostly run independently by the powerful institutions of military 86 and bureaucracy 87 where the children of the civil and military bureaucrats get subsidized education. The second category is that of the private English-medium schools. These schools exclusively serve the upper classes and charge exorbitant amount of money. 88 These elitist schools do not teach the curriculum designed by the Pakistani Textbook board. The students study the books designed for British students and appear in British examination. Even the two subjects, Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies, that are compulsory for all school going children are privately designed and are less supportive of the Pakistani nationalism and related state ideology. 89 The product of these schools in general 85 The Pakistani state, however, has made no attempt to mitigate this “caste-like distinction.” On the contrary, the Commission on National Education, that has served as the guideline for subsequent educational policies, states: “Good Education is expensive, and educational expansion means more expense. The people must accept the fact that since it is they and their children who benefit most from education, the sacrifices required must be borne primarily by them” (GoP 1959:9, cited in Rahman 2004:13-14). 86 Following are the list of school chains run by the various branches of the armed forces: Cadet Colleges (Pakistan military), Fauji Foundation (Pakistan military), Shaheen Foundation (Pakistan Air Force), and Bahria (Pakistan Navy) (Rahman 2004:53). 87 The major civilian bureaucratic institutions that run chains of English-medium schools include: Department of Police, the Customs Department, Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), the Pakistan Railways, and the Telephone Foundation (Rahman 2004:5). 88 The most well-known private elitist English-medium schools are: Beaconhouse, City School, and Froebels. 89 Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies were introduced as compulsory subjects under the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government soon after the separation of East Pakistan to strengthen the Islamic identity as a means of national integration and to thwart the growing linguistic and cultural assertions. Ironically, the emergence of Bangladesh had already questioned the efficacy of such a move as common religion could not prevent the separation of Bangladesh (Lall 2010:102; Lyon and Edgar 2010:xviii; Saigol 2010:115, 139). A government directive to Textbook boards states that history subjects should ‘demonstrate that the basis of Pakistan is not to be found in the racial, linguistic or geographic factors but, rather, in the shared experience of a common religion. To get students to know and appreciate the religious basis of independence, and popularize it with slogan to guide students toward the 70 has little in common with the rest of the citizenry. They share a Western worldview and generally hold the rest of the population in contempt. Speaking English with native fluency, they consider even knowledge of Urdu and other vernacular languages, let alone speaking, beneath themselves. Despite being snobs, they are generally tolerant and progressive in their views due to their limited exposure to the nationalist and militaristic propaganda of the Pakistan Textbook board designed syllabi (Rahman 2004:68; Saigol 2010:122, 138). The third category is that of private non-elitist English-medium schools. These schools are (pseudo-) English-medium in name where even the teachers are not tolerably proficient in English, however, the curriculum and annual examinations are in English language. These schools profit from student and their parents’ desire to “chasing the elusive chimera of English” that is perpetually out of their reach (Rahman 2004:63, 67). Claiming to provide education in English at affordable prices, these schools attract children from working and lower income class. This three-tiered education system where the medium of instruction defines and reflects ones position on the hierarchy of power and wealth is the continuation of the educational policy prevalent in the British colonial Raj (Rahman 2010:234) where English-based education was reserved for the local elites and the “vernacular for the great mass of people (Tarrar 2010:169). The education system in Pakistan is a form of ghettoization in which the elite through the expensive English-medium education not only reproduce themselves but also prevent the common masses from joining their ranks. In this way, the out of reach English language functions as the linguistic device of ‘elite closure,’ coercing the great majority of Pakistani population into the less empowering vernacular languages (Scotton 1993:149, cited in Rahman 2010:245; Saigol 2010:142, 147; Mansoor 2005:353). Pashto Language as a medium of instruction Fearful of Pashtun nationalism across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the Pakistani state denied any official recognition of Pashto language (Dupree 1980:485; Rahman 1997:143; Zaidi 1994:395). However, once the Soviet-Afghan war dampened the Pashtun nationalism and a large number of Pashtun were coopted in the bureaucracy and military, the government cautiously introduced Pashto-medium schools in selected areas in 1984 (Rahman 1997:149). ultimate goal of Pakistan, that is the creation of a completely Islamized state” (Hoodbhoy and Nayyar 1985:165; Talbani 2010:67). 71 However, these schools provided education only up to primary level i.e., from grade 1 to 4. There is no reliable data for the number of Pashto-medium schools. In the statistics provided by the government of Pakistan, these schools are lumped together with Baluchi and Arabicmedium schools (see Table 2.1). However, it is for sure that these schools are so few in numbers to be significant; it is only Urdu (up to high school) and English languages (English is the official language as well as the language of the higher education in Pakistan) that dominate the educational institutions in Pakistan (Rahman 2004:10). In fact, as reported in an English daily newspaper, an estimated 92 per cent of Pakistani population is deprived of education in their mother tongue (Express Tribune, 2013a, July 20:A3). This in itself reflects the demotion and erasure of the languages of majority. Urdu which is the native language of only 7.57 per cent of Pakistanis (though widely spoken as the national language and lingua franca in Pakistan) dominates all other local languages; and Pashto which is the native language of 15.42 per cent of the total population has no official recognition beyond primary school (GoP 2001:107, also see Table 2.2). Despite its limited scope, the Pashto-medium schools were a success as the “achievement tests showed an improvement in Pashto medium schools as compared to Urdu medium schools” (GoP 1991:1-4, cited in Rahman 1997:150; also see UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report 2014:33). 90 Nonetheless, the better results have so far not motivated the government to introduce Pashto-medium schools at a larger scale in Pashtun populated areas. However, as noted by Rahman (1997:150; also see Carter and Raza 1990:69), parents have been fearful of the “ghettoizing potential” of Pashto language, especially when the language has no presence in the domain of power; there are fewer jobs available in the language, and the students have to switch to Urdu- or English-medium schools after grade 4. For these reasons, parents find education in the Pashto-medium schools wasteful. However, this is not to say that Pashto is looked down upon by Pashtun. Instead, Pashto has remained a strong identity marker among Pashtun, and Pashtun nationalism has a strong language component 90 In the recent report on education in the country, the government notes that the quality of learning in educational institutions remains unsatisfactory. The report especially highlights the language competencies in Urdu and English and notes that 51 per cent of grade 5 students were unable to accomplish grade 2 level tasks such as reading from grade 2 level Urdu and English texts (GoP 2014:164). 72 (Ghaffar 1969:51; Rahman 1997:133). 91 As noted by Hallberg (1992:42) in his sociolinguistic survey of Pakistan, Pashtun “have very positive attitudes toward their own language” and they have mostly felt proud of their linguistic and cultural heritage despite their erasure and demonization by the mainstream Pakistan. 92 Most recently, Annual Status of Education Report (2014:157; also see Express Tribune, 2013a, July 20:A3 ) has claimed that with the efforts of the Pashtun nationalist government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (that came into power in the province for five years in 2008 national elections) to give greater recognition to Pashto in educational and official domains, the demand for Pashto has considerably increased among parents, which indicates that if not ghettoizing, Pashto could become the preferred language of education among parents. Table 2.1 Medium of Instruction in the Educational Institutions in Pakistan Type of Urdu-medium Management English- Sindhi-medium Others medium (%) (%) (Pashto, (%) Balochi, Arabic, etc.) Total 64.6 10.4 15.5 9.5 Public 68.3 1.4 22.4 7.9 Private 57.2 28.4 1.8 12.7 Source: Government of Pakistan (2006:37), reproduced in Rahman (2010:251). 91 Pashto as a symbol of Pashtun nationalism was also seen with mistrust by the British colonials in the subcontinent. For instance, an 1862 Government report of British colonial government reports: “… the desirability of making the union of the wild tribes with the adjoining population in our territories more complete, and their intercourse more convenient, by the use of a common tongue, is obviously very desirable. All our Education efforts tend to this object among others and they will be greatly aided by the currency of Urdoo, in all our Courts, as the Standard language” (Rahman 1997:137). The postcolonial state of Pakistan continued with the British colonial policy of denying Pashto official recognition as Rahman (1997:145) reports: Pakistan was “so mistrustful of Pashto that all Pashto publications and all efforts to develop the language were monitored by the police.” 92 Similarly, Bartlotti (2000:86) notes that during his ethnographic research he “learned to appreciate the almost visceral pleasure a Pashtun has in his language, its poetry and verbal art, including proverbs.” 73 Table 2.2 Percentage of Native Speakers of Languages Spoken in Pakistan Language Native Speakers Punjabi 44.15 Pashto 15.42 Sindhi 14.10 Siraiki 10.53 Urdu 7.57 Balochi 3.57 Other 93 4.66 Source: Government of Pakistan (2001:107). Language as a site of control, resistance, and innovation Necrolinguistics,94 as explained by Mugane (2005:159), is the institutionalized and systematic denial and/or destruction of the very basic and inalienable condition of humanity, i.e., language.95 Necrolinguistics or “linguistic duress” can unfold in any number of ways all resulting in a “linguistic muzzle” (2005:160). Some of the forms of the muzzling or incarceration of a language that Mugane (2005:160,175) notes, include: (i) “semilingualism or linguistic inbetweenness:” a state of “linguistic limbo” in which people are either denied any language or 93 The category “other” includes the rest of the total of 72 languages spoken in Pakistan (Ethnologue 2014:2). Twenty-one of these languages are on the verge of extinction (Dawn 2011:A3). 94 Mugane’s term “necrolinguistics” is inspired by Mbembe’s (2003) insightful essay “Necropolitics” (See chapter 1 for the discussion of “necropolitics”). 95 Williams (1977:21) emphasizing the centrality of language to human existence, writes, “A definition of language is always, implicitly or explicitly, a definition of human beings in the world.” He further states, “Language is then, positively, a distinctly human opening of and opening to the world: not a distinguishable or instrumental but a constitutive faculty (1977:24). 74 are provided with contaminated language input. This results in a linguistic state in which people are not able to use at least one language well. In other words, semilinguals are torn or “stranded between languages.” 96 Some of the worst forms of semilingualism imposed upon the dominated language groups are the total denial of the groups’ native languages and simultaneous withdrawal of the language of the dominant. 97 In contemporary world, the muzzle stealthily operates through the prohibition of ones’ native (powerless) language from formal education for being too “simple” and “inferior” to express complex thoughts and ideas, and simultaneous deprivation of the language of power (even when desired) through contaminated or deformed linguistic input of the language of power (Mugane 2005:163). This language hierarchy in itself creates mismatches that render the relation between different domains that ought to be in harmony incongruent (Mugane 2005:165). We have seen this in case of Pakistan, where Pashto language is denied any place in formal education, this denial of their mother tongue is poorly compensated with Urdu and English languages which are taught by teachers who themselves have no tolerable proficiency in the languages they teach. This denial of Pashto in itself creates mismatches between the language of home (Pashto) and the language of instruction/education (Urdu and English), between the language of teacher (Pashto) and the language of instruction (Urdu and English), which all lead to an “instructional blackout” (Mugane 2005:166). Another form of necrolinguistics is (ii) “discordant monolingualism” or “monolingualism of the dominant” (also termed as “monolingualism of the other” by Derrida (1998:14)) in which one is deprived of learning the parental language, or the language of the culture one lives in; in other words, the language one speaks is discordant with the lived culture and experiences (Mugane 2005:175,180). Most common among urban migrants, discordant monolingualism 96 One of the most chilling and ferocious example of the total denial of language is the literal muzzling of the enslaved African people brought to North America, the West Indies, and South America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Made of tin, these muzzles were strapped to the mouths of the enslaved (as one would do to animals) to prevent them from talking among themselves. This literal incarceration of the mouth/tongue served the purpose of severing the enslaved from their social surroundings and preempting any solidarity among them that might result in revolt and uprising (See Mugane 2005:160, 182 for images and historical sources of the muzzle). 97 For instance, Petit Nègre, a deformed version of French that the French colonials imposed upon the native speakers of sub-Saharan African languages after depriving them of their native languages. The speakers of sub-Saharan Africa were deemed too “simple in thought and action” to learn the intricacies and complexities of the French language (Mugane 2005:163). 75 renders people strangers or aliens in their own culture, forcing them to live the life of foreigners in their native land (Mugane 2005:176-177). The third form of necrolinguistics, noted by Mugane (2005:177) is (iii) “asymmetrical bilingualism.” Asymmetrical bilingualism is a form of “double consciousness” (Du Bois 1903:11) in which one’s (unprivileged and demonized) mother tongue is yoked together with the powerful and privileged learnt language. The language of power dominates the language of affect and intimate feelings which results in a sense of loneliness and confusion. As Mugane (2005:159-160) reminds us, all these different manifestations of necrolinguistic practices have been the dominant features of colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, neocolonialism, and late-modernity whether through coercion or through subtle ideological means. Destruction of the language of the powerless has remained an important means of control and domination. However, this is not to say that this linguistic domination has gone without challenge. People have found ways to challenge and resist the domination. These prohibitive linguistic environments have even spurred linguistic creativities and innovations. Pratt (1991) provides an insightful study of such linguistic creativity as the speakers of a dominated language cope with the linguistic duress. She puts forward the concept “contact zones” by which she means “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (1991:34). In other word, foregrounding the power asymmetries at the point of unequal contact, she investigates the ways in which domination and resistance unfold in the realm of language and culture. Pratt (1991:35, 37) argues that one of the strategies or the “arts of contact zone” that the dominated put to use against the dominant is the “autoethnographic text:” a language practice in which the dominated culture selectively appropriates the representational repertoires (such as language code, art genres, visuals, idioms, rituals, religious beliefs or any other forms of representation including technologies) of the dominant to advance their own ends. Or in the words of Pratt, autoethnographic text is “a marginalized group’s point of entry into the dominant circuits” (1991:35). More importantly, the autoethnographic texts emerge in contexts of asymmetrical power relations in which the resources of the dominant are merged with the indigenous resources that fulfil two purposes: (i) to intervene in and engage with their 76 representation by the dominant culture. The appropriation and (parodic and oppositional) use of the resources of the dominant are necessitated by the fact that if not utilized then their own representation of themselves may go unnoticed or ignored as anomalous, chaotic, and undecipherable by the dominant culture, which are some of the “perils of writing in the contact zone” (Pratt 1991:37); (ii) autoethnographic texts are addressed simultaneously to both the dominant (mirroring back, a world in reverse, to the dominant the exploitative and abusive image that the indigenous culture have of them) and the indigenous dominated cultures (as they merge various resources of representations including multiple languages to express indigenous interests and aspirations) therefore they are multiply received depending upon ones position in the context of power. In other words, autoethnographic text is heterogeneous (or in the words of Bakhtin (1981:294), “heteroglossic”) “on the reception end as well as the production end: it will read very differently to people in different positions in the contact zone” (Pratt 1991:36-37). What Pratt emphasizes in her nuanced discussion of the contact zone is that contact zone is anything but homogenous in any sense of the word, though the dominant culture would attempt to make its own rules of the game as the only legitimate ones. Nor are the language resources and repertoires in the contact zone discrete and bounded entities as is often in the discussion of acculturation that ignores the power dynamics and simply sees one culture assimilating into another. To speak simply in terms of acculturation and ignoring the power dynamics one can altogether miss the creative use of language resources that the dominated bring together to intervene into and subvert the dominant power. Leap’s (2003:416-417) concept of “flexible language” in the light of the preceding discussion can be read as a language practice of the contact zone. Leap defines flexible language as accumulations of diverse linguistic and symbolic resources of meanings that draw on linguistic repertoires across linguistic boundaries. He asserts that this language pluralism is neither accidental nor arbitrary but a linguistic response to the disruptions of late modernity characterized by uncertainties and experiences of fragmentation, destabilization, and fluidity resulting from displacements, and unequal accumulation of resources (Leap 2003:415). In such a shifting and decentralized everyday experience, language practices have also become flexible 77 in their usage particularly in the negotiation and contestation of “site-specific struggles over race/ethnicity, class position, sexual diversity, cultural allegiance, national identity, and other features shaping and fragmenting everyday life within the late modern period” (Leap 2003:402). More importantly, flexible language is a valuable resource especially in the unpredictable late modern experiences in which one can adjust or reconstitute meaningmaking as the site and content of contestation and negotiation undergoes change (2003:417). The Loss of Meanings in Translation In July 2013, a Pashtun social media user uploaded a video on his Facebook account showing a boy, a 5th grade student in an Urdu-medium public school from a Pashtun rural background in Pakistan, reading from his school textbook (see figure 2.1). In the video clip, the boy is reading aloud from his Urdu text mostly fluently, but at times haltingly, and then proceeds to translate it into Pashto language, his mother-tongue. The video also shows a man sitting next to the boy who apparently helps the boy in his reading, but the man also smiles and even laughs loudly whenever the child makes a ‘mistake.’ The boy, recognizing that his translation is the source of humor, responds with occasional smiles to the camera. Figure 2.1 Screen grab of the video clip showing a Pashtun child translating an Urdu lesson The video became an instant hit. It went viral on social media (Facebook and Twitter) and was widely distributed, especially by Pashtun, mostly with the intent to generate laughter. (The version of the video uploaded on YouTube alone has more than 0.2 million views). However, once the humor ran its course, the tone of the comments on the video gradually became somber, and people lamented over the poor standards of educational institutions in 78 Pakistan. Owing to its popularity on the social media, one of the mainstream English daily newspapers posted the video clip with English subtitles on the blog section of its website (see Express Tribune, 2013a, July 20:A3). The text of the lesson that the boy reads out in the video is about a young girl, Shaila, who wants to have new clothes on Eid, the Islamic celebratory festival. However, her father has recently lost his job and her mother is ill. Realizing that her parents cannot fulfil her wish, she prays for new clothes while she is about to fall asleep in her bed. In her sleep, she dreams about an angel answering her prayers for new clothes. In the following lines, I discuss an excerpt from the text of the video that I transcribed to shed some light on nature of the boy’s struggle with the text. But before, I proceed to the text, I provide the guidelines for the transcription system that I have used in this dissertation. The lines beginning with “Urdu:” are my English translations of the Urdu text read out by the child in the video. The lines beginning with the heading “Pashto:” are my English translations of the child’s translation of his Urdu lesson into Pashto. In the transcription system, I italicize words or phrases that belong to a different language source other than the primary language used in each line. The italicized words are then followed by the initials of the source language in postscript (for instance, Eng. for English, Urdu. for Urdu, and Pashto. for Pashto). Text within square brackets provides nonverbal details such as gestures, or audience’s responses. Three dots in square brackets indicate the text that is left out i.e., not transcribed. I also use double parenthesis to provide contextual details and other nuances of the text that are not directly part of the verbal or non-verbal communication. Example 2.1 001 Urdu: Eid was about to come. 001 Pashto: Eid Urdu will come. ((In Pashto, the word for “Eid” is “akhtar.” The boy in his translation uses the Urdu word “Eid” rather than the Pashto one. However, it is clear from the preceding text, not included here, that he understands the meaning of the Urdu word “Eid.”)) 002 Urdu: All the friends of Shaila had bought new clothes. 002 Pashto: Shaila did not have clothes, her father would bring her clothes. 79 ((The word for “new” in Urdu is “nayay” which sounds like the negative construction “na way” in Pashto. “Na way” in Pashto means “to not have” and hence his translation: “Shaila did not have clothes.” The word for female friend in Urdu is “sahili,” with which he is unfamiliar. However, without even a slight hesitation, he introduces the character of the father to substitute for the unfamiliar word “sahili.”)) 003 Urdu: Shaila also wanted to wear shiny clothes on Eid. 003 Pashto: Shaila’s father would bring her shiny clothes, they will shine. ((The word for “shine” is the same in Urdu and Pashto languages)) 004 Urdu: But she could not buy new clothes. 004 Pashto: Shaila’s father was not home. He had gone to the shop to get Shaila clothes. ((Again he takes the Urdu word “nayay” (Urdu for “new”) to mean “na way” (Pashto for “to not have”), and continues to develop the character of the father.)) 005 Urdu: Shaila’s father had [inaudible, probably says “lost his”] job. 005 Pashto: Shaila’s father got a new job. ((“Nokree,” the word for Job is the same in Urdu and Pashto.)) 006 Urdu: He was in search of a job. 006 Pashto: he had a holster under his belt. ((The word for “search” in Urdu is “Talash” which is somewhat closer to the Pashto word “Kaash,” meaning “holster”)) 007 Urdu: Her mother was also ill. 007 Pashto: His mother was ill. ((The word for “ill” i.e, “beemar” in Urdu and Pashto is the same)) 008 Urdu: “I wish I could somehow get new clothes.” 008 Pashto: He had a holster, a holster under his belt. He also had a pistol under his belt. ((The word for “wish” in Urdu is “kaash” which in Pashto is a word for “holster)) 009 Urdu: Shaila prayed in her heart. 009 Pashto: Shaila prayed for her heart Urdu. ((The boy translates the Urdu word “dil” (heart) as it is. The Pashto for “heart” is “zrah.” The word for “pray” (dua) is the same in Pashto and Urdu.)) 80 010 Urdu: In the night while lying in her bed […] 010 Pashto: Sheila cooked her potpourri. ((The word for “lying” in Urdu is “Laiti” which is also a word in Pashto meaning “a mixture of random liquids”)). 011 Urdu: She was thinking. 011 Pashto: She was thinking. ((The word for “thinking” in Urdu and Pashto is the same)) 012 Urdu: that she felt sleepy ... 012 Pashto: She had sleepy Urdu, means her tooth fell out. […] ((Unable to understand the Urdu word for “sleepy” (“neendh”), he constructs a story about Shaila’s tooth)) 013 Urdu: In her ear silently… 013 Pashto: It means, her ear was hit with a stick. [The grown up who is listening to his reading and translation gives out a muffled laugh. The child also smiles recognizing that his translation is funny and humorous] ((The Urdu word for “silently” is “chupkay,” which reminds him of the Pashto word “chukay” which means “sticks.”)) 014 Urdu: Sometimes desires are fulfilled. 014 Pashto: It means her Eid has finished. Now she will go to her father’s house. ((The Urdu word “puri” for “fulfilled” reminds him of the Pashto word “pura” meaning “finished/completed.” The word “puri,” which he takes to mean the Pashto word “pura” (finished), prompts him to develop the story further by drawing on his own cultural knowledge. According to Pashtun custom, married women visit their parents (father’s home) at the end of the Eid which makes him assume that Shaila will now go to her father’s house as the Eid has “finished”)) 015 Urdu: Oh! what was that sound. 015 Pashto: Here, there was a sound made with a saw. ((“Array,” which is an expression for surprise in Urdu is translated as “Array” a word for “saw,” the instrument, in Pashto. The word for “sound” is the same in Urdu and Pashto)) 81 016 Urdu: Shaila was very surprised. 016 Pashto: Shaila was very surprised. (The word for “surprise” in Urdu (“hairaan”) is almost similar to the Pashto word for surprise, “airaan”)) 017 Urdu: Again that sound came from nearby. 017 Pashto: Again there was a sound. The poor person came and said, “who is making these sounds” ((The word for “nearby” in Urdu is “kareeb” that sounds like the Pashto word “ghareeb”, a word for “poor”)) 018 Urdu: But it is you 018 Pashto: She said, “why is the stone falling?” ((At a loss to understand the sentence he just read out, as there are no familiar words in it, he develops the word “sound” from the previous sentence into that of the sound of falling stones)) 019 Urdu: “Who?” asked Shaila. 019 Pashto: Shaila conked out. ((The word for “asked” in Urdu is “poochah” which sounds similar to the Pashto slang “poocha”, meaning “conked out/went dud” in Pashto)) The text demonstrates the impressive linguistic skills of the child. His minimal understanding of the Urdu text does not deter him from putting his linguistic competence and creativity to use. Though he sometimes falters in reading the Urdu text, he does not pause or falter at all in his Pashto translation. He has not mastered the Urdu syntax and vocabulary, but he is quick to capitalize on any word in the text that even remotely resembles words in his Pashto language for his creative translation of some of the Urdu words into Pashto (See Table 2.3). For instance, in line 2, he translates the Urdu word naya (meaning “new”) as Pashto phrase na way (meaning “to not have”), in line 6, talash (meaning “to search”) as kaash (meaning “a holster” of a pistol”), in line 8, “kaash” (meaning “to wish”) as “kaash” (meaning “holster”), in line 10, laiti (meaning “to lie down”) as laiti (meaning “a potpourri”), in line 13 chupkay (meaning “silently”) as chukay (meaning “sticks”), in line 14, puri (meaning “fulfilled”) 82 as pura (meaning “finished” or “completed”), in line 15, array (the expression of surprise) as arra (meaning, “a saw,” the instrument for cutting wood), in line 17, kareeb (meaning “nearby”) as ghareeb (meaning “poor”), and lastly, in line 19, poochah (meaning “asked”) as poocha (a slang for “failing” or “going dud”). Table 2.3 Translating Urdu to Pashto Line number Urdu word Pashto Translation 2.1.2 Naya, meaning “new” Na way, meaning “to not have” 2.1.6 Talash, meaning “to search” Kaash, meaning “holster [of a pistol]” 2.1.8 Kaash, meaning “to wish” Kaash, meaning “holster [of a pistol]” 2.1.10 Laiti, meaning “to lie down” Laiti, meaning “a potpourri” 2.1.13 Chupkay, meaning “silently” Chukay, meaning “sticks” 2.1.14 Puri, meaning “fulfilled” Pura, meaning “finished/completed” 2.1.15 Array, used to expresses surprise Array, meaning “a saw” [the instrument for cutting wood] 2.1.17 Kareeb, meaning “nearby” Ghareeb, meaning “poor” 2.1.19 Poochah, meaning “asked” Poocha, meaning “going dud” [a slang for failing at something] At places where the text totally eludes him, he draws inferences from the context, not just from the context of what the text means to him, but also from his own cultural knowledge and local social and political conditions. For instance, in line 2, he reads out the text from Urdu: “All the friends of Shaila had bought new clothes.” As already mentioned above, he recognizes two words, kapray (the word for “clothes” which is the same in Urdu and Pashto) and the Urdu word, nayay (“new”) which he deciphers as na way (“to not have”). Seizing upon the two clues, “to not have” and “clothes,” he infers that Shaila, the character, does not have clothes. Now drawing on his knowledge that it is men (fathers) who are responsible for the provision of 83 clothes and other basic needs, he introduces the character of the father, and translates the sentence as: “Shaila did not have clothes, her father would bring her clothes.” Once introduced, he continues to develop the character of the father that fits coherently in his translation. In line 6 and 8, for instance, he translates the word kaash (“to wish”) as kaash (holster), and makes the inference that Shaila’s father wears the holster under his belt which has a pistol in it. Due to the emergence of the Taliban, general insecurity and violence is a daily occurrence, and his translation reflects this local social and political condition in which men are primarily responsible for security and defense of the household (see chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of the disruptive influence of Talibanization on Pashtun culture). The whole text is replete with the boy’s linguistic and creative skills, with his ability to make inferences, and even his skill to introduce and develop characters that fit convincingly in the plot of the story that he constructs. The text clearly demonstrates that the boy, like any other average child, is able to learn and excel in a language if provided adequate linguistic input. However, in a standard assessment test his translation would be termed as ‘wrong’ and his linguistic skills would remain unrecognized and unacknowledged. But that is not the only issue here. The question is: why does the Urdu language, which is the medium of instruction, elude him, and what does it mean for a child socially, politically, and economically, to ‘learn’ in a language that constantly evades him? The text can also be read as an instance of flexible language. In the example, the child draws on language resources across language boundaries in his effort to understand the Urdu lesson that he is required to study. He substitutes an Urdu word or phrase that eludes him with Pashto word, making the best of his limited resources. Moreover, the flexible use of language is not just confined to drawing on multiple language resources, but it also extends to cultural repertoires. His translation Pashtunizes the lesson by inserting his own social and cultural experiences in the text. For instance, in line 6 he substitutes the word talash Urdu (“to search”) with Kaash Pashto (“holster”). This substitution re-reads the lesson in a way that reflects his own experiences of growing militancy in his hometown, an understanding that is missing from the original text of the lesson. Similarly, he translates “sometimes desires are fulfilled” (line 14) as “Her Eid has finished. Now she will go to her father’s house;” his difficulty in understanding the 84 lines, nonetheless, provides him an opportunity to reinterpret it as an Eid that reflects his own experiences of Eid celebration. (In Pashtun custom, married women visit their parent’s home on second or third day of Eid). As Leap (2003:417) argues flexible language is neither arbitrary nor accidental but a response to the unequal accumulation of linguistic resources. In similar fashion, the child is a product of an environment where language resources are unequally accumulated. Unlike the children of elite schools who have access to the privileged English and Urdu languages taught by teachers who are proficient in the languages they teach, the child is placed at disadvantage. Deprived of language input in the privileged languages, he uses flexible language as a creative resource to contend with his linguistic context in which he is placed at a distance from privilege. Furthermore, flexible language is also a critical resource that serves as an autoethnographic text, i.e., it intervenes in and engages with representation of the dominant. From the mainstream urban and Urdu-speaking perspective the text would appear wrong as in the contact zone the dominant imposes its (linguistic) rules as the only legitimate ones. But as an autoethnographic text, the child’s translation (whether deliberate or by necessity) takes the Urdu lesson (the text of the dominant) as a point of entry to project his own point of view into the dominant circuits as I have discussed in the paragraph above. But, the chances are that such autoethnographic text would either go unnoticed or read as anomalous and chaotic by the mainstream society. However, this is not the case as far as the child’s text is concerned. Despite its reception as a text that is humorous due to its exclusion from the forms of meaning-making that are legitimate and state sanctioned, his voice did manage to make it to the mainstream media, and thus effectively intervened in the dominant modes of representation. One cannot brush aside this example as an isolated occurrence. In fact, the Annual Status of Education Report (2014:120, 162; also see Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2014) states that in the Tribal Areas 88% of class 3 children could not even read a story from their Urdu text, and 55% of class 5 children could not read a class 2 story. In the rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which includes Swat, 90% of class 3 children could not read a story from their Urdu text, and 63% of class 5 students could not read a class 2 Urdu language story. Moreover, there are a number of similar video clips that Pashtun have shared on the 85 social media especially after the emergence of the video that I discussed above. In Pakistani media and governmental reports the alarming statistics mostly generate debate about providing adequate resources and better qualified teachers, which is needed, but the problem lies much deeper. To investigate the questions raised above, we need to look deeper into the structural and institutional constraints that stymie students’ efforts to acquire education and develop their language skills. Language Discrepancies As mentioned before, Swat and the Tribal Areas are rural Pashtun-majority areas where 74 per cent of the school going population attends Urdu-medium state-run public schools (GoP 2014:147).98 Who studies in which school and in what medium of instruction is not a matter of choice in the Pakistani system of educational apartheid (Mansoor 2005:353; Rahman 2010:245). The quality of education and the medium of instruction are determined by ones geographical location, parents’ income level, and their relation with the type of state institutions. The geographically disadvantaged students of rural areas of the Tribal Areas and Swat are coerced into studying in Urdu-medium state funded schools as the English-medium schools (both public and private) are set up in the urban areas. There are, however, pseudoEnglish mediums schools in the rural areas who profess to teach in English but in actual practice are Urdu-medium. Similarly, majority of parents cannot afford to pay the prohibitive fees of the privately owned English-medium schools in the urban centers; however, an employee of military and some of the civil bureaucracies do get subsidized education in the state owned English- medium schools, which too are mostly in the urban areas. Given a choice most parents and students would opt for English-medium schools as English is the language of the elites and a key to upward mobility. Moreover, as noted by Rahman (1999:1-4) majority of parents in rural Pashtun areas would prefer to opt for Pashto-medium schools if they were widely available and if the language had not been ghettoizing due to its exclusion from the official and institutional domains. We should therefore see the language discrepancies that I am going to discuss in the following lines in this context. In these rural Urdu-medium schools neither the 98 The remaining 26 per cent include those who attend madaris, or pseudo-English-medium schools (schools that profess to teach in English language but in actual practice they are vernacular-medium schools). On the other hand, in the urban areas, 41 per cent of the students attend Urdu-medium public schools, while a great majority attend English-medium (both public and private) schools (GoP 2014:147). 86 students nor their teachers are comfortable in learning and teaching in Urdu, the language that has little to do with their daily life. Akram, a 42 year old male, who belongs to the Tribal Areas, studied in an Urdu medium school in his village up to primary level. Recalling his early school days, Akram notes the language practices in his school in the following words: Example 2.2 001 A: Our students were 100% Pashtun, and our teachers were also Pashtun. […] And also 002 the [Urdu] lessons would be translated in Pashto. When we would study the Urdu 003 lesson, when the teacher would teach us, he would say the sentence in Urdu and then 004 he would tell us in Pashto that this means this […] At home when my father and uncles 005 would teach me, they would teach me in Pashto. The real thing was that they were 006 thinking that the basic thing is to make me understand so they would teach me in 007 Pashto, they could not speak with me in Urdu. 008 TK: Why? They could not speak in Urdu? 009 A: Should they? [pause] Why would they! As the example indicates, for Akram, his teachers, and his fellow students, the language of daily social interaction was Pashto. However, the medium of instruction was Urdu, a language to which they were exposed briefly only when the Urdu lessons were read out. Moreover, the language of comprehension (and informal instruction) was also Pashto and not Urdu. At school teachers would translate the Urdu text in Pashto, and at home as well he would get help with his lessons in Pashto. Notice Akram’s response to my follow up question on his statement, “they [father and uncles] could not speak with me in Urdu.” Naively assuming that his relatives who helped him with his lessons did not know Urdu language, I ask the question, “why? They could not speak in Urdu?” to confirm my assumption. My question strikes to Akram as odd and irrelevant that might have the intention of regulating his linguistic practices. His curt response, “Should they? Why would they!” questions the assumption that he “should” have been taught in Urdu language. If education is about comprehension (“the basic thing is to make me understand”), then Pashto is the logical choice as it is the language of everyday life, of sociality, of home, and above all, the language of comprehension. However, Pashto has no 87 official recognition in the school, forcing the student to formally ‘learn’ in a language that is incongruous with his daily life. There is a mismatch between the language of instruction and the language of comprehension. Lessons are studied in Urdu, but they are translated into Pashto for comprehension. Also there is a mismatch between the language of home and the official language of school. In home he speaks Pashto, but at school Urdu is the formal language. Similarly, Salman, a 39 year old male from a village in Swat, narrates in almost similar words his experiences in his Urdu-medium local school: Example 2.3 001 In our village school, the need to speak in Urdu was only when we would pick up a book. 002 And even there we would read a sentence in Urdu and then we would translate it in 003 Pashto. Students had no need to speak with each other in any other language than 004 Pashto. The teacher and the student would have no need to speak in Urdu. And we did 005 not have exposure to media like tv and such things. So Urdu was an alien language for us 006 from many angles. Before the year 2000, electronic media, which is dominated by Urdu language, was not as ubiquitous as it is today though many rural areas still have limited or no access to the electronic media. Had there been an exposure to the media, Salman might have had an informal source out of the educational institution to acquire Urdu language. Limited to the formal written Urdu words in the curriculum, he did not get sufficient input to learn the language. Urdu, indeed, was “an alien language” that was not organically a part of their lived experiences. Or in other words, the (written) Urdu language was not aligned with the (spoken/oral) Pashto language. Unlike Akram and Salman who studied in village schools, Shahid, a 25 year old male, got the opportunity to study in Peshawar city adjacent to his tribal district. Shahid had studied in a Pashto-medium school (all Pashto-medium schools provide education only up to grade 4) in his village. Upon his graduation from the school, his parents got him admitted in an Urdu-medium school in the city and arranged for him to stay with his relatives who were settled in the city. Though Urdu was not totally unfamiliar to him, as he had ‘studied’ Urdu as a compulsory subject in his village school, he still had the daunting challenge of learning in the language that 88 would be the medium of instruction from then on. Recalling his times in the school in the city, he states: Example 2.4 001 We never improved our Urdu. Even when I went to the school in the city,-- it is the same 002 Pakthunkhwa 99 even if it is a city. So even in school I had friendship with all those who 003 would speak Pashto, and it was not difficult, they were many. It was not Lahore 100 that I 004 had to find a Pashtun. We would not have friendship with Urdu speakers due to the fear 005 that now we would have to speak in Urdu. We would also shy away from Urdu speaking 006 teachers—that now how would we speak in Urdu with them. As Shahid’s narrative implies, in the language hierarchy, Urdu (the language of powerful minority) occupies a privileged position, whereas Pashto (the language of majority) is relegated to a lower status. Ironically, it is Shahid who feels a sense of deficiency over his hesitation to converse in Urdu. Moreover, he feels the pressure to communicate in Urdu with non-Pashto speakers, who feel no such compulsion despite living in Pashtun majority areas. This in itself highlights the extent of power asymmetry between Urdu and Pashto, and the subordination of the language of majority by the language of minority. Contaminated Language Input The problem, however, did not confine itself just to the limited exposure to Urdu and the linguistic discrepancies. My research participants report that the Urdu language input that they received in their village school was also faulty, further compounding the problem of learning the Urdu language. (However, research participants who studied in Urdu-medium schools in the urban areas, mostly rated their teachers as “good” in Urdu, and tolerably good (guzara ay ka wala) in English). I put the question of teachers’ competency in Urdu language to my research participants, and most of them complained about the poor quality of instruction they received in Urdu language. Take, for instance, Salman’s answer to my question: Example 2.5 001 TK: How would your teachers teach in Urdu? I mean were you satisfied with their 99 Pakhtunkhwa is a reference to the Pashtun majority province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 100 Lahore is a city in the politically and economically dominant Punjab province of Pakistan. 89 002 knowledge of Urdu? 003 Salman: Now when I think about it—at that time what did I know whether they spoke 004 Urdu correctly or not. I remember some occasions in which our teachers said Urdu 005 words incorrectly. I even remember a word. We had a teacher—in Urdu, you know the 006 word muzyan Urdu, he would call it muzeen. Another would call the English word 007 “jackal Eng” as “Jakaal”, and “donkey Eng” as “dun-key” and “boycott Eng” as “bi-caat.” Shaukat, a middle-aged man hailing from a tribal district studied up to grade 8 in his village school. Dissatisfied with his schooling, he decided to discontinue his education and concentrate on his agricultural land. Shaukat narrates that during his school days, he never came across any teacher who was proficient in Urdu or English language. Example 2.6 001 TK: so what would it be like studying Urdu subject? 002 Shaukat: […] He [the teacher] did not know Urdu wurdu. 101 The poor man was like us 003 […] They [the teachers] would speak Urdu in Pashto [laughs]. 004 TK: what do you mean? 005 Shaukat: I mean —they would say incorrect masculine feminine [gender inflections]. 006 Similarly, they would make other mistakes. Though Shaukat did not elaborate on the nature of his teachers’ mistakes, but his views are well supported by researchers studying the schools in the rural areas of Pakistan (see for instance, De Groot 2010:2; Khan 2005:27; Rahman 2004:68). Rahman (2004:68-69), who has conducted a number of surveys in the various educational institutions in Pakistan, reports that the quality of teaching in the Urdu-medium schools in the rural areas is generally poor, mainly because the teachers themselves are the product of these schools and are from similar socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds who settle for these poorly paid teaching jobs after exhausting other opportunities of employment. In this vicious circle, students continue to suffer due to the lack of language input. The educational institutions in the rural areas not only provide insufficient language exposure but the language input in itself is contaminated and 101 In Pashto language one can repeat a word by adding “w” or “m” sound at the beginning of a word. For instance, the word “Urdu” becomes “Urdu wurdu.” This construction is a discourse marker (similar to “everything” in English) that draws on the shared knowledge of the speaker and the addressee. 90 faulty. In such a scenario, it is impossible for a child or any language learner to learn a language or comprehend meaning in the language even if they want to learn it. Learning the language becomes a meaningless struggle in which the desired or imposed language constantly eludes them. Urdu as the Language of Examination A number of my research participants in their interviews used the controlling metaphor of “hurdle” and even a “bully” when talking about their contact with Urdu language in their educational institutions: Urdu ra isaar kum (Urdu restricted me), Urdu da la sa mey wahal okhwarul (I was beaten at the hands of Urdu), Urdu ra sara guta o ka (Urdu did trick with me), Urdu sakht kharab koo (Urdu hurt us badly). Elaborating on their negative evaluation of Urdu, they narrated stories from their school days in which Urdu indeed came across as inhibiting force. Urdu was primarily a hurdle for them because of the mismatch between the language of examination and language of expression. Though the teachers and the students would circumvent Urdu in their daily classes through the informal use of Pashto, the students were nonetheless required to take their examination in Urdu. As Urdu was the formal language of the educational institutions, it would prevent the students from expressing themselves even if they had a good understanding of their educational materials. Shaukat, excerpt from whose narrative I shared earlier, narrates a story that brings to light the extent of, what Mugane (2005:164) calls, “stealth muzzling” in the educational institutions. Example 2.7 001 We had agriculture practical in grade 8th. I had taken agriculture as an optional subject. 002 So for the practical they [teachers] had put different agricultural produce and they 003 would ask, “what is this and what is this?” Urdu. So when he [teacher] put his finger on 004 wheat and asked, “what is this?”Urdu. I said, “It is cotton”Urdu . So my teacher laughed. He 005 was a Pashtun, so he said to me in Pashto, “don’t you know what this is?”I said, “sir Eng, it 006 is wheat, of course.” so see Urdu did a trick with me there […] we know everything 007 about wheat. Don’t we grow wheat! 91 Shaukat grew up in his village and had firsthand experience with the wheat crop but he was required to communicate in Urdu language that effectively muzzled him in expressing even the name of the crop let alone the knowledge that he had about the crop. Ironically, he translates the produce in Urdu that he knows “everything about” as cotton. But cotton is not grown in the Tribal Areas or even in any other indigenous Pashtun area in Pakistan. Cotton is, in fact, the most widely grown crop in Punjab, the most numerous and economically dominant province in Pakistan. Shaukat’s knowledge of the crop would have been lost in the translation had the teacher not questioned him in Pashto. However, in written examinations, his answer would have been wronged and he would have ‘failed,’ which is what happened with Shaukat. Shahid also narrates the story of his muzzling at the hands of Urdu. As already mentioned, after graduating from his village primary school, he applied for a popular Urdumedium secondary school in Peshawar city. Due to the school’s popularity and the limited number of schools available in the city, majority of students from Peshawar and adjoining areas would apply for admission. The school had set up an admission test to screen out some students for admission. The test was taken in two subjects: Urdu and mathematics. Shahid took the test, but the result declared him ‘failed.’ The result was shocking for his father who had been helping him with his lessons at home. His father went to the school and asked for Shahid’s answer sheets. Example 2.8 001 So he [the father] took me with him to the school and asked them [the teachers] to 002 show him my test. So they showed us the test. In mathematics they had given us four 003 questions and it also said, “attempt any two question from below” Urdu. I got deceived 004 [by the instructions]. I attempted all of them and all of them were correct. When they 005 took my Urdu test, I still remember that in Urdu I had twelve or thirteen incorrect 006 answers. My father told the teacher that he has basic understanding, it is only a matter 007 of Urdu as he has his teaching in village school. But the argument of the teacher was— 008 here I was beaten up by Urdu—that the medium of instruction was Urdu, if he 92 009 could not understand Urdu then he would not be able to function in the school. So they 010 did not give me admission. They said that medium of instruction was Urdu and his Urdu 011 was weak. Shahid performed well in mathematics that did not require the knowledge of Urdu though he misread the instruction in Urdu due to his lack of mastery over the language. But when it came to Urdu, he found himself muzzled. The teacher’s response that without Urdu he could not survive in the educational system effectively highlights the function of Urdu as a barrier. Pashtun Language Practices: semilingualism or Language innovation? During the interviews, I invited my research participants to share their views on the status of Pashto language in the light of its expulsion from the educational and other state institutions. Some opined that Pashto language due to its victimization at the hands of the state was fast losing its vigor and that Pashtun in general do not speak any one language well. Salman draws my attention to what he thinks is the plummeting linguistic competence that is responsible for the production of institutionalized failure. Example 2.9 001 How many people know [how to write] Pashto? You tell me. [pause]. On this side [of the 002 border], not in Afghanistan. Now, English is in such condition, people retake 003 examination after examination to pass Pearl. 102 The whole [Pashtun] world fails it. One 004 or two pass it…. And when we speak Urdu then the Punjabi 103 makes fun of us. The statistics (as mentioned before) indeed support his view that majority of Pashtun in Pakistan cannot write in Pashto script despite the fact that they can speak the language fluently. English, on the other hand, is highly desired but it is mostly out of the reach of majority of Pakistanis living in the rural areas. English language especially becomes challenging for the Urdu-medium educated students in the rural areas, who have to suddenly switch to Englishmedium based education after high school. (College and university education in Pakistan is English-medium based. The challenges faced by the students due to this sudden switch to 102 Pearl here is a reference to John Steinbeck’s novella, The Pearl, which is a part of the English curriculum at Bachelors level in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 103 Punjabis are the politically, economically, and numerically dominant ethnicity in Pakistan. 93 English in itself is worthy of a thorough research). Moreover, those Pashtun who do learn and speak Urdu language, the lingua franca and the language of bureaucracy at the lower echelons, are discouraged and mocked at in the mainstream Pakistan (see chapter 3). Akram expresses a sense of struggle between the various languages he speaks. Among my research participants, he is the most highly educated and is very passionate about Pashto langauge. In spite of the muzzle and the restricted language environment that he suffered in the educational institutions, he managed to make it to a Ph.D. program in a university in the United States. Despite being proficient in English, Urdu, and his mother-tongue Pashto, he expresses a sense of loss in these words: Example 2.10 001 So when I think, I think in English, I cannot think in Pashto because I do not have 002 vocabulary, words that could be used as a vehicle for carrying those thoughts Eng. So I 003 cannot talk-- I cannot do it, I cannot even do it in English, I cannot make myself an 004 Englishman. I cannot have expression of the English people in English. I cannot 005 communicate Eng [in English] the way they [English people] do in English. My Urdu is also 006 in similar condition so I am completely—I will say that they destroyed my creativity Eng 007 and the same happened with all the people. They teach us Urdu but they don’t teach us 008 Pashto and then it becomes English. I come here [to the U.S.], I study even philosophy in 009 English… and when I talk with my own people, and have an academic discussion Eng with 010 them, so I then cannot talk… I cannot have an academic discussion with them. Akram “cannot talk” because he cannot communicate the knowledge that he has accumulated in English and Urdu languages to his fellow Pashtun (“… when I talk with my own people, and have an academic discussion Eng with them, so I then cannot talk”). In other words, the language hierarchy that allows higher education in English (but not in Pashto) has weakened his bond with his “own people.” Similarly, English is not there for him as it would be for a native speaker of English. All the languages that he speaks do not speak among themselves in a harmonious fashion that especially deprives him from connecting with Pashto speakers and build solidarity with them. 94 Shaukat, on the other hand, believes, due to its language policies, the Pakistani state is deliberately damaging Pashto and creating a wedge between older and younger generation of Pashtun. Example 2.11 001 Have you noticed the children nowadays—I mean the way they speak Pashto. It is like a 002 pickle. 104 They feel ashamed of Pashto and they laugh at their elders’ [use of Pashto]. 003 Nowadays, you would not say, kashogha or seepay but chamacha. 105 Now people don’t 004 say “I bathe” they say “I take a bath” so they gave them even their grammar Eng. Shaukat here draws attention to the growing practice among Pashtun of using Urdu syntax and vocabulary. This practice is frowned upon by Pashto language activists, who see it as an encroachment of Urdu onto Pashto language that may eventually end in the complete loss of Pashto language. While interviewing my research participants, I also observed the language practices of Pashtun on social media i.e., Facebook and Twitter. Their posts on the social media at first sight may strike as instances of semilingualism: having no mastery over any single language code. Their writings seem to be a mixture of English, Urdu, and Pashto. However, when observed closely, their language practices demonstrate creative use of language resources available to them. For instance, one Facebook user who goes by the name “Pashtun Malal” reports a firsthand account of a bomb blast in Peshawar city in which he luckily escaped unhurt. Following is a sentence from his post: Example 2.12 001 “‫”ﭼۂ ﺳﯾﻧﮕہ ﺑم ﺧﻼس ﺷو ﻧو ﺳم دﺳﺗﯽ ﺣﻠﭼل ﻣﭼﺎو ﺷو‬ 001 “The moment the bomb exploded, immediately there happened an uproar.” The sytax of the statement agrees with Pashto language, but the script is that of Urdu language. He also draws on the Urdu word hulchul (‫) ﺣﻠﭼل‬, meaning “uproar” in Urdu. The verb muchaw ( ‫ ) ﻣﭼﺎو‬meaning “happened” is a modification of the Urdu verb much ( ‫ ) ﻣﭻ‬meaning 104 Achaar (‫( )اﭼﺎر‬pickle) in Pashto is usually used metaphorically for something that is a mixture of disparate things. 105 Kashogha (‫ )ﮐﺎﺷوﻏﮫ‬and Seepay (‫ )ﺳﯾﭘﮯ‬are Pashto words meaning “spoon.” Chamacha (‫)ﭼﻣﭼﮫ‬, on the other hand, comes from Urdu word chamach (‫ )ﭼﻣﭻ‬with a Pashto inflection “a.” 95 “to happen” in Urdu. He takes the Urdu word much and adds inflection aw, used as a suffix in the conjugation of certain verb categories in Pashto, making it muchaw. Another Facebook account holder, who goes by the name “Maiwand Afghan,” similarly makes use of diverse linguistic resources in his comment on the performance of a Pakistani player in a Cricket game. Example 2.13 001 “‫”دا ظﺎﻟم ﺑﺎﭼﻲ ﺧو څم ڈﯾر ﭼﺎﻧﺳوﻧﮫ ﻣس ﮐڑل‬ 001 “This son of a gun missed so many chances” In this example, the script and syntax is mostly that of Pashto language with two words written in Urdu script dair ( ‫( )ڈﯾر‬many) and Kral ( ‫( )ﮐڑل‬did) which in Pashto would be written ‫ ډﯾر‬and ‫ ﮐړل‬respectively. Moreover, he draws on the English words miss while adding Pashto inflection -oona with the English word chance making it chancoona. Thus drawing on English, Urdu, and Pashto language resources in flexible language fashion, these users not only carry their message across but they also engage the more proficient users of Urdu and Pashto languages. Moreover, this flexible use of language also serves another important purpose. They draw on non-Pashto language words to communicate words that are considered taboo, for instance, the use of the English word “divorce.” Divorce is considered a stigma and a shame for a couple in traditional Pashtun culture. The Pashto word talaq (‫ )طﻼق‬if used as it is would come across as offensive. Furthermore, as will be discussed in chapter 4, some non-Pashto words are used to express words that in Pashto do not capture the disruption or the new emerging phenomenon. Discussion The educational institutions in the rural areas of Swat and the Tribal Areas (as elsewhere in Pakistan) are the sites where Urdu, the state sanctioned language, and Pashto, the powerless indigenous language, come into contact. This contact is highly asymmetrical as the dominant Urdu language squeezes and denies any space for Pashto language in the official and formal capacity. In this contact zone, Pashto language exists but in a subordinate and unofficial capacity. Pashto is the language of informal instruction and comprehension, but any attempt at meaning-making in Pashto in the official capacity either goes unnoticed, received as chaotic, or 96 even downright ridiculous and bizarre. Take for instance example 2.1, shared in the beginning of the chapter, in which the child’s impressive linguistic competence and creativity would make no sense in an examination conducted in the educational institutions of the state where Urdu and English languages are the only legitimate languages of meaning-making. In other words, any form of meaning-making that is outside the ‘legitimate’ and state sanctioned language practices would not be heard. Language in this way becomes a site of the state’s manifestation of sovereignty that excludes Pashto language from the legitimate language practices. In this way, any Pashto speaker who adheres to the Pashto language practices would remain excluded from the political and social community. This regulation of Pashtun’s language practices by the state has been disruptive of Pashto language and culture in Swat and the Tribal Areas. Prior to the dissolution of the independent state of Swat and its subsequent incorporation into the Pakistani state administrative structure in 1969, Pashto was the official language in the Princely state of Swat (Ahmed 1976:125; Miangul 1962:116; Nichols 2012:264; Rahman 1997:143). However, with the incorporation into Pakistan, Pashto was suddenly demoted from its official status and was replaced by Urdu language (See chapter 1). The Tribal Areas, on the other hand, is approached by the Pakistani state differently, i.e., not through direct administrative control but through indirect assimilation. Before the emergence of Pakistan in 1947 and during the British colonial era, the Tribal Areas existed as independent and autonomous territories where Pashtun had an acephalous and egalitarian political structure. With the postcolonial contact with the Pakistani state, the Tribal Areas were gradually coopted into the state structure through socio-economic linkages (such as employment opportunities) and migration to the mainstream Pakistani urban areas to benefit from the amenities available there as their consumption patterns shifted from agrarian mode to market economy. Now subjected to the socio-economic pressures, the unencapsulated nature of the Tribal Areas is compromised and the assimilation into the Pakistani state has come with the cost of subordination. The Tribal Areas that mostly existed as an oral society now suddenly had to adjust to the written and formal bureaucratic code of Urdu language, necessitating their need to engage with the state institutions especially the educational institutions (See chapter 1). 97 Now coerced to adapt to the privileged language of the state, the Urdu language has created disharmonies at various level for the population of the Tribal Areas and Swat. In the unequal contact between the state and Pashtun culture, the imposition of Urdu language has been disruptive of the harmony between Pashto language and Pashtun culture that should belong together. Drawing on Mugane’s insight (2005:167-168), we can identify the mismatches that are operational in the Urdu-medium schools in the Pashtun areas. Following are some of the incongruities that I identify in the light of the examples that I discussed earlier: Pashto Urdu/English Language of home Language of school Language of comprehension Language of formal Instruction Language of informal instruction Language of formal instruction Language of expression Language of examination Language of the teachers Language of the curriculum Language of socialization Language of official communication Language of majority Language of power Language of spoken interaction Language of writing Language of the culture Language of education Language of the culture Language of the state These institutionalized and systematic language disharmonies and mismatches have damaging consequences, all leading to muzzling that manifest themselves in various forms. For instance, in example 2.7, Shaukat was asked to identify a crop whose cultivation was part of his growing up in his village, but when forced to identify the crop in Urdu, the only legitimate language, he finds himself muzzled. Similarly, Shahid was “beaten up by Urdu” (Example 2.8, line 8), when he was asked to demonstrate knowledge about his subject that he had been taught by his father in Pashto, the language of comprehension for him. For both of them, the disharmonies, identified above, had the effect of rendering them as “talkative mutes” (Mugane 2005:162). More importantly, the language is out of their reach even if they want to learn it. Given faulty language input by teachers who themselves are not proficient in Urdu, they are deprived of learning the language. Moreover, Urdu is not part of their day to day social life, 98 further distancing them from getting Urdu language input that can enable them to learn the language in the informal social spaces. Thus the only Urdu language input that they get is in schools (when they open their books) and that too is faulty. For them this is an odd and peculiar situation in which they are coerced into learning Urdu which is simultaneously withheld from them. This has resulted in the production of institutionalized failure. Despite their linguistic capabilities and intellectual vigor, they find themselves muted by the necrolinguistic policies of the state. The exclusion of Pashto, and the imposition of Urdu has resulted among my research participants the perception that they are not proficient in any language. With minimum linguistic capital and decreasing linguistic ego, they rightly find themselves wronged, and disadvantaged. Akram finds himself shuttling between the English, Urdu and Pashto languages (example 2.10). In spite of his proficiency in English language, he feels that his learning of, and in, English has come at a cost. Denied to develop his own mother-tongue, Pashto, he finds himself isolated among his “own people” (example 2.10, line 9) as he cannot communicate with them his thoughts as he “think[s] in English” (line 1). Had he been given opportunities to develop the languages he speaks in harmonious fashion, then English and Urdu would not have been feeding and preying on Pashto. However, despite the restricted linguistic space in which my research participants find themselves, they creatively engage with linguistic resources available to them. By drawing on multiple languages and even language scripts, they utilize and create innovative linguistic practices by using the very resources of the state. Capitalizing on the internet and social media, they undermine the muzzle that attempts to mute them. Through their flexible language practices, they engage the privileged and the elites on social media and even intervene in their narrative. The video of the child translating from Urdu text is one such example that though initially treated as humorous, did manage to be heard in the mainstream media. Conclusion One can argue that the linguistic incongruencies and the incarceration of Pashto language in the institutions of the Pakistani state could be the product of defective state policies that intend good but err. However, this cannot be the case if one looks at the official 99 narrative of the state that perceives cultural and linguistic plurality and subnational identities as divisive and anti-state. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Pashtun students do better in their learning when taught in their mother-tongue, the state continues to maintain its policy of Urdu-medium education. Linguistic incarceration of indigenous languages in Pakistan has always been deeply implicated in the state-making practices and the regulation of its population. Educational institutions are one of the multiple sites where Pashto language is denied legitimacy. As will be seen in the next chapter, the representation of Pashto language as ludicrous and deformed language in the mainstream media is another aspect of the incarceration of Pashto language. 100 CHAPTER 3 MOCK PASHTO: COMEDIC LANGUAGE PRACTICES IN PAKISTAN’S MAINSTREAM URDU LANGUAGE MEDIA In this chapter, I study the comedic performances in the mainstream Urdu language media (national and private television channels) in Pakistan that represent Pashto language and by extension Pashtun, the speakers of Pashto, in a humorous manner. One of the regular sites in these performances is the playful rendition of Pashtun way of speaking that is stereotypical of Pashtun attempting to speak Urdu. I argue that the representation of Pashto language and its speakers in these comedic performances index Pashtun as linguistically deficient, and clownish. At the same time, these performances index the comedians as authentic citizens of the Pakistani nation by virtue of their proficiency in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, and their ability to critique the liminal status of Pashto and its speakers. Speakers of Pashto, as linguistically deficient, and clownish, are thereby rendered inauthentic citizens. Viewed more broadly, I argue that this comedic rendition of Pashto creates an ideological link between Pakistani nationhood and Urdu language, while delegitimizing Pashto language by linking it with ethnic parochialism and social backwardness. Furthermore, these performances monitor the linguistic and metalinguistic behavior of Pashtun by rendering them highly visible while simultaneously creating and sustaining a normative and invisible public space based on the unmarked Urdu language and the linguistic practices of Urdu-speakers (Hill 1999:684). In this way, these comedic media performances have a regulatory and exclusionary function that is a site for the production of normative citizenship that excludes Pashtun ethnic identities. Mock Languages, Stance, Positive Self-presentation and Negative Other-presentation Hill (2008:122; 1999:681; 1995b:6) cites the pejorative use of Spanish language by monolingual mainstream American English speakers as an instance of Mock Language. Terming such usage as “Mock Spanish,” she argues that it is a form of covert racist discourse mostly used by the people of English-language heritage. Mock Spanish, according to Hill, is the “incorporation” (the appropriation of material and symbolic resources from subordinate groups) of language materials from Spanish into English (Hill 1995b:6). More precisely, Hill (2008:134-142; 1995b:6) identifies four major features that constitute Mock Spanish: (1) 101 “semantic derogation”: pejorative and/or jocular use of positive or neutral Spanish loan words (e.g., use of adios in an advertisement with a picture of fleeing cockroaches); (2) “euphemism”: drawing on negative, mostly obscene and scatological Spanish words as euphemisms for lewd, vulgar and/or insulting English words (e.g., caca de toro for “bullshit”); 106 (3) “affixing”: use of Spanish morphological elements to make an English word sound humorous as well as pejorative (for instance, “El cheap-o”); and lastly (4) “hyperanglicization” or “bold mispronunciation”: a parodic imitation “of a Spanish accent” and deliberate mispronunciation of Spanish words using English-language phonology to create a jocular or pejorative sense (e.g. “Grassy-ass” for gracias). Hill (2008:150; 1999:681) argues that the use of Mock Spanish is central to the production of the “White public space;” as its name implies, it is a normative public space where differences between any two languages or language varieties are policed according to the dominant notions of “correct” language use so that the boundaries of the languages are maintained in an “orderly” fashion. However, in this “orderly” space in which the language practices of the dominated groups are monitored, the English speakers allow themselves to indulge in a “disorderly” use of Spanish language (such as the four features enumerated above). In this way, Mock Spanish as an instrument of the production and reproduction of the White public space creates a linguistic space, which Hill (2008:149-150) calls, “orderly disorder.” In other words, Mock Spanish creates a normative White public space by two contradictory practices: hypervigilance of “correct” English language usage (and therefore “orderly”) and distortion of Spanish (and therefore “disorderly”). Such “orderly disorder” renders Spanish highly marked and visible while it simultaneously makes English as invisible and unmarked norm (Hill 2008:1999:682). Mock Spanish functions through “indexicality”: a semiotic process, which is one of the three major relationships between a sign and its objects, identified by C. S. Peirce 107 (1995, cited in Hill 2008:142; Merrell 2001:31). An indexical sign like an index finger refers to or points 106 There is the assumption on the part of this Mock Spanish expression that “this language [Spanish] is particularly suited to scatology, and its speakers are perhaps especially given to its use…” (Hill 1995b:10). 107 The other two relationships between a sign and an object, according to Peirce, are “Iconic” and “symbolic” (Hill 2008:142; Merrell 2001:31). 102 to an object with which it is connected by relation of proximity or contiguity due to a cooccurrence in similar context; smoke for instance is an index for fire (Ahearn 2012:27; Hill 2008:142-143). Whereas Peircean index (also known as “referential index”) can be understood only in relation to its context, Silverstein (1993:36-37) argues that some indexical signs can create their own context such as “social indexicals” that point to something outside the immediate context such as a particular kind of identity or alignment with a group. For instance, the use of one language variety over the other, or being dressed in a particular way may signal one’s political and social alignments. In this way, unlike Piercean index, in Silverstein’s terms the relation between an index and its meaning is not exactly a relation of index and object but of entailment that creates its own context rather than being dependent on it (Hill 2008:153). Silverstein (1993:37) argues that different social indexical signals can become part of “metapragmatic awareness:” that is meanings not directly referenced in language, however, widely understood as indexical of certain positionality. 108 Drawing on Silverstein, Hill (2008:143-144) argues that Mock Spanish as a social indexical functions through double or split indexicality: a process that involves “direct indexicality” (or “positive indexicality”) and “indirect indexicality” (or “negative indexicality”). Though non-referential, the meanings of direct indexicality are acknowledged by its speaker as well as the audience and are employed to construct and attribute stances. (Stance will be discussed later in detail). For instance, Mock Spanish, for a speaker, directly indexes a positive persona of an informal, colloquial and jocular identity. On the other hand, the indirect indexicality (also non-referential) remains unacknowledged by the user of Mock Spanish. It is precisely for the covert nature of indirect indexicality that Mock Spanish implicitly creates highly negative and stereotypical messages about Spanish and Spanish-speaking population (Hill 2008:128-129). Building on Hill’s idea of Mock languages, Chun (2009) draws our attention to a somewhat similar language practice when exploring the racializing nature of “Mock Asian:” a parodic and ostensibly playful imitation of a “Chinese accent” by speakers of Mainstream 108 By “metapragmatics” Silverstein means the cues in a text that index the context in which it is to be understood (1993:37; Johnstone 2008:258). 103 American English or MAE (Chun 2009:261). Mock Asian capitalizes on the dominant ideologies that establish a relationship between a particular language practice and race/ethnicity as well as nationality (Chun 2009:272-273). Chun argues that Mock Asian indexes foreignness and “Asianness,” while mainstream American English indexes Americanness and whiteness. Mock Asian speakers exploit this indexical relation by mimicking the marked language variety (in this case East Asian languages grouped as “Chinese accent”) as their inauthentic use of language while simultaneously providing “linguistic evidence” for their proficiency in the unmarked normative language variety (i.e., MAE) to authenticate themselves as speakers of MAE and therefore members of the normative ethnicity 109 and nationality (Chun 2009:272). Despite its similarities with Mock Spanish (such as the elevation of the speaker’s persona and the simultaneous derogation of East Asian identity through the use of double indexicality), Mock Asian has significant differences. Whereas Mock Spanish is mostly covert, Mock Asian is overt as it explicitly i.e., directly indexes East Asians as comical and ethnically inferior (Mock Spanish indirectly derogates the target group and does not acknowledge such indexicality). Since it is an instance of intentional mockery, Mock Asian is not as pervasive in the public space as Mock Spanish is. The folk ideologies of race and language consider such explicit mockery as racist. However, Chun argues that in certain contexts, the voicing of Mock Asian is sanctioned as legitimate. According to the “ideologies of legitimate mockery” prevalent in mainstream American society, such mocking by the in-group members are harmless as they are perceived to have no intention or motivation to harm their own group 110 (Chun 2009:264). Secondly, and more importantly, Mock Asian is licensed as legitimate in comedic and non-serious frames as they allow the speakers to suspend the norms of politeness and political correctness 111 (Chun 2009:278). The specialized contexts such as stage performances by comedians, sitcoms or 109 However, ethnicity and nationality may be conflicting identities for those who do not share the normative phenotypical characteristics associated with a particular nationality. 110 This licensing of intentional mockery by in-group member is also sanctioned by the “personalist ideology of language” that claims that meanings reside in the intentions of the speaker and not in the words. (Hill 2008:38). 111 This does not mean that ideologies of legitimate mockery determine or predict Mock language usage. Mock language practices may reflect ideologies of language but they also reproduce and even contest them (Chun 2009:265). 104 stand-up comedies allow for use of intentional mockery without attracting public censure. However, despite invoking the comedic and non-serious frame, such language practices continue to reproduce highly negative stereotypes about the powerless and dominated groups (Chun 2009:278). In fact, such language practices are instrumental in reproducing language ideologies that hierarchically rank languages and by extension race/ethnicity, and nationality that these languages index. Moreover, such comedic frames also provide the culturally and linguistically privileged and dominant groups means to actively regulate and police the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. As mentioned earlier, Mock languages function by double indexicality, that is, negative and positive indexicality. Whereas the negative indexicality (mostly unacknowledged by Mock language user) derogates a language and its speakers, the positive indexicality (which is mostly acknowledged), on the other hand, attempts to elevate the persona of the user of Mock language as jocular and humorous. Relevant here to our discussion is “stance” which is a linguistic strategy that is employed to project a positive persona of the user of Mock language while it simultaneously attributes negative and derogatory meanings to the language group that it mocks. Stance is an aspect of the processes of indexicalization in which speakers or performers position themselves with respect to the contents of their speech or performance (linguistic and metalinguistic) and the people they interact with (Jaffe 2009:4-5, 30-31; Kiesling 2009:172-173). Stancetaking (i.e., deployment or enactment of stance) generally involves a social actor’s evaluation or assessment of the object of discourse (stance object) as well as the positioning of self and others through the evaluation of the stance object (Irvine 2009:53-54; Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:219). 112 In this way, self-positioning through stancetaking aligns individuals with one set of identities and opposes or disaligns them with others; moreover, an individual stancetaking entails stance attribution to others whether intentional or unintentional (Jaffe 2009:7-8). In other words, stance being embedded in a social interaction always involves 112 Irvine (2009:53-54) identifies some of the stances as follows: “Some commonly discussed types of stance would include epistemic stance, which concerns the truth-value of a proposition and the speaker’s degree of commitment to it—at issue, for example, in a sentence such as “the moon might be made of green cheese but I doubt it.” Another type is affective stance—the speaker’s feelings about a proposition, an utterance, or a text—an attitude, that is, toward some bit of discourse, illustrated in a sentence such as “it’s disgusting to think that the moon might be made of some nasty old bit of green cheese.” A third type of stance concerns a speaker’s self-positioning in relation to an interlocutor, or some social dimension of an interaction and its personnel, as might be found in an utterance such as “who are you to tell me what the moon is made of? And call me ‘sir’ when you speak to me.”” 105 comparison and contrast with other people, social categories, and moral identities; stance in this way enacts both subject positions and relationships, particularly social differences (Jaffe 2009:9; Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:197). In the light of this discussion we can enumerate certain key features of stance. Firstly, stance is social and relational in nature as stance is situated in an interactional (therefore social setting) and is a means to position oneself and others (therefore relational) (Jaffe 2009:7-8). Secondly, stance is dialogical that is it draws on and interacts with other stances as an individual stance is taken in relation to other stances and the people who enact them (Coupland and Coupland 2009:228). Thirdly, stancetaking is reiterative and therefore cumulatively established that augments a particular subject position or subject relationship (Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:00-201).113 (A stance if habitually and consistently enacted by an individual speaker is identified as “style” (Kiesling 2009:191; Johnstone 2009:46-47)). Fourthly, stance is indexical i.e., it constructs social meanings non-referentially (Jaffe 2009:4-5; Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:197-198). Fifthly, stance is evaluative that appraises often on the basis of good/bad and desirable/undesirable. Lastly, stance is ideological in Althusserian sense; stance is highly evaluative but it attempts to conceal its evaluation by appearing neutral 114 (Althusser 1971:116; Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:219-220). Moreover, stance is interpellative; once enacted the interlocutors are subjected to it whether they align or disalign with its evaluation (Althusser 1971:116; Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:220). I have so far discussed Mock languages and stances that function through indexicality and do not require any attempt at deniability of the racist content. The racist content in such discourse is either indirectly indexed and unacknowledged (and therefore does not require any deniability), or directly indexed by invoking a non-serious and humorous frame to suspend the norms of politeness. Van Dijk (1992:87), on the other hand, identifies another form of racist discourse that also attempts at positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation, however it does not primarily function through indexicality nor does it invoke a non-serious 113 As stance is reiterative and cumulative therefore it is hegemonic by nature: it continually renews, and modifies itself in the face of confrontation or resistance (Jaworski and Thurlow 2009:221). 114 “It is indeed a peculiarity of ideology that it imposes (without appearing to do so, since these are ‘obviousness’) obviousnesses as obviousnesses which we cannot fail to recognize and before which we have the inevitable and natural reaction of crying out: ‘That’s obvious! That’s right! That’s true!’” (Althusser 1971:116). 106 frame but is more direct and therefore requires strategies of denial for face saving. The denial strategies include disclaimers, mitigation, and excuses in all of which the denial is followed by an explicit or implicit “but”, for instance, “I have nothing against Arabs, but….” (Van Dijk 1992:88). 115 The denial strategies not only serve the purpose of face saving but they also neutralize resistance from the targeted group. In this way, despite being racist, such discourse appears to comply with the laws and norms of racial and ethnic equality. Moreover, these denial strategies make it difficult for those resisting them to gain credibility or find support for their cause (Van Dijk 1992:94). Comedic Performances and Mock Pashto in the Mainstream Pakistani Media Following Hill (2008:122; 1999:681; 1995b:6), I use the term “Mock Pashto” for the linguistic and metalinguistic practices in the mainstream Pakistani media that distort and derogate Pashto language and Pashtun ethnicity as a whole. Mock Pashto is a fictional and stereotypical way of Pashtun attempting to speak Urdu that depicts Pashtun as incompetent and dysfluent speakers of Urdu language. Moreover, this fictive linguistic portrayal co-occurs with stereotypical and demeaning images of Pashtun, particularly dress and body comportment. Mock Pashto shares a number of features with Mock languages. It is a disorderly speech used by mainstream Urban and Urdu-speaking population who draw in a distorted manner on Pashto language material in their use of Urdu language. Moreover, Mock Pashto functions through double indexicality that projects Urdu language and its speakers as unmarked norm while rendering Pashto language and its speakers hypervisible and nonnormative. In other words, Mock Pashto is an exclusionary racist discourse that index Pashtun as inauthentic citizens by virtue of their supposed inability to speak Urdu language. Like Mock Asian, Mock Pashto overtly derogates Pashtun and their language. Speakers of Mock Pashto primarily justify their overt racist speech through the “ideology of legitimate mockery” (Chun 2009:277). The ideology of legitimate mockery hinges on the personalist ideology: the assumption that meanings reside in a speaker’s intention rather than in the words 115 Another strategy is “reversal” in which there is a reversal charge of racism in which the victims are portrayed as oppressors and the powerful as victims; other subtle discursive strategies include “linguistic tricks” such as the use of scare quotes, words like “claim”, and “allege” to cast doubt or create distance from the accusation or evidence of racial or ethnic discrimination (Van Dijk 1992:104-106). 107 one say116 (Hill 2008:38). In other words, by invoking the frame of “light talk”, the users of Mock Pashto “are allowed to separate what they say from what they believe” (Feagin 2006:207; Hill 2008:92). Therefore, as long as one proclaims that one does not have racist intention, one can legitimately use Mock Pashto. One of the reasons for the prevalence of Mock Pashto in the mainstream media and public space in general in Pakistan is the absence of an effective media representation of Pashtun who could challenge or question such practices. As Van Dijk (1992:94) has noted that racist acts go unnoticed and do not require any hedging or denial when racist beliefs are openly advocated and legitimated by a group or society especially its elites and its institutions. In few cases, however, Mock Pashto users do use denials by qualifying their speech with expressions like “Pashtun are very good people”, “Pashtun are our brothers” before they launch into blatant and vulgar racist discourse. In Pakistan, the mainstream media is historically dominated by the Punjabis (the most numerous and powerful ethnicity in Pakistan), and Mohajir ethnicities, whereas the presence of Pashtun is almost negligible. This insufficient and distorted representation of Pashtun in the mainstream media results in the suppression of the concerns of Pashtun. Features of Mock Pashto As suggested above, Mock Pashto has a consistent pattern of linguistic and metalinguistic features that are understood to index Pashtun ethnicity. I have constructed the list in Table 3.1 to summarize some of the commonly occurring features in this category. Having been repeatedly used to characterize Pashtun, these features have become part of the metapragmatic awareness of the dominant majority in Pakistan. Each Mock expression, therefore, draws on the previous body of such expressions and even creates new but equally negative characterizations. I collected these features from their occurrences in 38 YouTube video Mock Pashto performances that were shared by Pashtun social media users between November 2012 and December 2014. These videos were originally aired on the mainstream Pakistani television channels, particularly the state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV), between 1985 and 2012. 116 Personalist ideology is in contradiction with referentialist ideology according to which meanings reside in the words rather than an individual’s beliefs and intentions (Hill 2008:39). 108 These videos range from a minute in length to 45 minutes with an average length of 10 minutes. I selected these videos for the following reasons: they have characters who speak Mock Pashto; they are comedic performances from several genres such as sitcoms, films, standup comedy, and dramas that freely use Mock Pashto for humorous effect; and finally they all include stereotypical images that often accompany Mock Pashto speech. In their performance of Mock Pashto, the comedians draw on a number of features relating to syntax, morphology, phonology, prosody, and a wide array of metalinguistic features. In each case, the use of Mock Pashto exaggerates and distorts Pashto language features and renders the now-demonized linguistic practice (and their speakers) hypervisible. As shown in the Table 3.1, the Mock Pashto features index highly negative characteristics stereotypically associated with Pashtun ethnicity. In terms of syntax and morphology, Mock Pashto indexes Pashto language as a restricted and inferior language, and Pashtun, the speakers of Pashto, by association as linguistically incompetent. Following are some of the most consistent syntactic and morphological features of Mock Pashto that I have noted in my data. In Mock Pashto expression, speakers use the Urdu personal pronoun thu (‫( )ﺗو‬you) which is usually used in Urdu language in highly intimate and informal expressions. Thu in Urdu language is one degree further informal than the informal personal pronoun tum (‫( )ﺗم‬you), whereas the most formal way of address is aap (‫( )آپ‬you). Similarly, verb inflections that are used with formal aap are replaced in Mock Pashto by verb inflections used with informal pronouns, e.g., -yey inflection in bathe-yey (‫( )ﺑﯾﮢﮭﯾﮯ‬to sit) is replaced with the informal –o inflection as in bath-o. These features index Pashtun as coarse and unrefined who do not use polite language. Moreover, these features index Pashtun as incompetent to read the context appropriately to determine whether to use formal or informal register. Pashto language does make a distinction between formal and informal pronouns and verb inflections. However, Mock Pashto suggests that Pashto language, assumed to be a restricted code, influences and interferes with Pashtun’s speech in Urdu language. Another strategy employed in Mock Pashto involves creating a deliberate disruption of gender agreement between lexical categories. In Mock Pashto expressions these agreements are either reversed or neutralized as shown in Table 3.1. These features not only render an 109 expression awkward but they also create a comical effect by using masculine with feminine categories and vice versa and therefore indexing Pashto language and its users as clownish and linguistically awkward. The most prominent features of Mock Pashto relate to phonology and prosody. These appear invariably in comedic performances and are part of metapragmatic awareness of the mainstream audience. To use Mock Pashto’s phonological and prosodic features is to directly index Pashtun ethnic identity. These features include: neutralization of aspirated sounds, exaggerated and unusual stress on the last syllables of words, excessive elongation of vowel sounds at the end of closed words, use of high pitch and high volume, and lastly sudden changes in tempo. The neutralization of aspirated sounds indexes Pashtun as inarticulate and incomprehensible. The effect is further reinforced by other characters (represented as proficient speakers of Urdu) asking the Mock Pashto speakers to repeat themselves in an apparent attempt to understand the speakers. At other times, the Mock Pashto speakers are interrupted in their Mock speech to correct their language use. Moreover, neutralization results in unintended puns that lead to humorous effect, for instance, aspirated k sound in Kahta (‫)ﮐﮭﺎﺗﺎ‬ (to eat) becomes Kutha (‫( )ﮐﺗﺎ‬dog) in the sentence “we eat” making it “we are dog.” Similarly, the exaggerated stress on last syllables index Pashtun as phonologically eccentric who are far away from the normative Urdu phonology. Moreover, the elongation of vowel sounds projects the speaker as wasteful of time and lazy in temperament who through drawing the vowel sounds excessively restricts communicational efficiency. Lastly, Mock Pashto uses high volume, high pitch, and alternation between increased and decreased tempo. These features represent Pashtun as loud and therefore impolite and coarse, as well as hyper due to the high volume and high pitch. The sudden changes in the speech tempo index Pashtun as inconsistent who keep shifting from a hyper to a calmer mood which creates a comical and clownish effect. The prominent features of performance in Mock Pashto are miscomprehension, literal reading of metaphorical language, and use of discourse markers understood to be typical of Pashtun. Miscomprehension and literal reading characterize Pashtun as deficient in intellect 110 and comprehension. These are the staple features of the numerous “Pathan” 117 jokes that do rounds in the social media and everyday life. The (fictional) discourse markers Khu (‫ )ﺧو‬and chey (‫ )ﭼﮯ‬usually delivered by lengthening the vowel sounds are verbal expressions that mark a shift to Mock Pashto from Urdu or identifies a speaker as a “Pashtun” character. Moreover, these foreign sounding discourse markers further distance Pashto speakers from the normative Urdu language which (like Pashto) does not have such expressions. Semantic pejoration is another important feature of Mock Pashto. Mock Pashto employs offensive Pashto words as euphemisms for vulgar Urdu words. In most of the cases, a Mock Pashto speaker is shown as not even being aware of the offensive nature of these words, implying that that vulgar and offensive use of language is something “natural” to Pashto speaker. This feature represents Pashto language (and Pashto speakers) as unfit for a polite or educational conversation. Another feature is the mockery of traditional and indigenous Pashtun names that are based on natural phenomena and entities such as oceans, rivers or other landmarks as opposed to the names of middle eastern/Arab origins meaning abstract qualities that are favored by the mainstream Urdu speaking public in Pakistan. Such mockery further characterizes Pashtun as exotic people with strange customs and practices who have fewer things in common with the mainstream Pakistani public. Dress and body comportment are another important features that co-occur with the use of Mock Pashto. The stereotypical Pashtun image is that of a male character with big handlebar moustache, prominent mole on one cheek, flowing beard, colorful and flowery jacket and/or turban (see Figures 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4). All these features depart from the normative practices and therefore index Pashtun as foreign, exotic, and clownish. 117 “Pathan” was the term used by colonial British authorities to refer to Pashtun. Pashtun generally consider the use of the term “Pathan” as derogatory. 111 Table 3.1 Mock Pashto Features Mock Pashto: Morphology and Syntax Feature Example Indexical Meanings personal pronouns “You informal have become mad informal verb Indexes Pashtun as as opposed to the inflection” disrespectful and unable formal personal ‫ﺗو ﭘﺎﮔل ﮨو ﮔﯾﺎ ﮨﮯ‬ to read a context that pronouns Thu (‫ ﺗو‬, meaning “you”) is used only in requires a formal and intimate contexts. It is considered polite register. Use of informal impolite in a formal context Use of plural first “We are going” Creates a comical effect as person pronoun ‫ﮨم ﺟﺎﺗﯽ ﮨﮯ‬ the projection of (we) for self pretentious and grandiose “Our guest was hurt” self (indexed by the royal ‫ﮨﻣﺎرا ﻣﮩﻣﺎن ﻣﺎرا ﮨﮯ‬ we) does not match with the perception of the audience. Verb inflection used in polite “Sit formal verb inflection deleted a little down” ‫ﺗﮭوڑا ﻧﯾﭼﮯ ﺑﯾﮢﮭو‬ language use is Use of the informal –o inflection bath-o deleted (‫ )ﺑﯾﮢﮭو‬as opposed to the formal –yey inflection bathe-yey (‫)ﺑﯾﮢﮭﯾﮯ‬ 112 Indexes Pashtun as coarse, unrefined, and impolite. Reversal of agreement “We put it there in meat balls and eat between verb and reversal of gender inflection first person pronouns “I” and “we” Use of masculine it” ‫ﮨم ﺗو ادھر ﮐوﻓﺗو ﻣﯾں ڈال ﮐر ﮐﮭﺎﺗﺎ ﮨﮯ‬ as opposed to ‫ﮨم ﺗو ادھر ﮐوﻓﺗو ﻣﯾں ڈال ﮐر ﮐﮭﺎﺗﮯ ﮨﯾں‬ “did very masculine inflection injustice” inflection with a noun classified as feminine Creates a comical effect ‫ﺑڑازﯾﺎدﺗﯽ ﮐﯾﺎ‬ as opposed to by confusing grammatical gender constructions. ‫ﺑڑی زﯾﺎدﺗﯽ ﮐﯽ‬ Indexes Pashtun as clownish and linguistically incompetent. Use of masculine “empty masculine inflection mini[van]” adjective inflection with a noun ‫ ﺧﺎﻟﯽ ﻣﻧﯽ‬as opposed to ‫ﺧﺎﻟہ ﻣﻧﯽ‬ classified as feminine Use of masculine “battery of masculine inflection drone” preposition phrase ‫ڈرون ﮐﺎ‬ with a noun classified as ‫ڈرون ﮐﯽ‬ as opposed to feminine 113 Repetition and “It is a very good bicycle, very good drone Projects an excitable and heavy use of bicycle, very good” volatile persona that modifiers contrasts with the ‫ ﺑﮩت‬، ‫ ﺑڑا اﭼﮭﺎ ڈرون ﺳﺎﺋﯾﮑل‬، ‫ﺑﮩت اﭼﮭﺎ ﺳﺎﺋﯾﮑل ﮨﮯ‬ measured and sober ‫اﭼﮭﺎ ﮨﮯ‬ speech in standardized Urdu. Exaggerated stress “Maqsood-ee” on the last syllable and addition of Shows excessive casualness and intimacy in ‫ﻣﻘﺻودی‬ social interaction that Inflection “ee” at causes discomfort to the the end of a addressee. Also indexes proper name linguistic deficiency due to (usually the name failure to pronounce of the addressee) proper names intelligibly. Mock Pashto: Phonology Neutralization of “Battery of the drone exploded” aspirated sounds ‫ڈرون ﮐﺎ ﺑﯾﮢری ﭘٹ ﮔﯾﺎ‬ Indexes linguistic incompetence. Makes the Neutralization of the aspiration of “t” speaker inarticulate and sound in phut (‫ ﭘﮭٹ‬meaning “to explode”) difficult to comprehend. 114 Exaggerated enmity unusual stress on the las syllable ‫دﺷﻣﻧﯽ‬ articulation of Linguistic and bodily behaviors are mapped stressed syllables with excessive stress on the last syllable onto each other to create along with nee in dushma-nee (‫ دﺷﻣﻧﯽ‬meaning an iconic relation between emphatic gestures “enmity”) the two. Indexes Pashtun as phonologically Similarly, English word “dance” as “da- eccentric. nus” Excessive Hay-ay in hay (‫ ﮨﮯ‬meaning “is”) elongation of vowel sound at the end of a closed word Besides being comical, this feature projects the ‫ﮨﮯ‬ speaker as lazy and a word for “is” becomes wasteful of time. ‫ﮨﯾﮯ‬ Mock Pashto: Prosody Represents the marked Use of High pitch, language features as and high volume iconic representation of with alternation Pashto speakers. The between increased phonological features and decreased characterize the speaker tempo as hyper, loud, and inconsistent. 115 Features of Performance Miscomprehension For instance, a “Pashtun” character Characterizes the speaker slapping a pay phone owner twice after as deficient in intellect reading the sign “Hit [dial] 2 before dialing and comprehension. your number” Literal reading of “I did not do my homework because I was metaphorical in hostel” language Generally used to indicate Use of fictional a shift from standardized verbal expression Urdu to Mock Pashto. that are stereotypical of Pashtun such as “Khu” and “chey” Mock Pashto: Semantic Features Semantic pejoration i.e., use Represents Pashto as “may your home be destroyed” of Mock Pashto words as unfit for a polite or educational conversation. ‫ ”ﺧﺎﻧہ ﺧراب‬118 euphemism for vulgar or offensive Khana kharab (‫ )ﺧﺎﻧہ ﺧراب‬is also used in Urdu. But in Mock Pashto usage the expression is spoken with Mock Pashto phonology making it a distinctly “Pashto” expression. 118 116 Urdu words Distortion of traditional Pashto ‫ ﮔﻼب ﺧﺎن ﺑﮯ ﻗﺎﺑو‬literally means “Flower Khan out of control” Characterize Pashtun as exotic and foreign people names based on with the intention of natural demonizing their culture. phenomena and entities Co-occurring Images, Body Comportment, and Dress Feature Example Indexical Meanings Unusually big (see Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, and 3.4 below) Marks Pashtun as foreign, moustaches, exotic, and clownish. flowing beard, prominent mole on one cheek, colorful and flowery jacket, and/or Turban 117 Figure 3.1 Pashtun character in a comedy show Figure 3.2 Pashtun character in a comedy show Figure 3.3 Pashtun character in a comedy show Figure 3.4 Pashtun character in a comedy show Figure 3.5 Urdu-speaking character in a comedy show Mock Pashto and Stance Construction To demonstrate the linguistic and semiotic differences between Mock Pashto and Urdu language, I discuss a text of comedic performance in the following lines. In one of the episodes of a very popular comedy talk-show Studio Pon-E-Teen (originally aired in early 90s on the state118 owned national television channel known as Pakistan Television (PTV) that continues to circulate widely on social media) a host introduces his guest, a popular comedian, as “Pathan” (an incorrect but common epithet for Pashtun in the mainstream Pakistan) whose name is “Gulab Khan retired Eng. Beyqaboo Urdu” (the last name Beyqaboo means “out of control” in Urdu language)119 and who is involved in transport business and drives a minivan. The guest playing the role of a Pashtun enters wearing dark sunglasses, big moustaches, a mole on one cheek, a jacket and a cap; whereas the host, who speaks in fluent and ‘standardized’ Urdu throughout the show is wearing a western dress and sports a trimmed moustache. (The text is transcribed from Urdu into English. In this transcription system, double parentheses enclose my comments on the transcription. Mock Pashto is shown in bold type. Non-Urdu words are transcribed in Italics followed by initials of the source language in postscript. Square brackets indicate pauses, and the text in the double square brackets provides contextual details.) Example 3.1 001 Host: How are you? ((uses plural form of “you” that is used to show respect)) 002 Guest: [pause] Is your near vision weak? [[Audience Laughs]] ((uses singular form of “your.” Masculine form of “your” is used with the feminine noun “vision”)) 003 H: Khan Saab, 120 when talk— [[uses low volume and slow tempo]] 004 G: [[turns to the audience and speaks in a fast tempo and using high volume, and high 005 pitch]] He has put his eyes into my eyes—is sitting in front of me, and says, “How 006 are you?” [[turns to the host and continues in fast tempo, high volume, and pitch]] 007 Treat your eyesight, Khana-Kharab. 121 119 Similar to Hill’s (2008:80) discussion of the hyperanglicization of American Indian names by White English speakers, the mainstream media in Pakistan renders the less familiar traditional Pashtun names as objects of parody. 120 Khan Saab (‫ )ﺧﺎن ﺻﺎب‬is often used as a general term in the media to refer to Pashtun male. 121 Khana Kharab is a Persian epithet used both in Pashto and Urdu to refer to someone whose household is in a state of ruin especially because of na-etefaky (‫( )ﻧﺎاﺗﻔﺎﮐﯽ‬disunity). The equivalent for khana Kharab in Pashto is 119 ((uses masculine form of verb “put” with feminine form “eyes,” deletes verb inflection for “sitting” and “says” used in a register of respect)) 008 H: Khan Saab, Please Eng. this program Eng. is being recorded Eng.. I am talking with you in 009 “You and Mister,” you [say to me] khana-kharab. Don’t say that. ((speaks in a steady slow tempo, with low volume and low pitch. Uses register of respect throughout with plural “you”)) 010 G: Which of your part is good? [pause] [[audience laughs and claps]] [[crosses his legs, and starts rubbing his heel in a nonchalant and carefree manner]] 011 All your parts are bad. Your compering Eng. part is bad. Your acting part is bad. Your 012 writing part is bad. All parts are bad. Yara Maqsood-ee [[pats the host on the thigh 013 showing intimacy and casualness, hosts smiles and shakes his head in despair, audience laughs and claps]] ((uses singular form of “your,” the English word “compering” is pronounced with heavy stress on the last syllable. Elongation of the vowel sound at the end of each of the word hai, a word for “is” in Urdu. Adds the suffix “ee” with the proper name “Maqsood,” and uses discourse marker yara that is used to index solidarity and intimacy)) Later in the conversation the host asks him (the guest) about his transport business. The guest replies that the business is poor as passengers do not want to travel in his minivan saying: 014 G: See today it is an empty mini[van]. ((uses masculine inflection with the adjective “empty” used with feminine noun “mini.” However, the masculine inflection transforms the semantics, meaning “aunt” instead of “empty”)) 015 H: Not “empty mini” but “empty mini” [audience laughs] [corrects the guests by pointing out that feminine form of the adjective “empty” should be used with the feminine noun “mini”] 016 G: [pause] [stares at the host and says] you know my aunt? spera (‫ )ﺳﭘﯾره‬meaning, “the cursed one,” the curse is supposed to manifest itself either in the form of internal disunity in a family or the loss of elders or male heirs. Khana Kharab like the term spera is considered offensive in a non-humorous and serious conversation (Tapper 1991:102). 120 ((uses singular form of “you” and deletes verb inflection for “know” to avoid the register of respect)) 017 H: No. 018 G: My aunt is like the new model of mini. Wears yellow clothes, and two braids. ((uses high volume and high pitch. Uses masculine form of “my” with feminine noun “aunt,” and singular form of “yellow” with plural form of “clothes”)) In the example above, Mock Pashto and Urdu as well as their speakers contrast with each other in their consistent use of distinct linguistic and metalinguistic features that differentiate one from another. Whereas the host uses ‘standardized’ Urdu, the ‘Pathan’ character uses Mock Pashto features that are indexical of Pashto and Pasthunness. These indexical meanings are further employed to enact stances that establish linguistic and social hierarchies. The ‘Pashtun’ character is positioned as a ‘coarse’ and ‘unrefined’ person by virtue of his non-adherence to the syntactic rules governing the ‘standardized’ Urdu language, nonadherence to the register of respect, use of vulgarity, and use of strong emotions and emphatic gestures. For instance, the guest playing the character of Pashtun male is throughout the conversation confrontational. He is offended by even as innocuous a question as “how are you?” and responds by questioning the host if his eyesight is functional. Moreover, unlike the host, the Mock Pashto speaker consistently uses the informal pronoun “you” that is used only among intimate friends. He also speaks in a fast tempo, high volume, and high pitch. In contrast, the host positions himself as a ‘refined’ person by employing a restrained, peaceful, and calm temperament and using the ‘standardized’ Urdu. As argued by Johnstone (2009:42) such display of a measured speech, constructs a stance of careful and thoughtful person who does not make baseless assertions. The thoughtful speech delivery of the “correct” Urduspeaking host by contrast also attributes a stance of impulsive and mercurial person to the guest who markedly differs from him in his speech. This simultaneous stance construction and stance attribution is further emphasized when the host attempts to advise him on the etiquettes of conversation, but is cut short by the guest (see line 3) however, in line 8, the host manages to instruct the guest in the following words: “Khan Saab, Please Eng. this program Eng. is being recorded Eng.. I am talking with you in “You and Mister,” you [say to me] khana-kharab. 121 Don’t say that.” Similarly, in line 15, the host enacts the stance of a speaker of standardized Urdu language by arrogating to himself the right to point out mistakes in the “flawed” syntactical constructions in the guest’s speech. In this epistemic stance, the guest establishes himself as an authority on the language and polite speech. As argued by Jaffe (2009:125) in her discussion of the discursive construction of French as a normative code in a multilingual context, this epistemic stance naturalizes and establishes the ‘standardized’ Urdu language variety as an authoritative standard of grammatical correctness and politeness against which all other varieties and codes are measured. The differences between the two characters also extend to the metalinguistic features such as dress and body comportment. The guest has the stereotypical ‘Pashtun’ appearance. He wears cheap sunglasses (that become the subject of their conversation at a later point in the show), handlebar moustache, and a prominent mole on one cheek (see figure 3.1 and 3.3). The mole is also a distinctive feature of the criminal characters portrayed in the mainstream media. These features index him as a comical and exotic character that is markedly different from the normative Pakistani citizen. On the other hand, the host wears western dress that is indexical of refinement and high culture, and a trimmed and groomed moustache as opposed to the unkempt facial hair that often characterizes the representation of Pashtun in the media (see Figure 3.5). As argued by Jaffe (2009:16) bodily interactions are important “indicators of linguistic and social stances and ideologies.” In similar fashion, the highly visible and marked portrayal of the body comportment and dress of the ‘Pashtun’ character is reflective of the Pashto language that the Mock Pashto indexes. Example 3.2 In another comedy show Hasb-e-Hal aired in 2012 on a popular Pakistani private television network Dunya, a comedian, who goes by the name of Azizi, alternates between Urdu language and Mock Pashto. The comedian is accompanied by two co-hosts, a man and a woman, who laugh out loudly over the performance of the comedian throughout the show. Moreover, the co-hosts not only provide ‘stance prompts’ to the comedian but they also cue the audience to laugh with them. In this particular show, Azizi, the comedian, is asked to respond to a fictitious news report that claims that the Afghan Air Force may be given the 122 drone technology. This news prompts him to use Mock Pashto as Afghanistan though an ethnically diverse country is understood to be a Pashtun state as Pashtun have historically remained the most numerous and dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan. Below is the text of a part of that performance: 001 Host: According to another report, there is a possibility of giving Afghan Air Force Eng. the 002 drone Eng.. 003 Azizi: Great! When Americans would leave from here [South Asia], so these Afghani 004 friends would drive the drone Eng. in circus Eng.. Gradually, gradually, what they would do 005 to the drone Eng. is—[…] some Afghani would put a drone Eng. on [his] shoulder and would 006 shout in the streets, “drone Eng., see the drone Eng. for five rupees. American drone Eng., 007 the original one.” Just like the way Afghanis sell carpets. They tell a very high 008 rate Eng. and sell it for so little. Just like that he would say, “brother sahib, it is 25 009 hundred thousand worth of drone Eng” After a little haggling, he will say “I will not sell it 010 for less than 500.” 011 Or some wise Afghani would put mirrors on it [the drone], some braids and 012 would make it a bicycle, would seat all his children on it and then would go to his 013 in-laws. [He would say] “[It is] a very good [bi]cycle, very good drone Eng. [bi]cycle, very 014 good.” On the way, he would press some wrong button Eng. and the bomb would go off 015 at the back and the Afghani would execute a somersault from the bicycle and would say, 016 “I think battery Eng. of the drone Eng. exploded.” In the example, Azizi employs Mock Pashto as an inauthentic and comical use of language. On the other hand, he provides linguistic evidence (by using ‘standardized’ phonology and syntax) for the use of Urdu as his authentic language. Therefore, by establishing himself as an authentic speaker of standardized Urdu language, he simultaneously employs Mock Pashto and distances himself from and derogates Pashto language and its speakers. By alternating between the two voices (voice of Urdu speaker and Mock Pashto speaker), the comedian, in the words of Goffman (1981:226) invites the audience to see him not as a unified speaker but as an authentic user of Urdu language who merely transmits Mock Pashto and the indexicality associated with it. Goffman (1981:226; Irvine 2009:134-135) argues that a speaker is not 123 necessarily a unified single speaker, but their role can be divided into several discrete functions; such as “author”(the one who creates the message), and “animator” (the one who transmits the message). Azizi here acts as the transmitter of Mock Pashto and takes no responsibility for the content and authorship of his Mock Pashto performance. In other words, his performance for its ideological effect hinges on double indexicality, one direct and the other indirect. Azizi directly indexes (that is acknowledges the indexicality) by projecting himself as a good comedian and performer who can make people roll with laughter (as the co-hosts cue the audience to laugh with their non-stop loud laughter). Moreover, by not taking the responsibility for the content of the Mock Pashto performance, he takes a stance of a normative Pakistani Urdu speaker who is everything but the comical and funny “Afghani.” 122 As mentioned above his performance also has indirect indexicality (indexicality that is not acknowledged and relies on presupposition and implicature to convey its meanings) that attributes an oppositional stance to a Pashto speaker, and by implication Pashtun. As Mock Pashto metapgramatically indexes Pashto language and Pashtun ethnicity, therefore his use of Mock Pashto indirectly attributes a number of stances to Pashtun in general. Firstly, Pashtun are indexed as primitive people who have no understanding of the modern technology. In the words of Hall (N.D), they are “accidentally modern” meaning that they happen to be (accidently) living in modernity and possessing modern technology; however, they do not comprehend its use or operation. Blissfully ignorant of the destructive power of the drone technology, they, if given a drone, would reduce it to a bicycle. Their ignorance while comical is also destructive due to their inability to differentiate between something as destructive as drone and something as harmless as a bicycle. They, due to their naivety, are not only a threat to themselves but to others as well (as the “Afghani” character is also putting his family in danger by riding the drone). Moreover, the “Afghani” is intellectually primitive to the extent that he would misread the destructive power of the drone even if he is confronted with it as in line 16: “I think the battery of the drone exploded” rather than comprehend the obvious i.e., the drone exploded. In this way, the performance depicts Pashtun as exotic people who are out of time with the mainstream Pakistani temporality. They exist in 122 Afghani (‫ )اﻓﻐﺎﻧﯽ‬is mistakenly used in the mainstream Pakistan as a reference to a national of Afghanistan. However, the correct usage is Afghan (‫ )اﻓﻐﺎن‬rather than Afghani, which is the currency of Afghanistan. 124 modernity but they belong to a temporal milieu that is more fitted to the pre-modern or rather some primitive human stage of development that is extinct. In other words, the accidentally modern Pashtun temporally exist in a different world that is out of sync with the modern mainstream Pakistani temporal milieu. Mock Pashto in the comedic performances does not rely solely on indirect indexicality. It can also be employed to directly index negative stereotypes about Pashtun. However, such direct indexicality involves hedges and linguistic tricks for face-saving. The example 3.3 below demonstrates how Mock Pashto functions through direct indexicality. In a stand-up comedy show, Omar Sharif, a popular comedian in Pakistan discusses his fictitious visit to Peshawar, the capital of Pashtun-majority province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. Example 3.3 001 Omar Sharif: Pathans are very simple and straightforward people. There was a 002 Khan Saab 123 [immediately bursts into laughter with the mention of Khan Saab and 003 bows his head slightly. The audience also laughs]. I like Pathans a lot [maintains a 004 laughing tone]. I did a [comedy] program in Peshawar, he [a Pathan] started showing me 005 [the city]. He said, “See Peshawar. This is the house from where I was fired upon, Allah 006 saved me… and Omar brother, dunk here” I said, “why?” He said, “I have enmity in this 007 area.” I said, “so you dunk, you have enmity.” He replied, “no, last week I killed my 008 enemy’s guest so he will also kill my guest” [the audience bursts into laughter 009 and applauds]. In the earlier example 3.2, the comedian indirectly indexed Pashtun by drawing on the indexical relation between Afghan nationality and Pashtun ethnicity. However, in this example, the comedian, Omar Sharif, more brazenly directly names “Pathans,” i.e., Pashtun. Like all the examples above, the comedian in example 3.3 invokes a humorous frame to suspend the norms of politeness as he launches into voicing negative and debasing stereotypes. However, in this case due to the direct naming of Pashtun, his performance can be read as racist, offensive, and in bad taste that would jeopardize his positive self-presentation and his genial and humorous stance. In order to maintain a positive stance for himself, he uses strategies of denial for face123 Khan Sahib (‫ )ﺧﺎن ﺻﺎب‬is mostly used in the mainstream media to refer to Pashtun, as explained above. 125 saving (Van Dijk 1992:88). From the very outset, he disguises his negative evaluation of Pashtun as socially tactless and awkward by expressing admiration for their supposed straightforwardness. His immediate laughter at the very mention of the words khan sahib ( ‫ﺧﺎن‬ ‫ )ﺻﺎب‬reveals his negative evaluation of Pashtun as clownish characters, however, he mitigates the racial content of his performance by declaring that he “likes Pathans a lot” (line 3). Thus by invoking a humorous frame and using disclaimers and mitigations, he attempts to legitimize his performance as “light talk” and projects himself as someone whose beliefs about Pashtun are different from what he says. In this way, he preempts any charge of racism. Reception of Mock Pashto by Pashtun In order to see the effect of Mock Pashto on Pashto speakers, I encouraged my research participants to speak about their views on Mock Pashto occurences in the electronic and social media. One participant drew my attention to a post that was shared on Facebook. The title of the post reads, “Pashto Keyboard” (see Figure 3.6) in which the different keyboard buttons are ‘translated’ into mostly slang Pashto from English to create a Mock Pashto keyboard. Following is the content of the post in its entirety: Example 3.4 001 Start= Za da khaira (( za da khaira (Pashto. “go with blessings”) is a phrase used in coversational Pashto usually on occasions undertaking a journey)) 002 Enter= Warka Dang ((warka dang (Pashto. “give it a hit”) is a Pashto slang that comes from the strike of the drum in Pashto songs and Pashtun festivals that mark the beginning of some joyous celebration)) 003 Pause= Sabar (( sabar (Pashto. “patience”)) 004 Save= Sambhal ye ka (sambal ye ka (Pashto. “hold it”)) 005 Esc= Khpay ubasa ((khpay ubasa (Pashto. “run away”) is a Pashto slang usually used for someone who is in trouble with authority and is advised to escape)) 126 006 Hide= Pat ye Ka ((pat ye ka (Pashto. “hide it”))) 007 Restart= Yao zal bia ((yao zal bia (Pashto. Once again/encore))) 008 Send= Olega ((olega (Pashto. “send”)) 009 Download= Rakuz ye ka ((Rakuz ye ka (Pashto. “bring it down”))) 010 Delete= Ruk ye ka ((ruk ye ka (Pashto. “get rid of it”) is used in casual conversational Pashto))) 011 Run= Taktha ((takhta (Pashto. “run”) is a slang and slightly offensive)) 012 Refresh= Olamba ((olamba (Pashto. “take a bath”))) 013 Up= Aochat sha ((aochat sha (Pashto. “get up”)) 014 Down= Tit sha ((tit sha (Pashto. “lower/duck”) 015 Khpla khawra khpl keyboard Eng ((khpla khawra Khpl keyboard (Pashto. “Our land, our keyboard”) is a play on the popular slogan of a Pashtun nationalist party in Pakistan that says “Khpala khawra, khpal ikhtiyar” (Pashto. “our land, our authority” 124) 016 Na mano da bal keyboard Eng ((na mano da bal keyboard (Pashto. “we don’t accept another’s keyboard”) This example reflects the representation of Pashto language in Mock Pashto practices. The example makes fun of Pashto language for its supposedly primitive and ludicrous nature. It implies that Pashto is not a fit language for modernity and any coorelation between Pashto 124 See Express Tribune, 2013b, March 25:A3 127 language, an inhrently informal and restricted language, and computer keyboard, an instrument of modernity, would be ludicrous. This perception of Pashto language as an informal language that does not keep pace with modernity persists despite the evidence to the contrary. In fact, as Rahman (1997:142) notes the branch of lexicology of Pashto Tolane (‫()ﭘښﺗو ټوﻟﻧﮫ‬Pashto Academy), which was established in 1920s by King Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan in Kabul, has been publishing “glossaries of technical terms, using indigenous Pashto morphemes. Sufficient terms are now available for imparting higher education in Pashto, and research articles are written in all subjects, including scientific and technical ones.” Similarly, Pashto Academy, established in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1955, serves the same function of neologisms for technical and modern terms and concepts. 125 124F Figure 3.6 “Pashto Keyboard” The demand for Pashto Academy (‫ )ﭘښﺗو اﮐﺎدﻣﻲ‬in Pakistan dates back to the colonial British Raj. During the colonial rule, Pashtun language activists had been agitating for the establishment of Pashto Academy. Perceived as threatening to the colonial rule, the demand was never fulfilled (Shah 1945:21-14, cited in Rahman 1997:139). With the creation of Pakistan, the activists became more vigorous in their demand for the establishment of Pashto Academy. In 1955 (eight years after the creation of Pakistan), the government of Pakistan grudgingly relented and established Pashto Academy in Peshawar. However, Pashto Academy Peshawar is seen with suspicion by some section of Pashto language activists who are critical of its use of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and English morphemes for the coinage of new Pashto vocabulary. These activists claim that Pashto Academy Peshawar functions under the influence of the Pakistani state that is bent on diluting the distinct Pashto morphemes. Following Sadiqullah Rishtin, the founder of the movement for soocha (‫( )ﺳوﭼﮫ‬pure) Pashto, they prefer to use the vocabulary coined by Pashto Academy Kabul which exclusively relies on indigenous Pashto roots for neologisms (Dupree 1980:93; Rahman 1997:142, 153; also see Khattak 1977, and Khattak 1991 for a detailed discussion of the publications and works of Pashto Academy, Peshawar). 125 128 Saqib, a 55 year male who is a native of the Tribal Areas, narrates a story that further highlights the perception of Pashto among some sections of Pashtun as a restricted and informal language that is not worthy of serious and somber topics. In Saqib’s village mosque in a tribal district, once a student of relgious seminary stood up to give a sermon after prayers. He began with the recitation from the Quran and then continued his sermon in Pashto. However, as he progressed in his sermon, he started drawing on Urdu vocabulary which became confusing for the audience who were all Pashto speakers. Talking about the companion of the prohet of Islam, he narrated the story about how an arrow was lodged in the body of the companion. However, he used the Urdu word theer (‫()ﺗﯾر‬arrow) which in Pashtu means a log of wood used as a prop to support a roof instead of ghashay (‫()ﻏﺷﮯ‬arrow). Confused the audience began wondering how could one have a log of wood lodged in ones body. Ones the sermon was over, Saqib accosted him: Example 3.5 001 Saqib: so I went to him, [and asked him], “boy, why did you switch to Urdu.” So he 002 replied, “marra 126 we have studied all this in Urdu so Urdu comes to mouth.” But I 003 wondered that Pashto is now become so dishonored that now we can’t even talk 004 religion in it. Though generally sermons in villages are delivered in Pashto interspersed with Arabic from scriptures, the anecdote here can also be read as the general devaluation of Pashto. Pashto, it seems, is not serious or formal or solemn enough to discuss religion. Or in other words, Urdu is an elevated language that is a fit medium for the discussion of pious speech. Rashid, a 42 year old man who belongs to Swat but has lived most of his life in Peshawar city, explains how the negative representation of Pashto language in media forced him to distance himself from his cultural and linguistic heritage: Example 3.6 001 At one point, I also consciously tried to remove Pashto roots—like [remove] my Pashto 002 and Pashtun identity. At one point, I would deliberately, deliberately put Urdu phrases 126 Marra (‫ )ﻣړه‬is a Pashto word used to express annoyance or exasperation. 129 003 in [my] Pashto [speech]. The biggest reason for that was that I would see that Pashto 004 was made fun of in media and similarly, I saw Urdu speakers as very sophisticated. Similarly, Akram, excerpt from whose narrative I shared in chapter 2, talks about his surprise to discover that one could write poetry in Pashto and that Pashto language has a body of literature Example 3.7 001 Akram: When we came to high school and college, we studied Ghalib 127 and Faiz 128 and 002 so on, so we were told that these are your national poets…we did not know that one 003 could write poetry in Pashto or that there are Pashto poets too…. As time passed, I 004 heard the name of Rahman Baba 129 in the village and streets, I heard the name of Ghani 005 Khan 130, Sail 131—so I started reading [Pashto poetry]. These names I would say that 006 when I grew up, I accidentally came across these names and I read them due to my 007 personal interest otherwise state has not taught them at any level. These media images also create an iconic relation between the language and its speakers as Kashif, a 25 year old male who belongs to Swat but is currently residing in the capital city, Islamabad, narrates: Example 3.8 001 Kashif: The moment you open your mouth, they will ask you about marijuana, about 002 guns, as if we do not do anything else, as if we are some very strange people… once 003 during a conversation I mentioned Khyber Medical College, and that Punjabi asked in 004 surprise, really, you have a medical college Urdu. 127 Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is one of the best known Urdu and Persian language poets who lived in Agra, Hindustan. 128 Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) is an esteemed Pakistani poet who wrote in Urdu language. 129 Abdur Rahman Baba (1653-1711) is a highly regarded Pashto poet who lived in modern day Peshawar. 130 Ghani Khan (1914-1996), a preeminent Pashto poet, was the son of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the renowned Pashtun leader during the British colonial Raj. 131 Rahmant Shah Sail (1943) is a contemporary Pashto poet from Malakand, Pakistan, whose works are very popular among Pashtun. 130 This example foregrounds the projection of the negative attributes associated with Pashto language to the speakers of Pashto. Irvine and Gal (2000:37) name this process as “iconization:” a process by which linguistic features and practices are linked with the social. In other words, iconization depicts the linguistic practices as the representation of the essence of its speakers. In the following example, Akram best sums up the disruption of Pashtun culture, and language with the creation of Pakistan. Example 3.9 001 They say that Pakistan was created to preserve our culture and language. But we were 002 better off [in united Hindustan]. Now our [Pashto] language, our culture is laughable. 003 Now we are losing our [culture and language]. This is a life of dishonor. Discussion Like the educational institutions, the media, especially Urdu-based electronic television channels in Pakistan, are sites of state regulation and control in which technology is utilized to construct normative language practices and behaviors. These constructions legitimize Urdu language and Urdu-speaking urban culture, which in turn are drawn upon to negatively evaluate nonnormative practices, in our case Pashto language, Pashtun communicative practices and sensibilities. The genre of comedic performances is one such potent means through which the category of normative citizenship is constructed from which the nonnormative people are excluded. Or in the words of Agamben (1998:7), it is through these performances that “inclusive exclusion” is enacted, i.e., the excluded marked and delegitimized groups are the outside (the excluded) against which the included normative citizenship subject to benevolent state power is defined. These comedians in their Mock Pashto performances both endorse and defend state’s regulatory function and therefore function as the agents of the state (see Cooper 2011:19-20 for a similar process in which media are deployed in the service of state power to regulate and police the Deaf sign language use and embodiment practices). For instance, in Example 3.1, when the host, a representative of the mainstream and normative urban Urdu-speaking population, intervenes in line 8-9 to tell the Mock Pashto speaker to use the register of respect instead of the informal tum (‫( )ﺗم‬you) or in line 14 when 131 he points out the ‘incorrect’ verb inflection in the Mock Pashto speech, he acts as an agent of the state “who is authorized to exercise jurisdiction” over the highly marked representation of Pashto language practices (Cooper 2011:19). The comedians as agents of the state exist in a symbiotic relationship with the state. By demonizing Pashto in the service of the state, they also accumulate resources, wealth, ‘fame’ and opportunities for advancement of their careers. In other words, they accumulate by dispossessing Pashtun of their language and culture. In this necrolinguistic process, the loss of Pashto is the gain of the state and its agents. By alternating between Urdu (as their authentic language use) and Mock Pashto (as their inauthentic and comical language use), they construct positive stances for themselves by projecting themselves as humorous, jovial and competent comedians, while attributing through indexicality negative stances to the Pashto speakers such as primitive, accidentally modern, and clownish. In this whole process, they naturalize Urdu and Urdu-based sensibilities while rendering Pashtun as highly visible and marked nonnormative subjects. In these performances, humor emerges as a highly effective genre in the demonization of Pashtun. Used as a tool of legitimate mockery, humor suspends the norms of politeness and conceals the negative indexicality that these performances entail while continuing to disseminate the ideological messages. In cases, where the negative indexicality is more direct, it is toned down through linguistic tricks and strategies of denial. For instance, in example 3.3, the comedian directly indexes offensive and racist stereotypes about Pashtun along with the strategies of denial such as Pashtun are “straight forward people” (line 1) and “I like Pathans a lot” (line 3). These denials are meant to exonerate the comedian as someone who does not intend to be racist, while letting the negative evaluation of Pashtun go unchallenged. Humor not only legitimizes mockery, but it also ideologically interpellates Pashtun subject population. To borrow Ngugi’s (1986:3) phrase, these comedic performances function as the “cultural bomb” as he explains: The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of nonachievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that 132 wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves, for instance, with other people’s languages rather than their own (1986:3). We see this cultural bomb functioning to its deadly effect in example 3.4 where Pashtun themselves find their language restricted and primitive. Similarly, in example 3.5, line 3-4 where my research participant observes “Pashto is now become so dishonored (spaka) that now we can’t even talk religion in it.” Or in example 3.6 where Rashid, under the effect of cultural demonization, at one point in his life distanced himself from his “Pashto roots” and perceived Urdu speakers as sophisticated. But this is not to say that the state control and regulation is complete and total. The Pashtun culture does survive and resists state regulation in the, what Ngugi (1986:37) calls, “empty spaces:” spaces out of the reach of direct state surveillance where the language and culture is carried on. It is not without significance when Akram (example 3.7) who comes across the works of Pashtun poets that he thought did not exist not in the institutions of the state but in the “villages and streets” (line 4). Conclusion Focusing on the comedic performances in the mainstream Urdu language electronic media in Pakistan, I have highlighted the ways in which the playful rendition of fictitious “Pashto” language practices, which I have termed as “Mock Pashto,” serve to naturalize and legitimize the state sanctioned communicative practices. Mock Pashto mobilizes state agenda by representing Pashto language and by extension Pashtun as inauthentic citizens against which the normative Pakistani nationhood is defined and constructed. Drawing on the genre of humor, the comedians legitimize Mock Pashto as “light talk” and harmless humor. However, Mock Pashto plays an important role in producing and sustaining language and social hierarchies that serve to stigmatize Pashto language and Pashtun ethnicity as inauthentic and unworthy of Pakistani citizenship. Loaded with negative indexicalities, the mere use of Pashto language excludes one from Pakistani identity and cultural membership. Moreover, the use of Pashto as opposed to Urdu language attributes to a speaker an “anti-language” stance, an oppositional stance, to the established Urdu language and the Pakistani national identity it indexes (Halliday 1976, cited in Irvine 2009:29). 133 So far in the dissertation, I have foregrounded the disruptive presence of the state in Pashtun culture, language and worldview. In the next two chapters, I shift my focus to the ways in which Pashtun respond to and reinvent themselves as they are confronted with the disruption. 134 CHAPTER 4 REINVENTING PASHTUNWALI: THE RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE AND THE DISRUPTIVE STATE INFLUENCE In this chapter, I focus on the categories of rural and urban as idioms through which Pashtun express their understandings of sociopolitical, economic, and cultural disruptions as a result of the increasing encapsulation of their traditional Pashtun land by the Postcolonial state of Pakistan. More specifically, I investigate the ways in which Pashtun imagine the rural-urban divide in terms of ethical and moral contrasts. In this ethical contrast, the predominantly rural indigenous Pashtun homeland, that has historically remained politically and economically peripheral to the urban centers in Pakistan, is imagined as the core of Pashtun identity. This rural homeland is the moral center where Pashtunwali, the traditional Pashtun values, prevail. On the other hand, the urban centers are imagined as alien spaces with norms that are antithetical to Pashtunwali. In this way, a moral contrast is mapped onto the rural-urban spatial divide in a way that upsets the familiar, western-centric logic of the rural/urban divide. However, this moral geography is wrought with contradictions and ambivalences. Rural areas may be steeped with Pashtun values, but they are also sites that are neglected and abandoned by the state where Jwand dair graan dey (‫( )ژوﻧد ړﭔر ګران دے‬life is very hard), as one of my respondents put it laconically. In contrast, the urban centers may have foreign values that have corrupting influence on Pashtun urban migrants, but these sites also provide opportunities for upward mobility, employment, and material comfort that are hard to find in the rural homeland. I argue that this moral geography, marked with ambivalence and contradictions, represents what Williams (1977:128-135) calls “structure of feeling:” a practical consciousness based on life experiences that are lived and felt in the times of cultural and social disruption. Moreover, it is in the attempt to resolve the contradictions inherent in the moral geography based on rural-urban divide that Pashtun seek to reinvent and reconstruct themselves in ways that is continuous with the idealized past. Moral Geography and Structure of Feeling A number of scholars have theorized about moral geography: the alignment of identities, cultural meanings, and moral values with place; some of the influential and 135 pioneering works include Taussig (1979), Taggart (1983, 1982, 1977), Lefebvre (1991), Basso (1996), Leap (2011, 1996), Johnstone (1990), William (1977, 1973), Hill (1995a), Modan (2007), and Thomas (2002). In this chapter I particularly draw on Modan (2007), Thomas (2002), and William (1977, 1973). Modan (2007:90) defines moral geography as an interweaving of moral framework with a certain geographical space 132 to demonstrate “that you fit in and how you fit in—that you and the landscape are well matched.” Like Hill (1995a:111), Johnstone (1990), and Leap (1996, 2011), who focused more on the active construction of place rather than the identity of place as a given, neutral, and fixed, Modan views place-making as a process that is constructed, contested, and negotiated in discourse. 133 This politics of place, according to Modan (2007:7), involves three forms of identities that are relational and mutually constitutive: 1) the construction of the identities of the place itself, i.e., a place has a certain character and embodies certain set(s) of values; 2) the construction of the “centralized identities,” i.e., the construction of identities that situate people as core members (or people with insider status) of a given place who embody values that are consistent with the given identity of a place; 3) the construction of “marginalized identities,” i.e., the identities created for others as ‘non-core’ members ( or people “out of place”). These alignments and oppositions of identities with the identity of a place have material implications such as shaping and reflecting unequal power relations. The construction of moral geography is about who is a legitimate member of the place, whose voice counts, and who gets access to resources. However, as argued by Modan (2007:92), the construction of moral geography is not a smooth or consistent process but is saturated with inconsistencies. This is especially so because people have multiple interests and 132 The term “space” usually refers to a geographical area and its physical features in an abstract sense. On the other hand, the term “place,” as noted by Thornton (2008:10-11), is concrete and particular in the sense that it is a space situated in time and human experience. Place as a product of history cannot be separated from its temporality. Therefore, space-time, or what Bakhtin (1981:84-85) calls “chronotopes,” is an important element of place. Similarly, human experience is an essential element of place as it is through interaction with space that humans infuse places with meanings and values. 133 Discourse (as a mass noun) is “language in use,” i.e., actual instances of communications in everyday use, often referred to as “texts” when taken as units of analysis in their bounded form (Johnstone 2008; Leap 2003:403). Discourse includes talking, writing, signing or any “meaningful symbolic behavior” (Blommaert 2005:2; Modan 2007:6) Discourse as a mass noun is to be distinguished from discourse as a count noun. Discourses, as count nouns i.e., used in the plural, refer to conventional ways of talking, for instance Marxist discourse, feminist discourse and the like. 136 identities linked to places that may be conflictual. Depending on the context people emphasize, de-emphasize, or altogether contradict themselves. Thomas (2002:368) in his essay on the rural and urban contrast in Southeast Madagascar also finds the construction of moral geography in the form of ethical contrast mapped onto the rural-urban spatial divide. Thomas, like Modan, argues that construction of local identities in relation to places is loaded with ambivalences and ambiguities. Elaborating on these contradictions, he argues that places are both “multilocal” and “multivocal” (2002:369). Places are multilocal in the sense that they do not exist in isolation but are influenced by other regional, national, and global places. Indigenous rural people might consider their local places as their moral centers, but they are nevertheless confronted by the values, economies, cultures, and ways of living that are not local and to which they have to orient themselves in a certain way. Multivocality, on the other hand, underlines the multiple ways in which a place is represented and imagined. Multivocality can exist both at social and individual level. Different people might imagine and represent their ancestral homeland in different ways. Similarly, individuals may find a place their moral center but also a place that is peripheral and therefore partly responsible for their marginal identity in the mainstream society. According to Thomas (2002:368) moral geography is “both constituted by and constitutive of people’s sense of place”; it is informed by history as well as collective and personal experiences, memories, and rituals embedded in a landscape. However, moral geography is more than mere alignment or disalignment with geography. Moral geography is an idiom through which people “give voice to their sense of marginality within the particular configuration of a postcolonial modernity, and from which they attempt to chart the possibilities of uncertain future” (Thomas 2002:369). Williams (1973) addresses the alignment of cultural meanings and place in his influential work on rural-urban divide. For Williams (1977:131; 1973:302), the spatial divides and the various semantic associations and meanings that people attach to them are indicative of some of the most deeply felt thoughts and feelings, which he terms as “structure of feeling” (more on this later in the section), that come into social consciousness when faced with social/economic disruptions and changes. Williams (1973:291) argues that perception of the spatial divide of 137 rural and urban is one of the major forms that functions as conduits for expression of a structure of feeling. In his celebratory work on the images of country and city that appear in English literature since the 16th century, Williams (1973:1) observes that the English country and city are conventionally categorized as spaces associated with two opposing and conflicting ways of life: the country is idealized as a place of “natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue;” on the other hand, the city is perceived as “an achieved center: of learning, communication, light.” He further observes that these idealized representations exist along with their images as hostile places: the country is associated with “backwardness, ignorance, limitations,” and the city with “noise, worldliness, and ambition” (Williams 1973:1). However, Williams argues that these conventional opposing images obscure the actual lived experiences of people that have been disrupted, especially with the Industrial Revolution, by capitalism which has altered the social and economic life both in the country and the city (1973:302). Before I move onto Williams’ concept of structure of feeling that is central to his discussion of the rural-urban divide, I want to add that Williams’ discussion of English rural-urban divide has wider significance. The rural-urban divide, as noted by Williams (1973:14), is not limited to the English history alone. We find the rural-urban spatial divide and its concomitant associations in the works of Ibn Khaldun, Virgil, and Hesiod. In this way, this divide dates back to at least 9th B.C.E. However, this contrast has become more intense and significant with the Industrial Revolution and the unprecedented division and specialization of labor that capitalism has brought in its wake, making the divide between the city and the country starker and global. 134 Williams writes: I have been arguing that capitalism, as a mode of production, is the basic process of most of what we know as the history of country and city. Its abstracted economic drives, its fundamental priorities in social relations, its criteria of growth and of profit and loss, have over several centuries altered our country and created our kinds of city…The division and opposition of city and country, industry and agriculture, in their modern forms, are the critical culmination of the division and specialization of labor which, 134 This view of rural-urban divide as the product of the capitalist mode of production, as pointed out by Williams, is also shared by classical Marxism. Engels was the first to point out the role of capitalism in the emergence of modern city (Williams 1973:303). In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engel argue that capitalism “has subjected the country to the rule of the towns” (Tucker 1978:477). At another place, Engels (1935:21) argues that the “contrast between town and country has been brought to its extreme point by present-day capitalist society.” 138 though it did not begin with capitalism, was developed under it to an extraordinary and transforming degree (1973:302-304). So what happens when a traditional (non-capitalist) mode of production is replaced by a capitalist one? A set of complicated and interrelated (therefore structured) feelings and thoughts emerge in response to the crisis in a society resulting from the tension between the old and the new (Williams 1977:132; 1973:58). The emerging structure of feeling that is born out of lived experiences (such as social practices, social relations, memories, and rituals embedded in the mode of production) comes into conflict with the conventional and dominant beliefs that are formalized into institutions. In other words, the formal and systematic beliefs that have become habitual and conventional no more speak to the practical consciousness based on the social and material conditions of the present. At the same time, the actively lived and felt practical consciousness (the new structure of feeling) of the social present is also “at the very edge of semantic availability” (Williams 1973:134). It awaits new semantic figures to be articulated and formally recognized and built into institutions. (By the time it is recognized, a new structure of feeling would have already begun to form). It is for this reason that Williams (1977:132) uses the term “feeling” rather than the more formal concepts of “world-view” or “ideology” as this emerging practical consciousness is not solidified into formally recognized concepts and ideas; and more importantly, it is not directly expressed as the object of discourse. Being difficult to articulate, despite having a social and material presence, the old structure of feeling remains the habitual and conventional way of representing the lived experiences (and therefore continues to act as “partial interpreter”) resulting in a backward reference to explain the social and material conditions of the present (Williams 1973:296). Since the new structure of feeling (the altered consciousness and understanding of time and place as the mode of production has been transformed), is at the edge of semantic availability, it is embryonic, allusive, and tacit. Williams argues that a new structure of feeling is inchoate and ineffable but it does find means to express itself: it is in the expression of perception of the spatial and temporal divide (for instance, the country and the city, and the old and the new) and the relationship between them that the new structure of feeling finds “material which gives body to the thoughts” (Williams 1973:291,299). It is for this reason that 139 Williams (1973:297) states, “clearly the contrast of country and city is one of the major forms in which we become conscious of a central part of our experience and of the crises of our society.” The Village Settlement and the Indigenous Rural Homeland of Pashtun As noted by Williams (1973:1), the categories of country and city contain within themselves quite varied settlements with very different practices, sizes, and characters. From ancient to contemporary times, the country has been the settlement of hunters, pastoralists, farmers with their social organization ranging from tribes to manors to the feudal states. Similarly, the city has existed in many forms with varied connotations; for instance, as a center of religious authority, market-town, administrative center, industrial concentration and so on. Moreover, within the two poles of country and city there exists a wide range of settlements such as suburbs, small towns, shanty towns/slums (Williams 1973:1). However, despite these variations, the understanding of the rural-urban divide, its characters, images, and associations have persisted throughout the ages. Pashtun villages also do not exist in singular form; in fact, one village can be quite different in terms of settlement, social organization, and economy. For instance, the Pashtun villages in the Tribal Areas are mostly acephalous with pastoral and/or agrarian economies; there is no identifiable centralized authority and life is traditionally regulated by the Pashtunwali. On the other hand, in Swat villages are feudal states functioning under the centralized authority of the state where a large number of people work as tenant farmers. However, both by the local inhabitants and the mainstream society, these areas are identified as rural. Unlike the cities, in these areas a large section of the population lack the facilities of electricity, piped water, public transport, paved roads, well-equipped hospitals, a network of schools, and shops and markets that provide industrially produced commodities. 135 Moreover, in general Pashtun perceive their indigenous rural homelands as spaces of exception marked by state neglect and abandonment. 135 This is not to say that all Pashtun villages uniformly lack these infrastructural facilities. They differ and vary in their infrastructural possessions. However, in relation to the cities, the villages in general are peripheral in terms of infrastructural growth. In this sketch of Pashtun villages, I have drawn upon Thomas’ (2002:274) description of a village in southeast Madagascar that resembles Pashtun villages in its peripherality and lack of general amenities of life. 140 Pashtun Urban Migration and the Contact with the State As discussed in detail in chapter 1, one of the principle means through which Pashtun, who are indigenous to the rural Pashtun Belt, came in contact with the state was their migration to the urban centers in Pakistan. It was the urban centers that were the sites of state regulation that threatened Pashtun’s village-based social, economic and cultural life. The contact proved disruptive in an unprecedented way. The allure of the employment opportunities and alternative sources of income in the urban centers transformed their traditional pastoral-agrarian economy. With increasing reliance on the remittances from their migrant kin, the rural economy was now integrated into the state economy and therefore subjected to the state regulation. New patterns of material and subsistence production through urban market economy introduced new consumption patterns and spatial arrangements. People became inclined to settle in the urban centers away from their ancestral rural homeland to avail the amenities of life that were scarce in their rural homelands. As the market started to dictate their social and economic life, the village based social bonds, social solidarity, and kinship ties came under strain. Moreover, the economic linkages they developed with the urban centers not only subjected their village life to the socio-economic pressures, but they also subordinated Pashtun to the social, economic, and ethnic/national hierarchies prevalent in the urban Pakistan. The traditional values of individual autonomy and egalitarianism became difficult to maintain as they became encapsulated by the state and its institutions leading to the realization that they had become the clients of the state. Moreover, the urban sensibilities, mannerism, and dress codes gradually seeped their way into the village life as the migrants moved between rural and urban life. In short, with the assimilation in the state through subordination, the Pashtun ancestral rural way of life was compromised. Furthermore, the contact with the state also pressured Pashtun to accommodate novel interests that contradicted their social and cultural life. In the wake of this overpowering change, it became all the more important to seek continuity with their village-based socio-cultural heritage. In the following lines, I discuss the ways in which Pashtun construct their rural homeland, and respond to the postcolonial contact to find continuity with their indigenous rural homeland and their heritage. 141 Rural-Urban Divide, Moral Geography, and Pashtun Ethnic Identity The centrality of Pashtun rural geography to Pashtun ethnic identity can be estimated by the Pashto proverb, which says: che da cha kaley na wee, da haghwee asal maloom na wee (‫( )ﭼﮫ دا ﭼﺎ ﮐﻠﮯ ﻧﮫ وی دا ھﻐوی اﺻل ﻣﻌﻠوم ﻧﮫ وۍ‬Those who do not have a village, their origin/standing in the society is not known). Village is thus an important spatial element that anchors one in a Pashtun society. This is also reflected in the narratives of my research participants, who in various ways attempt to position themselves as authentic Pashtun by demonstrating their relation with their ancestral villages. These claims to the native status through village-based identity are however contested among Pashtun. This is especially so after the urban migration that has rendered them translocal as they shuttle between village and the urban centers opening them to the charge of being lost to or influenced by the values of the urban areas. In other words, the understanding of the rural landscape as Pashtun space also presupposes alien spaces, the urban areas, with alien and antithetical norms that lie beyond the Pashtun territory. Pashtun often draw a distinction between Pukhtun (‫( )ﭘښﺗون‬Pashtun) and Kharey (‫( )ﺧﺎرے‬cityperson) along the lines of the “indigenous self” and the “foreign other” (Thomas 2002:368). As opposed to the indigenous Pashtun self, the city-person are characterized as those who may speak Pashto but do not “do Pashto,” meaning the enactment of the principles of Pashtunwali. This interplay between village and city while asserting their Pashtun ethnic identity comes across in the narrative of my research participants. One of the most common themes that emerges in these narratives is the positioning of oneself as authentic Pashtun by demonstrating the ability to enact the daily rituals of Pashtunwali and their familiarity with their village and the values they embody. This positioning co-occurs with the positioning of others, especially Pashtun urban migrants, as those who are ignorant “of the ways of the village.” For instance, Shaukat, a native of a tribal village where he grew up and lived most of his life, negatively evaluates Pashtun urban migrants who would come to visit his village in the following words: 142 Example 4.1 001 Shaukat: So they [Pashtun urban migrants] are not aware of village and wolus, 136 of the 002 head and tail of the cot,137 of the ways of the elder and younger. 003 TK: Do you remember any incident where people showed their lack of awareness? 004 Shaukat: Yes. See, like—one fool would go and sit at the head [side] of the cot in 005 hujra. 138 You know, that is the place of the elder […] similarly, like that, they are not 006 aware of sorrow and joy [rituals]—because they do not do sorrow and joy [...] they have 007 to come all the way [from city to do sorrow and joy]. They say they don’t have time. The “head and tail of the cot” (sur langa) is a reference to the spatial rituals of politeness that acknowledge the principle of age hierarchy or elder-younger (mashr-kashr) hierarchy (see chapter 1 for a detailed discussion of mashr-kashr). The “head” (comfortable end) of the cot is the place reserved for the elders, the younger people on the other hand, sit on the “tail” end of the cot. To fail to follow the rules of sur langa is to violate the age hierarchy. Such violations, though apparently innocuous, are perceived to have disturbing implications. Jirga, the council of elders, which is one of the most important cultural and political institutions of Pashtun, rests on the principle of the age hierarchy. The Jirga, comprising of elders, is vested with political authority to regulate the social and political life. Therefore, if age hierarchy is no longer respected then it may lead to social and political turmoil. The urban migrants having lived in urban centers are out of touch with the values of the village. They do not know kaley wolus (‫( )ﮐﻠﮯ وﻟس‬the ways of the village). What is at the center of the claim of belonging to village and therefore Pashtun authenticity is the emphasis on “belonging or native status as a function of everyday and material familiarity” (Cvetkovich 136 Wolus (‫ )وﻟس‬is a Pashto term for a kinship based group. It has the additional meaning of a group organized politically that comes together for a common cause (See chapter 1 for a detailed discussion of the term). 137 Cot (Kut in Pashto and charpoy in Urdu) is a rectangular shaped piece of furniture used for sitting, resting, and sleeping. It has a wooden frame supported by four legs and the central part is woven with thin ropes. It is commonly found in rural areas of Pakistan and India. 138 Hujra (‫( )ﺣﺟره‬Men’s quarter) is a male segregated place where men of a village entertain guest, convene meetings, or simply rest and entertain themselves. Traditionally, hujra are communally owned by the whole village, and are central in the social life of the village. 143 2003:216). This familiarity with the village, its values, and spatial practices become difficult to learn if one does not have any permanence in the village life. As a result, they fail to enact the rituals of Pashtunwali. This narrative is also a critique of the disruptive role of the translocal and flexible urban life in which people are too mobile to familiarize themselves with their indigenous rural homeland. They live too far in the urban centers to participate in gham khadi (‫( )ﻏم ښﺎدی‬sorrow-joy) rituals and to imbibe the values of the village. The theme of Pashtun urban migrants being unfamiliar with the values of the village is also voiced by Salman, who lives in a village in Swat. Citing the khadi (‫( )ښﺎدی‬joy) ritual of a wedding in his village, he narrates how a young Pashtun urban migrant on a visit to the village to attend a wedding ceremony ‘shamed’ himself by imitating the dress code of the city. Example 4.2 001 Salman: In our village there was a wedding. So this modern Eng kind of guy—so he wore 002 pants 139 to the wedding. So we teased him all day. We would say, lower your shirt. We 003 teased him so much that we never saw him in pants again. 004 TK: what do you mean by modern Eng ? 005 Salman: You know that, modern Eng is modern Eng. 006 TK: Do you mean a person from a city? 007 Salman: yes. Like that [pause]. He would speak some English—kind of a show off. […] He 008 cleans [the dust on] his shirt with a flick of his finger—like that kind of a person. The traditional Pashtun dress consists of partoog (‫( )ﭘرﺗوګ‬baggy trousers) and a kamees (‫( )ﻗﻣﯾس‬long shirt) that extends to the knees covering the hips. The part of the shirt that covers the hip is called laman (‫)ﻟﻣن‬. “lower your shirt” (laman Khkata ka) draws attention to the fact that the boy wearing a short shirt is not covering the bulge of his hips and therefore in a way exposing his buttocks. In fact, there is an expression in Pashto that says, laman pa sur rarole ( ‫ﻟﻣن‬ ‫[( )ﭘﮫ ﺳر راړول‬humiliating oneself by] flipping the shirt on one’s head). This expression is used for anyone who humiliates themselves by deviating from the principles of Pashtunwali. By deviating from the cultural norms, the urban migrant in Salman’s narrative invites social critique due to his violation of Pashtun dress code. Salman and his friends’ successful attempt 139 Pants in Pashto is a term used to refer to Western style dress consisting of trousers and a shirt. 144 to shame the person who wore pants to the wedding can be explained by the Pashtun practice of peghor (‫( )ﭘﯾﻐور‬evocation of shame). Peghor is a verbal taunt directed towards someone who through their violation of Pashtunwali principles invite people to shame them. Peghor among Pashtun, as noted by (Ahmed 1980:203-204), is “a powerful social mechanism of conformity… that acts as a social mechanism to ensure continuity within the system of certain moral standards and social behavior.” 140 His alien dress code and the meanings they imply do not 139F match with the rural geography and the moral values that they connote. The peghor in this case results from the conspicuous mismatch, he is out of place in the sense of being the one who stands out because of practicing alien and antithetical customs. Similarly, the phrase (lines 7-8) “cleans [the dust on] his shirt with a flick of his finger” (Kamees pa tingrai safa kole) is a Pashto expression used for a haughty or dandy behavior especially when it is incommensurate with the rural agricultural life. Cleaning the soil on the shirt with minimum contact of the body (as he uses the tip of his finger to flick the dust away) shows a repugnance towards one’s soil and disrespect toward the agrarian work mode in which people’s clothes are often soiled due to working in the fields. In both of the examples discussed above, the Pashtun urban migrants are discursively dis-placed as inauthentic Pashtun due to their failure to read the context and act ‘appropriately.’ By highlighting their familiarity with the rural life, my research participants attribute the stance of inauthenticity to the migrants, while implicitly positioning themselves as authentic Pashtun by virtue of their familiarity with rural norms. In this way, the stances are claimed and attributed by differentiating between the “indigenous self” who is rooted in village life, and “foreign other” who is influenced by foreign culture. The claim to authenticity is not limited to familiarity with village life, but it is also extended to the differences between rural and urban values. Shaukat draws such a contrast in the following lines: Example 4.3 140 Peghor, strictly speaking, is evoked in instances that are considered egregious according to the principles of Pashtunwali, such as the violation of the purda (seclusion) of womenfolk of a Pashtun household. In such a case, the men of the household would be taunted by people until the household remedies the insult by taking revenge on the violator. 145 001 Shaukat: see here [in village], people have big hearts. People know one another—in the 002 hujra, in the mosque. Another thing is that we grow [our food] and eat [our food]… Now 003 take the people of the city, it is all about oneself. People don’t even know each other. 004 They don’t even know what is happening in their neighborhood. They don’t even come 005 out of their homes. It is kind of a life of the market. Almost all my research participants see social solidarity as structured in the spatial organization of the village. Hujra and mosque are some of the key institutions that are present in every Pashtun village. Hujra is an important secular institution and mosque the religious one. And both of these institutions require that men congregate there many times a day. Any male member of Pashtun village is socially censured if he fails to show his presence in these two places in his daily life. Any village hujra if found empty of people at any given time is considered embarrassing to the village population. An empty hujra implies that people do not value social solidarity and therefore act in ways that are antithetical to Pashtunwali. As social institutions these places bring to light anything that interrupts the daily life as people would notice anything out of the ordinary in their day to day interaction. But in cities “people don’t even know each other” (line 3) because there are no mandatory institutions of sociality. In the cities, hujra as places of communally owned sites of social gathering are non-existent. Instead of hujra, Pashtun in the cities generally have privately owned drawing rooms called baitak. Unlike hujra where people socialize all the time and the guests arrive unannounced, meetings in baitak are mostly by invitation for specific time. In other words, in urban centers people’s social life is limited to a group of people with whom one may share some common interest. “They do not even come out of their homes” (line 4-5) is a subtle reference to the perceived femininity of urban men. They prefer to stay home, a female space, rather than socialize in the masculine space of hujra and mosques. In this way, city is a feminine space whereas villages with their mosques and hujra are masculine places. The negative evaluation of the city life, in line 5, as “life of the market” (bazaray ghunta jawand) follows from the perception that in cities people socialize for their narrow materialistic interests. Bazaray, which comes from the Persian word bazaar (market), is a derogatory term in Pashto used for someone who is driven by material interests. On the other hand, people of the village “have big hearts” (zroona ay ghat wee) (line 146 1) who are selfless and not profit oriented in their social relations. Also notice the shift in deictic marker from “people” (line 1) to “we” (line 2). After having evaluated the people of the village positively, he includes himself in the “people” by shifting the deictic marker to “we” and therefore aligning himself with the moral geography of the village. Another claim my research participants living in rural areas make is that rural Pashtun live a life of independence and autonomy. Shaukat’s assertion that “we grow [our food] and eat [our food]” (line 2) is one such claim of economic independence. Though in practice rural life is far from autonomous and is hardly out of the reach of the state’s influence, the semblance of political and economic autonomy persists. In fact, it is quite common for the natives of the Tribal Areas to refer to themselves as azad (‫( )ازاد‬free [people]). This perception of freedom is contrasted with the life of urban Pashtun who is perceived as someone who has humiliated himself by existing under the centralized authority of the state. Saqib’s observation in the following lines throws some light on this claim. Example 4.4 001 Saqib: If you have noticed, in the past people would say that, “I am from that village, I 002 am from that tribe, I am from that family, I am that person’s son.” But now, now 003 these [urbanized] people say Engineer saib, 141 doctor saib, Major saib. They feel proud 004 to have government jobs. So their relation with the village is weak—they say, “he is 005 government servant!” Saqib highlights the innovation in Pashtun society that has come with the urban migration and the growing encapsulation of Pashtun by the state. Though he draws a temporal contrast between the past and the present, this ideal past is located in the village. As Pashtun migrate to urban Pakistan, they increasingly make a claim to respectability through their service to the state and official designations. This is a world that is topsy-turvy in two significant ways. Firstly, in the traditional rural Pashtun society, recognition and claim to respect is through upholding and enacting Pashtunwali and not through the state. Secondly, Pashtun’s Pashtunness is in doubt if they become dependent or clients (see chapter 1 for Patron-client 141 Saib (‫ )ﺻﯾب‬is a title of respect used with a person’s official designation. The Pashto term saib is a modification of the Urdu and Hindi word Sahib historically used as a term of respect for colonial official during the Raj. 147 relationship). In the cities, however, people who serve the state not only become clients of the state, but they also feel proud of their official designations. As Saqib states, people take pride in their client status as government servants (sarkari nokar). Both these changes would be considered shameful and abhorrent in a traditional Pashtun village. It is for this reason that Pashtun areas that are remote and peripheral and therefore with minimum state presence evaluate the urban Pashtun as those “who speak Pashto, but don’t do Pashto.” Saqib’s comment that now people take pride in being “government servant” needs some elaboration here. The claim to respectability through the service to the state is an indication of the growing penetration of the state in the indigenous Pashtun areas. Since the British colonial rule, and later the postcolonial period, the presence and the role of the state in the social life have grown exponentially (Akhtar 2008:81). As discussed in chapter 1, with the urban migration, Pashtun were not only integrated within the state economy, but they were also subjected to the coercive power of the state’s bureaucratic and legal institutions such as the courts, police, and other administrative apparatuses. With this expanded sphere of the state, the presence of the state in the social life became palpable and it became inevitable to invoke the state in daily life (Akhtar 2008:60). As the perception of the state as the repository of power grew among Pashtun, so did what Akhtar (2008:164) calls the “patronage and bureaucratic paternalism” of the state.142 One could now distribute patronage by situating oneself in the patronage chain that culminated in the state (2008:165). Through this network of patronage, a state employee could now accumulate political and economic influence by providing their supporters access to the state provisions such as employment and other economic and material benefits143 (Wilder 1998:194). However the state-based network of patronage also reshaped the traditional patron-client relationship in a way that a person could be a patron to their supporters only by subordinating themselves to the state power and allowing it to become more and more interventionist in the Pashtun social life. 142 See Akhtar (2008) for adetailed study of the institutionalization of the culture of patronage in Pakistan. In common usage, this distribution of patronage is referred to as (‫“ )ﺗﮭﺎڼﮫ ﮐﭼﮭرې‬Thana-katcheri” (police station and courts). British colonials termed this preoccupation of the subject population of the subcontinent with access to the state patronage chain as the “addiction to litigation” (Akhtar 2008:29; Chaudhary 1999:26). 143 148 As I have highlighted in the above discussion, village is a site where Pashtunness is claimed and authenticated. In contrast to the urban areas, village is a site where people enact Pashtunwali through their practice of Pashtun rituals, through their everyday material familiarity with the village, through their permanent residence in the village, through their social solidarity, and through their claim to autonomy and non-client status. However, in drawing rural-urban contrast, my research participants also indicate the disruptive influence of the city as Pashtun urban migrant adopt the alien ways of the cities and therefore weaken their bond with the rural life, which leads me to my next section. Ambivalence and Ambiguity The perception of the village as a place of “doing Pashto” and a land of Pashtun norms and values coexist with the sense of loss and recognition that village life is undergoing a disruptive change as it comes in contact with the urban areas and the state power. As a result people are ambivalent in articulation of their lived experiences in the rural areas. Foremost among these changes is the rise of militancy and Talibanization in the indigenous Pashtun homeland that is striking at the very roots of the Pashtun institutions that have been revered for generations. Akram’s narrative foregrounds some of the disruptive changes that are transforming the village life with the advent of the Taliban militancy: Example 4.5 001 Akram: Under militancy a great change has come […] The Jirga system that we had was 002 purely based on Pashtun customs [...] When they [the Taliban] came—for instance, take 003 Mangal Bagh, 144 so the authority of Mangal Bagh, it was not based on customs, not 004 based on traditions, it was not chosen by people. […] So I don’t know how he appeared 005 but he appeared, and the authority he had was then divine authority. Then challenging 006 his authority was like challenging the authority of God, he was like a caliph, he became 007 ameer, 145 you know the importance of submission to ameer in Islam. Now second thing 008 is that traditions and customs among Pashtun—they [the Taliban] eradicated those 144 Mangal Bagh is a head of a Taliban affiliated militant group active in one of the districts of the Tribal 145 Ameer (‫ )اﻣﯾر‬is a title in Arabic for a religiously sanctioned authority figure. Areas. 149 009 norms, those codes of Pashtunwali. Jirga has now stopped—decisions are transferred 010 from Hujrah to mosque. In the past, the decisions that were made, those were made by 011 our elders. Here now, the Jirga have come to an end, things have now gone into the 012 hands of qazis, 146 I mean the shura, 147 religious people like mulla [clerics], the Taliban or 013 whatever. They would give decisions on the basis of the Quran or Hadith, 148 the way 014 they interpreted it. Traditions have been expelled saying, “it is apostasy.” So things 015 could not be challenged, against which nothing could be said so it is completely 016 authoritarian. 017 TK: where did the Taliban, the religious authority come from? 018 Akram: Army. Punjabi army, who else! They [the Pakistan military] created 019 the Taliban […] They [the Taliban] are their strategic assets Eng.. Village which is the moral center and bastion of Pashtunwali is the very place where the principles of Pashtunwali are unravelling. Political authority that was the prerogative of corelineage group (who convene and deliberate in Jirga) is now shifted to the religious groups (see chapter 1 for social hierarchy and political authority in Pashtun society). Religious figures in the traditional Pashtun society are expected to remain politically neutral and disinterested in power. In the past the religious group members, such as clerics (mulla, who were at the bottom of social hierarchy as they belong to the client group), conducted routine services, such as leading congregational prayers, and mediating between feuding households (with no coercive authority). But now they are not only pretenders to political authority, they have also made riwaj (Pashtun traditions) subservient to religion. The august institution of Jirga, the council of elders has “now stopped—decisions are transferred from hujra to mosque” (line 9-10). Hujra that represents the secular sphere is no more the place of political activity, but it is now the mosque that has become the seat of the political-cum-religious authority. Their decisions are based on Islamic principles and the daily life is no more mediated by the principles of Pashtunwali. The people who are now wielding political authority are “not chosen by people” 146 Qazi (‫ )ﻗﺎﺿﯽ‬is an Arabic term for a judge. 147 Shura (‫)ﺷوری‬, in Islam, is a council of religious authorities whose members are experts in the Islamic jurisprudence. 148 Hadith (‫ )ﺣدﯾث‬are the traditions of the prophet of Islam. 150 (line 4) i.e., it is an imposed authority without any popular consent. Moreover, the village is no more a place of individual autonomy and political independence. The perception that village is a place out of the reach of the state is fast fading as the village autonomy is undermined by the sovereign node of the Taliban, who now exercise de facto sovereignty on the erstwhile “free” Pashtun of the ancestral rural homeland. The term “strategic asset” is used in both common parlance and by the critics of the state for its long held policy of recruiting and arming subject population from the peripheral areas to further foreign policy designs in the neighboring states of India and Afghanistan in the form of proxy wars. Perceived to be nested in the formal sovereignty of the state, the Taliban are seen as the extension of the coercive authority of the state that has undermined their political independence due to their marginal and peripheral presence in the state borders. Rashid is of the similar view regarding the disruptive influence of the Taliban militancy. He states: Example 4.6 001 Rashid: Like first change is this factor of terrorism. These people [the Taliban] who 002 have come, against whom malak 149is depressed. […] When there is war for many years, 003 malak himself says, “I am unharmed so why not pass it in the city.”[…] This whole area is 004 sensitive. Everywhere everyone can be killed. Village is a war zone where life is no longer regulated by the principles of Pashtunwali. It is a deserted place where even malak who convene and deliberate in Jirga have fled fearing for their lives. Village is now mired in an existential crisis where enacting and preserving Pashtunwali is the least priority. In such a bleak scenario, the relatively peaceful life in the urban areas under the direct watch of the state seems appealing and people are migrating to the cities, as Saqib states: Example 4.7 001 Saqib: People have migrated to developed areas Eng. They stayed among those people 002 [people from the cities] and this thought came to their mind that home has gone out of 003 hands. In the past, we had lands and fields now there is nothing, only education. 149 Malak is the title of a Pashtun tribal chief. Malak is an influential local elder who participates in tribal Jirga. (see chapter 1 for the discussion of the institution of malak and khan). 151 Introduced to the urban life as they flee their rural homelands, the village life appears less appealing. The lands and fields that are means of subsistence and claim to social status are no more relevant in the new urban settings. Education through which one can find service in the state and claim a new form of state-based respectability is the priority. It is however not only the war and the rise of the unprecedented power of the religious group with the tacit consent of the state that are cited as the reasons for the deterioration of village life, but even the very principles of Pashtunwali and riwaj (‫( )رواج‬secular traditions) are critiqued. Social solidarity which is cited as one of the strengths of the village life is at times found too constricting as Kashif observes: Example 4.8 001 Kashif: People keep a watch on you. They have interest in everything. You tell me can 002 you go out with your wife? No, you can’t. People will gossip. But see, in Islamabad— 003 nobody cares who are you with. No one is interested in what you are doing. So I mean in 004 Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi you have freedom. Village life denies individual freedom where normative gender roles are invoked to police and evaluate people. This form of sociality contrasts with the social life in the urban areas where people’s disinterest in an individual’s life allows for personal freedom and a space where the normative gaze is relatively less intense. 150 Interestingly, Shaukat who in general is an admirer of village life at moments finds village life not without its flaws. Example 4.9 001 Shaukat: In village you can’t travel after dark. If you go out, lootings happen [as robbers 002 would waylay you]. And if you have to go out [in emergency] you have to carry money 003 with you to give to them. If you don’t have money on you, they will beat you up. […] You 004 can’t even wear nicer clothes. If you prosper urdu in the village, they [rivals] will kill you. I 005 have heard a story that in a village once there was a guy who got a job in the military. 006 His cousins did not like this. They killed him for this. 150 Bartlotti (2000:302) in his ethnographic research on Pakistani Pashtun reports a similar comment by a Pashtun who tells the researcher wistfully, “If there are no relatives, then it’s easy, you know. There is nobody to give you peghor [verbal taunt], life is easy.” 152 Shaukat uses the Urdu word taraqi (‫ )ﺗرﮐﯽ‬which is used for promotion in state bureaucracy. As villagers seek employment with the state in the urban centers, they also attract envy from rivals, especially tarbooran (‫( )ﺗرﺑوران‬agnates). This envy is reserved only for taraqi through non-traditional means. Becoming influential as malak or becoming a member of Jirga rarely incites envy. Rather such a position is respected and extolled. What is different about taraqi is that it seeks prosperity through capitalist accumulation and a state based social and economic hierarchy that is perceived as threatening to the traditional Pashtun social and economic order. Hill (1995a:108) records a similar phenomenon in her analysis of a narrative of a Mexicano peasant. She notes that in Mexicano language, the word envidia, is specifically used for a form of envy that is directed towards those individuals “who practice true capitalist accumulation, thereby tipping the balance of reciprocity” and prosperity within traditional order (1995a:108). Similarly, Saqib bemoans the growing influence of city on the village life where people now measure the worth of a person on the market standards: Example 4.10 001 Saqib: Respect now is in money—in big house, in big car. Where is Pashto now! Pashto 002 is gone. Now a person would be mad to do Pashto. Fahad on the other hand highlights the peripherality of rural life where the basic amenities of life are scarce, as he states: Example 4.11 001 Fahad: Life is very hard here [in the village]. Here there is no hospital, no system, no 002 school. Schools are destroyed [by the Taliban]. And even if there are any [schools], they 003 are miles away. This ambivalence towards the village as both a site of Pashtun traditions and values and a peripheral and marginal place depict the growing tension between the ideal and the practical consciousness. In their contrast with the urban life, my research participants are also commenting upon the disruption in the Pashtun culture in the wake of urban migration and the growing encapsulation of by the state. As Edwards (2002:204) observes in his discussion of Pashtun urban migration from their ancestral rural homelands, “[with urban migration] the 153 customs and traditions that had bound together the villages from which most of them sprang— lost their vitality and their basic viability. What had given structure and meaning in the local community… were [now] irrelevant.” Navigating the rural-urban divide: The Reinvention of Pashtunwali In the wake of the contact with the state authority in the urban centers, and the growing influence of the state in the rural homeland, Pashtun are faced with ambiguities as they deviate from the principles of Pashtunwali as practiced by their ancestors prior to the emergence and contact with the Pakistani state. It is in the attempt to resolve these ambiguities that Pashtun are reinventing and redefining their code. This active reconstruction of the code also brings to light that Pashtunwali is not fixed nor is it determining Pashtun social life. It is in fact “emergent and unfinished” (Banerjee 2000:15). The significance of village as the site of Pashtun identity construction is also evident in the narratives of Pashtun urban migrants. Village remains central in their narratives, however, they reinterpret their attachment and claim to village identity in various and novel ways. One way of establishing their link with the village is by distinguishing village as a site of belonging. For instance, Kashif, an urban dweller speaks about his connection with his ancestral village in Swat in the following words: Example 4.12 001 Kashif: When I would go to village so he [the elder relative] would often greet me as 002 “city-person has arrived.” I was young at that time so I would really mind. 003 TK: Why would you mind? 004 Kashif: I am not a city person. I live in the city. I am not from the city. Kashif uses two different constructions when he speaks about his connection with the village and the city. He uses the Pashto verb osegum 151 (‫)اوڅﯾګم‬, meaning “[I] live,” when he talks about his residence in the city. On the other hand, he uses the construction, za yum (‫)زه ﯾم‬, meaning “I am from” when he talks about his village. This usage is consistently used by my other research participants when they talk about their connection with the village. This implies 151 Osegum literally means “I live.” Pashto syntax like Spanish has a “tacit subject” construction (Decena 2008:340) i.e., the subject is built into the verb through a verb inflection. 154 that their relation with their village is permanent whereas their relation with the city is temporary. 152 This is also consistent with Pashtun practice of noting down their “permanent address” in official document as their village address, whereas the city address is given as their “temporary address.” Kashif’s location of his village as the site of belonging and affective attachment is also attested by his annoyance with his elder relative who jokingly greets him as kharey (‫( )ﺧﺎرے‬city person) that relates him to the city, a place of temporary residence with minimum emotional attachment. Moreover, my question that why would he mind the label kharey occasions a similar response from him. The phrasing of my question, “why would you mind [being called a kharey],” implicitly aligns him with the city. By suggesting, though inadvertently, that he should not mind the use of the word kharey, I questioned his authenticity as a Pashtun by dislocating him from the village as a place of belonging and affective attachment. He may live in the city but the city is never a place where “he is from.” The village as a place of permanent residence and belonging is also played out by identifying the village as a place of gham khadi, the sorrow-joy rituals. Urban migrants make an effort to travel back to their villages to enact and perform traditional rituals in the village spaces such as burying their dead in their ancestral graveyards, attending funerals, celebrating their religious and cultural holidays, and other important events of life. 153 Performing rituals not only keeps intact their connection with the village, but it also signals that village is the place of permanent residence and city is a temporary abode. Failing to maintain the rituals ties with the village invites the charge of inauthenticity as a Pashtun. This connection with the village is not restricted to holidays and rituals. Some respondents state that they visit their village weekly to remain relevant in the village life. Example 4.13 001 Fahad: My father would every weekend go to village. He would spend a night there and 002 then return in the morning. So when I was young he would always want to take me with 152 William L. Leap finds similar usage in his ethnographic work in South Africa where his research participants use two different constructions “I live” and “I stay” to distinguish between the place of belonging and a temporary residence (Personal communication, Sept 16, 2015). 153 There is a recent trend among Pashtun urban migrants to hold wedding ceremonies in the rented “wedding halls” in the cities where they reside. However, this is critiqued as un-Pashtun act, forcing some to hold two wedding ceremonies: one in the village and one in the wedding halls in the city, which doubles the cost of wedding ceremony. 155 003 him…. But he would leave my elder brother to take care of the house and our siblings. 004 So I would refuse? I wanted to stay, play videogame Eng and like that. There was not 005 much to do in the village… So my father would tell me, “this [village] is our home. We all 006 will ultimately go there.” The village “is our home” (line 5) echoes my own father’s words as mentioned in chapter 1. This again emphasizes the permanent link with the village. It is the final abode and ancestral home as opposed to the temporary residence in the city. However, the residence in the city is far from temporary. Fahad grew up in the city, went to school there, and like his father is planning to stay in the city. Despite this extended period of time, it is the village that is perceived as the place of belonging and object of affective attachment. Fahad’s father’s insistence that he go to the village with him every weekend is an attempt to familiarize him with the village life lest he is lost to the city. Moreover, the claim to village life, as mentioned earlier, is primarily made and contested on the basis of material familiarity. Socializing children to their village environment from any early age is one of the ways to prevent the accusation of being a “foreign other” as unfamiliarity with the village may mark them as out of place in the village life. Maintaining two residences, one in village and one in the city, is another way of navigating the rural-urban divide and the contradictions that it brings in its wake. As noted by Ahmed (1980:218-219), the Pashto term dwa-kora (‫( )دوا ﮐورا‬dual residence) has come into use with the urban migration and the increasing influence of the state on Pashtun society. Dwakora is practiced by the Pashtun core-lineage group, as it is the group that has traditionally monopolized the political and coercive power in the village. Despite being drawn to the urban life, dwa-kora is a novel way of remaining relevant to the village life by showing the presence of the household in the village life. The dual residence attempts to reconcile the rural-urban divide through the “kinship division of labor” (Stasch 2013:565). In this division of labor, family members are distributed between the two spaces in a way that ensures both the connection with the indigenous rural areas, and the urban centers which are places of material advancement. For instance, some kin members establish themselves in the city while other members supervise the ancestral homes and participate in the enactment of Pashtunwali such 156 as participation in Jirga. Moreover, school-going children reside in the city with the migrant kins, whereas those best suited for village life such as elders maintain residence in the village. Similarly, members move back and forth between the two places depending on the situation. An elder in need of medical care would often stay with the migrant kin to avail the better health facilities in the city. This dual residence also provides flexibility as people navigate the ruralurban divide and their conflicting demands. Another means to claiming rural Pashtun identity for the core-lineage urban migrants is to draw on their core-lineage heritage. As they are integrated in the urban centers, the distinction is sought more and more through their tribal heritage than through the enactment of Pashtunwali. As living under the authority of the state as its clients, the claim to individual autonomy is difficult to claim. It is for this reason that there is a rise in the use of tribal and clan names as last names. Majority of Pashtun social media users now use their tribal/clan names such as “Yusufzai,” “Afriday,” “Khattak,” and so on, that is not traditional but a cultural innovation. In fact, as noted by Edwards (2002:179), “Afghans [Pashtun] traditionally do not have family names.” 154 As Barth (1969b:15, cited in Bartlotti 200:3) argues in the context of Pashtun society, social actors draw on different elements of their cultural repertoire to legitimate the desired identity. It is by choosing these elements and their continual expression that social actors signal membership as well as exclusion (Barth 1969b:15). As Pashtun migrate to the urban centers, the enactment of Pashtunwali is becoming difficult as they are pulled by both ancestral and urban norms. In such a scenario, “doing Pashto” is reinterpreted and the membership in the Pashtun society is validated through the reinterpretation in order to adjust to the changes in the lived experiences. All these different criteria of adjustment are ways to find continuity with the past as well as to adjust to the changes and disruptions that unfold as they are coopted by the state. 154 However, the use of tribal names as family names is also occasioned by the written procedures in the state documents that require last name for official purposes. I have known people who had to invent their last name on the spot when they were asked for their last name by state officials in order to procure a state identity card or even to apply for jobs. 157 Discussion As discussed earlier, moral geography is the mapping of ethical contrast on a spatial divide to demonstrate “that you fit in and how you fit in—that you and the landscape are well matched” (Modan 2007:90). This process of place making involves construction of identities at three different levels, all of which are relational and mutually constitutive: the identity of the place itself, the centralized or core identity, and the marginalized or non-core identity. In the case of Pashtun, we find these three processes in play. The village is constructed as a place of Pashtun customs and traditions. It is the place where the principles of Pashtunwali hold sway. Opposed to the village is the city that is constructed as a place antithetical to Pashtunwali principles where social life is subservient to material and selfish interests. It is a place lacking in individual autonomy and political and economic freedom. The Pashtun core and marginal identity are then constructed by aligning oneself with the village life and positioning Pashtun urban migrants with the urban space. However, the construction of moral geography, i.e., mapping of ethical contrast on to the village and the city is not a consistent process, but it is wrought with contradictions and ambiguities. These contradictions are, as argued by Thomas (2002:369), due to the multilocal and multivocal character of places. The discursive construction of Pashtun’s indigenous rural homeland is multilocal as villages exists in relation to the urban centers that exert influence on the rural life as Pashtun migrate to the cities for material advancement and betterment of life. Moreover, the representation of rural-urban divide is multivocal as Pashtun attempt to accommodate their multiple and contradictory interests as they navigate the rural-urban divide. It is due to the multivocality, i.e., multiple and contradictory ways of imagining a place, of rural-urban moral geography that Pashtun give voice to their peripherality in relation to the cities. This multivocality in itself is the result of the tension between the idealized representation of the village and the actual lived experiences. The village may legitimate the desired Pashtun core identity, but it is also a place that is undergoing disruption. As the village life is encapsulated by the state, the age old institutions of Pashtunwali are dying. The informal nodes of sovereignty (such as the Taliban) ensconced in the larger sovereignty of the state have 158 expelled the traditions and subordinated the institutions of Pashtunwali to the religious authority. Moreover, people have lost their individual autonomy and independence as the Taliban impose an oppressive centralized authority. Now the village life is regulated and controlled without the mediation from revered cultural institutions. Furthermore, the elders who are tasked with upholding Pashtunwali are themselves struggling for survival and are fleeing the village. People have lost their lands under the raging militancy and their economic and political freedom is undermined. In other words, there is a crisis in the society and the conventional and habitual ways of conceptualizing the village as the place of Pashtunwali is in tension with the lived experiences in the village. As the village is increasingly subordinated to the city in terms of economy and politics, the practical consciousness rooted in the material conditions of the present are also changing. This practical consciousness though not formalized and clearly articulated nonetheless finds expression in the contrast between the rural and urban moral geography. It is in this contrast that people voice the emerging structure of feeling that is not yet fully articulated. Though the representation of village as the site of the enactment of Pashtunwali continues to function as “partial interpreter,” it does not speak to the practical consciousness in the present. It is for this reason that the perception of village as a place of “doing Pashto” and a land of Pashtun norms and values coexists with the sense of loss and recognition that village life is undergoing a disruptive change. However, this tension between the conventional and habitual ways of seeing the village as the moral center and the lived experience also gives rise to innovation as people attempt to grapple with the inconsistencies. As they adjust to the conflicting ways of life, while they shuttle between rural and urban life, they redefine and reinvent Pashtunwali that speaks to their present condition. We find this in the way in which they reimagine their relation with the village. Division of residential labor, dual residence, socializing in the village on weekends, emphasizing on the village as the place of sorrow and joy and a place of belonging and affective attachment are all ways of finding continuity with the past in the midst of change and keeping Pashtunwali alive. This reinvention of traditional Pashtun way of life also demonstrates that Pashtunwali is not a fixed code but is flexible, emergent, and unfinished. 159 Conclusion As discussed in the previous chapters, the contact between the state and Pashtun is characterized by highly asymmetrical relations of power. It is the state structure and its institutions that construct and define the rules. Powerless and placed at a disadvantage, Pashtun are in no position to exist outside the influence of the state and its sanctioned hierarchies. Be it the educational institutions, the mainstream media, or the state-imposed rural-urban divide, the disruptive influence of the state needs to be engaged and countered. With the rural-urban divide the Pashtunwali that has been organizing and regulating Pashtun society for centuries has come under significant strain. The ambivalent and contradictory moral geography that Pashtun construct is indicative of this disruption. The older structure of feeling (the conventional and habitual beliefs) that sprang from the pre-contact Pashtun society no longer captures the present lived experiences (such as social practices, social relations, memories, rituals embedded in the mode of production) marked by rural-urban divide. However, the new structure of feeling rooted in the present is emergent and not yet fully formed. It is in this conflicting moral geography that the new social consciousness characterized by disruption is articulated. This glimpse of the emergent structure of feeling demonstrates the creative ways in which Pashtun reinvent and redefine their conventional and traditional practices in a way to find continuity with their past. In the next chapter, I extend the discussion to the Pashtun’s critical deployment of the past as a disidentificatory practice to counter the state sanctioned temporality that erases and denies Pashtun their historical heritage. 160 CHAPTER 5 PASHTUN TEMPORALITY: PAST AS A DISINDETIFICATORY NODE In this chapter, I discuss Pashtun’s disidentificatory temporality (characterized by neither acceptance nor rejection, but a reworking of the dominant temporality) from three foci: the disidentificatory deployment of the past as a realm of “potentiality” that animates and fuels the desire for a future free of oppressive temporality; the use of dominant state temporality as a raw material to expose the erasure of Pashtun past and to provide a platform to resurrect and enact Pashtun temporal identities; and lastly, the linking of Pashto language with indigenous Pashtun history in opposition to Arabic language that the state and the Taliban privilege to construct the “Arabic origin” narrative. Drawing on queer temporality, I discuss Pashtun as queer subjects who subscribe to the temporalities that do not line up with the official, normative, singular, and teleological temporality of the Pakistani state and the Taliban who like the state naturalize a temporal order that construct a linear and prescriptive temporality originating in early Islamic Arabia. Living in a contact zone marked by power asymmetry, the state pressures Pashtun (ideologically and coercively) to assimilate and identify with the temporality of the state nationalist narrative that deny any space to Pashtun history and heritage. Such identification requires Pashtun to negate their selves, their history, their language, and their cultural heritage. However, open rejection of the official temporality is not a useful option either as the repressive state and the informal sovereign Taliban node can threaten their survival. In this context, I argue that Pashtun participate in the official temporality through disidentification, a strategy that neither accepts nor rejects but reworks the temporality in a way that simultaneously disrupts the official temporality and allows for the assertion of the alternative Pashtun temporality. In this disidentificatory fashion, Pashtun disrupt the official temporality by locating their own history and presence in it to enact an alternative temporality. In other words, Pashtun do not reject the prescriptive paradigm of identification, but they rather expand and problematize it to liberate their history and cultural heritage from the custody of state temporality and carve a space for their non-normative modes of temporal identifications. In this way, it is neither assimilation nor rejectionist but a critical and creative engagement of the official temporality. 161 Official Pakistani Temporality As discussed in chapter 1, the Pakistani nationalist project and state making practices are based on the construction of teleological historiography in which Pakistan is the telos towards which history was driven from the time of the advent of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century. According to this official narrative, the Muslim population (96% of the total population of Pakistan) is descended from the Arab invaders who brought Islam to the subcontinent in the 8th century. In other words, the official narrative emphasizes the foreign and diasporic nature of its population with no affective attachment with the territory which they came to occupy. In this narrative, the local ethnic histories are represented as oppositional temporalities that were overcome with the materialization of Pakistan. Any attachment to the local histories, cultures, and languages that became part of Pakistan are termed as antithetical, and therefore threatening, to the official Pakistani identity. The indigenous histories, cultures, and languages are either erased or demonized as undesirable un-Islamic past that needs to be purged. In short, the official nationalism is based on the temporality that prescribes that Pakistani citizensubjects align themselves culturally, historically, and linguistically with the early Islamic Arabia from where they are supposedly descended. In this way, identification with the dominant temporality results in the negation of ones’ history, culture, and language. It is in this temporal context that Pashtun attempt to enact their own alternative temporality. Queer Temporality and the Potentiality of the Past Before I discuss queer temporality, let me explain the two terms “queer” and “temporality” separately. Queerness addresses issues of sexuality, sexual norms, and heteronormativity; however, queerness has gradually extended its scope to a wide range of issues that go beyond the discussion of human identity and sexuality, and encompass a wide range of issues that are loosely organized around the critique of normativity and regulatory power (Browne 2006:888; Gandy 2012:734; Halberstam 2005:10; Leap 2015:662; Munoz 2009:134; Oswin 2008:90). For this reason queerness is not just about same-sex desires or about sexual object choice; Halberstam (2005:10) argues that queer subjects are all those people who live “on the edges of” the logics of normativity whether “deliberately, accidentally, or of necessity.” Similarly, Munoz (2009:173) expands the range of queerness by asserting that 162 queerness is not about a particular mode of normativity; the normal in queerness is a more expansive term that encompasses different non-normative positionalities and practices. For the purpose of this dissertation, I take the term “queer” in its broader meaning that covers all subjects, including Pashtun, who do not conform to the normative protocols especially the state sanctioned singular and authentic national identity and assimilationist ideologies. In short, queerness is about the enactment of difference in the face of, what Young (1990:229) calls, “the denial of difference.” My understanding of the term “temporality” also comes from the queer critique of “straight time” (Halberstam 2005:10; Munoz 2009:22). Straight time, in queer theory, signifies the teleological and linear understanding of time that naturalizes and reproduces heteronormativity. Again, in its broader sense, straight time is an autonaturalizing and normative temporal order that constructs and reproduces a repressive social order and denies other modes of inhabiting time that do not conform to the normative temporality. Straight time is prescriptive and singular that attempts to render non-normative temporalities (nonnormative ways of inhabiting and experiencing time) as impossible and unimaginable. Queer theorists, such as Halberstam (2005), Munoz (2009), and Edelman (2004) have been in the forefront in interrogating the pervasive temporal assumptions that are often taken for granted.155 These ‘self-evident’ and ‘obvious’ common sense assumptions about time are closely tied to discourses of hierarchy, privilege, and exclusion. Queer theorists foreground temporality as multiple and ideological. The unquestioned and implicit assumptions about the temporal have normalizing effect. Despite its plurality, power naturalizes a particular temporality while denying or erasing other competing or oppositional temporalities. In her insightful essay on queer time, Halberstam (2005:1) defines queerness (in terms of temporality) as people who lie outside the straight time; queers inhabit temporalities that do 155 Discussion of temporality as an ideological construct is not unique to queer theorist, however, queer theorists have become more focused on the link between temporality and normativity. Other important non-queer theorists who have discussed temporality as a social construct include Anderson (1983) and Harvey (1990). In his otherwise insightful essay on the social construction of time in postmodernity, Harvey (1990), however, is mostly concerned with the processes of capitalism and ignores the normative temporalities associated with heteronormativity, sexism, and racism. In his later work, Harvey (2005:47) even rejects the queer and feminist politics as “the narcissistic exploration of self, sexuality and identity” (for a critique of Harvey’s rejection of queer and feminist politics see, for instance, Munoz (2009:30-32) and Halberstam (2005:7-8)). 163 not fit into the normative and conventional temporal logics. 156 According to this understanding, queer temporality is “an outcome of strange temporalities” (Halberstam 2005:5). Following Halberstam, I take queer temporality to be a temporal location that exists on the edge of normative temporality. In this sense, Pashtun are queer subjects as they live outside the official temporality of the Pakistani state that is singular, teleological, and prescriptive. Munoz (2009:4) focuses more on the ways in which queer subjects can disrupt the normative temporality. According to him, for the queer subjects inhabiting alternative temporalities, the past can be a critical tool of both enacting alternative temporalities and combating the normative temporality. Drawing on Agamben’s (1999:45) distinction between “potentiality,” and “possibility,” Munoz (2009:99) argues that in queer temporality, the past is the realm of potentiality as opposed to possibility. Possibility, Munoz explains, exists within a “logical real,” something that is linked to presence. Potentiality, on the other hand, is ephemeral; it is a trace that does not ‘exist’ in the present, but it is an opening and a horizon that suggests alternative futurity. For instance, an act or a performance that unfolded in the past apparently does not exist in the present. But something is left behind, a lingering memory/trace/ephemera, that cannot be reduced to the duration of the performance. Munoz (2009:70, 81) argues such an act or performance after it transpires is transformed into an ephemera, which “does not equal unmateriality;” it now becomes a transformed materiality that has the potential to animate and fuel our desire for a different and alternative future that exists outside the logic of normative temporality. (Queer) potentiality in this sense is performative. 157 The past is not dead, but is active and alive that can be called upon to intervene in the present and imagine alternative futurities. Past is performative in the sense 156 Some of the normative and conventional temporalities that Halberstam (2005:5) enumerates include: i) “reproductive” temporality that naturalizes the temporal logics associated with reproduction within the institution of marriage; ii) “family” temporality that prescribes a normative temporal scheduling of daily life, for instance, a prescribed time for sleeping, working, and so on; iii) “inheritance”/“generation” temporality that values passing on of morals, wealth, and values from one generation to another; and iv) “hypothetical”/“what if” temporality that requires material and emotional investment in the forms of insurance, health care, and wills to secure the future. 157 As Leap (2015:69) notes performativity as a concept was first introduced by Austin (1962) in the theory of speech acts, and was later popularized by Butler (1997, 1990) in queer discussion. Performativity is a process by which a speech act “call[s] into being the conditions that it names” (Leap 2015:69). In other words, a performative speech act or language does things. For instance, the sentence (said in a marriage ceremony), “I now pronounce you man and wife” is often cited as an example of a performative utterance as it brings into existence the condition it names. 164 that it influences and animates the present in order to release the queer time from the custody of straight time (Munoz 2009:27-28, 139). Munoz makes a number of assertions about queer temporality. In queer temporality, past is not dead, but it is a critical and political resource. Its potentiality and performativity can be utilized to intervene into, and disrupt, the straight time. Similarly, the past as a trace and ephemera allows for a future that is queer or in other words, queer futurity disrupts the linearity and teleology of the straight time. In queer temporality, the not-yet-here-and-now is “intensely relational with the past” (Munoz 2009:27). He further asserts that queer potentiality does not necessarily exists in spectacular events in the past but the everyday and the quotidian are also potent reservoirs of potentialities through which one can glimpse a queer futurity; a fleeting gesture, a moment of joy, a random performance, all of them carry potentialities (Munoz 2009:22; also see Barthes 1976:23). Moreover, queer potentiality, unlike the straight time, does not lead or point to a prescriptive futurity (Munoz 2009:91). As already mentioned, queer potentiality is “not an end but an opening or horizon” that is a means to multiple and infinite temporalities that reject the normalized status quo of straight time (Munoz 2009:91,100). In other words, queer temporality is plural and it is without any closure or finitude (Munoz 2009:25). It is important not to confuse queer potentiality with nostalgia.158 Unlike queer potentiality, nostalgia is a longing for the real or imaginary past that no longer exists and is irrecoverably lost; a nostalgic fixates on an essentialized and idealized past as a lost object that if recovered would stabilize and secure the present (Boym 2001:xiv; Inoue 2004:3; Hall 1992:133; Munoz 1999:83). In this sense, nostalgia is prescriptive and linear. On the other hand, queer potentiality enables a subject to use the past as a critical and political resource to combat the normative present and to imagine alternative futurities. Disidentification as a Strategy of Survival Enacting a queer temporality openly and directly can, however, be difficult. It is especially difficult when challenging the straight time sanctioned by the state can invite intense hostility and repression. Disidentification is a useful tool in a “contact zone” (Pratt 1992:7) 159 158 The term “nostalgia” is a combination of two Greek words: nostos, meaning “return home,” and algia, meaning “longing.” Nostalgia is a longing for a home that is perceived to be lost (Boym 2001:xiv). 159 Pratt (1992:7) explains the asymmetrical relation of power in the contact zone as follows: “subjects are constituted in and by their relations to each other. It treats the relations among coloinzers and colonized… not in 165 where the power asymmetry is quite strong and the resistance and activism can be risky if taken beyond autoethnographic text (Munoz 1999:39, 55). Disidentification is autoethnographic in the sense that it acknowledges (but does not accept) the ideological power of an object or site that has immense hold on cultural imaginary. As an autoethnographic engagement, disidentification recycles, incorporates, and mediates its dangerous and oppressive force and influence with a purpose of transfiguring it (Munoz 1999:39, 55). In other words, disidentification cultivates the dominant perspective as a site or raw material to rework it, expose its elision, exploit it, and provide a platform for disempowered politics that the dominant ideology has rendered unthinkable and impossible. Like a structure of feeling, disidentification is wrought with contradictions and ambivalences that both retains a problematic object and at the same time reworks it (Munoz 1999:71). In a contact zone, where the powerful and dominated are in an asymmetrical relationship the strategy of disidentification is more practical. For this reason, disidentification is a useful tool that can be deployed to queer state sanctioned normative temporality. Munoz in his discussion of disidentificatory practices draws and expands on Pecheux’s (1982:169) concept of “disidentification,” which is one of the three modes 160 in which a subject responds to the Althusserian ideology (see chapter 1 for the discussion of Althusser). Disidentification, according to Munoz (1999:1), is a survival strategy that nonnormative subjects use to their advantage to negotiate the dominant and hostile public sphere that denies them inclusion in the normative citizenship due to their nonconformity. In such a context, the deployment of disidentification is a strategy that neither assimilates nor does it openly challenge the dominant ideology. A disidentificatory subject, instead, simultaneously “works on and against dominant ideology” (Munoz 1999:11). However this simultaneous working on and against is not about “pick and choose” i.e., it is not about accepting some components of the protocols of the dominant ideology and rejecting the problematic ones (Munoz 1999:12). Similarly, terms of separateness or apartheid, but in terms of copresence, interaction, interlocking understanding and practices, often with radically asymmetrical relations of power.” 160 Pecheux (1982:69) outlines three responses to ideology: the first mode is that of a “Good Subject” who accepts the interpellation (assimilation), second mode is that of a “Bad Subject” who rejects the interpellation (antiassimilation), and the third mode is that of “Disidentification” in which a subject neither rejects nor accepts the interpellation but attempts to engage the interpellation with the purpose of defeating it. 166 disidentification is not an “apolitical middle ground” between assimilation and antiassimilation. Disidentification is rather the reworking of the ideology, the prescribed script of identification, with the purpose of defeating it as Munoz (1999:23) puts it, “disidentification is a remaking and rewriting of a dominant script.” Furthermore, disidentification is critical and antiassimilationist but it departs from open anti-assimilationist rhetoric as a strategy to deflect hostility (Munoz 1999:18-19). In short, disidentification seeks to intervene in, and disrupt, the dominant and majoritarian sphere from the perspective of a disempowered subject working in a hostile and precarious environment (Munoz 1999:25). Take for instance, Munoz’s (1999:52) example of the disidentificatory reading of the temporality of the canonical White literature that exploits the temporal inconsistencies and gaps within the text with a purpose of foregrounding the racialized temporality that is erased from the narrative. In this way, rather than rejecting the normative temporality, a racialized subject engages with the narrative in order to not only disrupt it but also to use it for its own end. In this narrative, the erased temporality is a disidentificatory node that becomes a site to “foreground the lost object [the temporality of the racialized Other] of identification” (Munoz 1999:52). As mentioned earlier, this identification with “the lost object” is not a nostalgic longing as Munoz (1999:52) clarifies that in this disidentificatory process “the lost object returns with a vengeance” that serves “to call up the dead, to mingle the power of the past with the decay of the present.” Munoz explains the critical function of disidentificatory temporality as follows: Disidentification is about recycling and rethinking encoded meaning. The process of disidentification scrambles and reconstructs the encoded messages of a cultural text in a fashion that both exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recruits its working to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications. Thus, disidentification is a step further than cracking open the code of majority; it proceeds to use this code as raw material for representing a disempowered politics or positionality that has been rendered unthinkable by the dominant culture” (1999:31). Finally, disidentification is enacted both at the level of production and reception (Munoz 1999:72, 154). For instance, the reading of an image or object intended to oppress queer existence is re-read (reception) to affirm queer existence, this reception may then be enacted at a production level when it is incorporated in other forms of queer cultural production. In this 167 way, this disidentificatory production creates modes of queer representation from within the dominant paradigm where queer representation is non-existent or limited. It is the reworking of the dominant ideology and making it one’s own. In short, disidentification is always survivalist, tactical, critical, and transformative (Munoz 1999:168). (It is transformative in the sense that it taps into the queer potentiality to transport a subject “to a vantage point where transformation and politics are imaginable” (Munoz 1999:196)). Moreover, disidentification does not simply intervene in the dominant ideology, it also disassembles the dominant ideology and then uses the raw material to imagine and create alternative worlds (Munoz 1999:196). Caught between the State and the Taliban Among my research participants there is an intense dissatisfaction with the present. The encapsulation of the Pashtun Belt by the Pakistani state and the emergence of the Taliban under the watch of the state authority have resulted in a broken-down present. The age-old Pashtun customs, traditions, heritage, culture, and language are now objects of institutionalized oppression, ridicule, and erasure. As discussed in the earlier chapters, the inclusion of Pashtun indigenous land in the Pakistani state boundaries has subjected Pashtun to the state’s nationalist agenda that demonizes Pashtun ethnicity and its history as primitive and pre-Islamic, and therefore in need of Pakistanization. The emergence of the Taliban, a relatively recent phenomenon as they surfaced in early 2000s, has equally contributed to the state’s agenda. The Taliban who exercise de facto sovereignty over Pashtun areas are alike opposed to Pashtun past, their culture and traditions as they view them un-Islamic and want to replace them with their puritanical and strict version of shariah. Moreover, the state’s nationalist agenda and the Taliban’s worldview converge in the sense that both view ethnic identities as divisive and repugnant (the state does so to integrate the diverse ethnicities in Pakistan, and the Taliban to recreate Muslim ummah). To construct a nationalist and Muslim identity, for both these sovereign nodes the secular Pashtun cultural traditions are the remnants of pre-Islamic cultures that the Muslim invaders from Arabia conquered and replaced. It is in this context that Pashtun talk about the decay of the present moment. Things are not the way they were, and the discussion of the present inevitably leads to a contrast with the past. In this contrast, the past is evaluated positively and the present negatively. Since I have 168 discussed this sense of oppressive Pashtun existence under the state and the Taliban in earlier chapters, here I will share a single example that underlines the relationality of the past and present. Saqib foregrounds this relationality while reflecting on the raging Taliban militancy in his ancestral home in the Tribal Areas: Example 5.1 001 Saqib: Wherever you go you will find Pashtun in trouble. I am without home [displaced] 002 in Swat, I am without home in Mohmand, I am without home in Khyber, I am without 003 home in Bajaur 161—Tell me where is Pashtun safe, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan? 004 Where? 005 TK: Why is it so? I mean who is responsible? 006 Saqib: You know who! It is the [Pakistan] army, and their assets 162 Eng. who else! […] 007 TK: But aren’t they [army] fighting against the assets Eng ? 008 Saqib: Listen to me. What they say, “behind this terrorism is the uniform [army].” This is 009 all a game. […] Pashtun are kicked out [of their ancestral homes]. Now where is Jirga, 010 now where is malak. Malak is a malak in village, not in a city […] On the one side, the 011 community Eng is already beaten up—people are losing interest day by day. In some 012 places when there is Jirga, our own relatives, our elders say, “don’t go, no one knows, 013 there may happen a suicide bombing.” So no one speaks with confidence. If someone 014 speaks confidently for peace so he is afraid. Those people who don’t like peace will kill 015 me. There is a clear rupture between the past and the present. People are uprooted from their ancestral homes both in literal and figurative sense. They are “kicked out” of their land, but their secular institutions and traditional practices are also disbanded. The institution of Jirga and Malak (the elders who lead the Jirga) cannot function anymore due to the looming threat of the Taliban. There is a general sense of precarity in which continuity with the past 161 Mohmand, Khyber, and Bajaur are tribal districts in the Tribal Areas. 162 “Assets” here is a reference to the Taliban militants. The support and funding of these militants (“strategic assets) springs from the “strategic depth” policy that Pakistan uses as its foreign policy tool. According to this policy, the control of neighboring Afghanistan through the militants would provide space to retreat if attacked by the rival state of India (Collyns and Watts 2011; Dawn 2015a; Haqqani 2005; Jamal 2014; Rashid 2000; Siddiqa 2007). 169 through engaging in the practices of their ancestors is difficult. Moreover, there is a strong perception of the Taliban and the state colluding to destroy the Pashtun way of life. Saqib’s belief that the Taliban and the Pakistani state are one and the same is quite popular among Pashtun. He quotes an Urdu slogan circulating in the social media, i.e., Ye jo dehshatgardi hai, is key pechay wardi hai (‫( ) ﯾہ ﺟودﮨﺷت ﮔردی ﮨﮯ اس ﮐﮯ ﭘﯾﭼﮭﮯ وردی ﮨﮯ‬Behind this terrorism is the uniform) (see Figure 5.1 for picture of the slogan shared on social media). This perception of the state conniving with the Taliban and other local militant and extremist groups is not without merit. In fact, a number of studies have pointed out the collusion between the Pakistani state and the extremist groups, such as the Taliban (see for instance, Collyns and Watts 2011; Dawn 2015a; Haqqani 2005; Jamal 2014; Khattak 2015; Rashid 2000; Siddiqa 2007). 163 162F Figure 5.1: “Behind this terrorism is the uniform” Interestingly, my research participants mostly used two different terms when they referred to Pashtun society of the past and that of the present to emphasize the rupture between the past and the present. While talking about the present, they mostly used the English word “community” to refer to Pashtun society. The Pashto word qawm (‫)ﻗﺎم‬, loosely translated as “community” in English language, was mostly reserved for talking about the Pashtun society that existed in the past (see chapter 1 for the detailed discussion of the term qawm). To explore the temporal significance of the two terms, namely qawm and community, used in the interviews of my research participants, I drew on corpus linguistics as outlined by 163 Even the former bureaucrats, generals including Musharraf, the former military dictator and selfappointed president of Pakistan, have confessed to the Pakistani state’s support of these militant groups (Dawn 2015a). 170 Hunston (2002). Hunston (2002:39) provides a structured and systematic way to identify themes in a set of data that may not be readily identifiable. I in particular used concordances, which are a “word-based methods of investigating corpora” (Hunston 2002:39). Concordance lines identify every instance of a selected node word, which is placed at the center, and accompanied by a limited number of words that occur to its left and right. Following this methodology, I separately extracted concordance lines, each line consisting of 13 words, 6 on each side of the node words, qawm and community. As the nodes words come from two different languages (qawm from Pashto, and community from English), the concordance lines are positioned within two different language traditions, namely English and Pashto. Limiting the concordance lines to 13 words enabled me to study the evaluative and affective use of the node words in their immediate contexts and their nearest collocates. As noted by Hunston (2002:46), collocates, the words that tend to co-occur with the node word, are closely linked to the meaning of the node words, and concordance lines bring to light the various patterns in which a particular word is used. In the interviews of my research participants, the word community appears thirty seven times in all the in-depth interviews that I transcribed. In contrast to the word community, the word qawm and its variants (such as its adjective qawmy (‫)ﻗﺎﻣﯽ‬, and its plural qawmoona (‫ ))ﻗﺎﻣوﻧﮫ‬appear only 8 times. The collocates of the node word community includes words relating to displacement, migration, and resettlement, which appear nine times; words connected with violence, war, death, and general insecurity appear 18 times. Moreover, the English word community almost exclusively co-occurs with either explicit temporal references to the present such as “now,” “in the present” or implicit reference to the present moment. The node word qawm and its variants, on the other hand, provide an interesting contrast. Their collocates relate to the words that signify unity (appear 4 times); stability and peace (appear 6 times). Most of the times, the word qawm appears in temporal reference to the past. The concordance lines show that the word community describes violence, war, displacement, and general decay of the present moment. Qawm in contrast is associated with stability, unity, and cultural integrity that people enjoyed in the past (see Table 5.1 and 5.2) 171 Table 5.1 Concordance Lines for the word community Examples of the concordance lines extracted for the English Word Community Collocates Node Word Collocates are Shias that have migrated. These communities have not gone to their areas to fight. The general perception, the community and societal perception that this war day people were abducted, in that community some were killed and some alive they could not do their work, community now do not have a lot happened. You know you live here communities are worried. They are worried that and he waits but attacks another community and when that happens men fight are not going to see that community but people take women out of Table 5.2 Concordance Lines for the word qawm Examples of the concordance lines extracted for the Pashto word Qawm Collocates Node Word Collocates end. In the past, the whole qawm would participate in Jirga and malak no. there was no such thing. Qawmoona would come out together on a appear. There was no question when qawm was united, no one could challenge is stationed on the hills, Pashtun qawm was in one place. People would this issue so they held a qawmy Jirga. It was not that anyone 172 him. The mulla would say something qawm would never let him take the from now, 50 years from now qawmoona talked with the government in a Overall, community and qawm seem to be similar words but they capture two different conditions and temporalities. The present condition of Pashtun is so radically different from the past, that the traditional word qawm no longer captures the sense that the word qawm conveys, therefore, my research participants draw on the English word community that is in the global circulation to capture the sense of disruption that the present moment signifies. Past as a Realm of Potentiality and as a Disidentificatory Node Pashtun perceive both the Taliban and the state as a common enemy. However, both these enemies kill with impunity as one of my research participants says, “it is such a dark time, anybody can be killed anywhere.” A popular anecdote shared on the social media that conveys this sense of precarity and existential threat from the state and the Taliban goes like this: “A Talib 164 asked a Pashtun, “who is on the right path, the Pakistani state or the Taliban?” The Pashtun replies, “of course, the Taliban.” Later a soldier passes by and asks the same question, and the Pashtun replies, “of course, the Pakistan military.” Somebody who has been observing him all along comes forward and asks him for the reason for this contradiction. The Pashtun replies sarcastically, “They [the state and the Taliban] both are right. It is we [Pashtun] who are wrong. It is our fault to exist and that is why they both target us.” Similarly, as noted by Khan (2015:A2), a popular Pashto couplet shared through Short Message Service (SMS) on mobile phones by the people of Swat during the Taliban militancy reads: “O people, it [the apparent war between the Taliban and the state military] is a drama/But one part is real: the killing of Pukhtuns.” What these examples underline is that Pashtun are in a very powerless position. Open confrontation against the state and the Taliban can threaten survival as the two nodes of 164 Talib is the singular of Taliban. 173 sovereignty operate with impunity. On the other hand, acceptance of their agenda is tantamount to negating their own Pashtun heritage and way of life. In such a scenario, the only valid form of resistance against the oppressive force of the two nodes is disidentification, a strategy that allows for a resistance while simultaneously neutralizing threat to survival. As discussed earlier, the invocation of the past is quite prevalent among my research participants especially when they comment on the oppressive present. However, this looking backward, as I will discuss in this section, is not a longing for an irrecoverable and essentialized past. For my research participants, past is a disidentificatory node that allows them to imagine an alternative future that is different and liberating in comparison to this suffocating present. Moreover, past not only allows Pashtun to imagine alternative futurity, but it is also a reservoir of potentiality that inspires Pashtun to tap into the performative force of the past. Salman’s narrative provides an example of the potentiality of the past. He narrates that once he was listening to a radio program in his village in Swat when it was under the occupation of the Taliban. It was a time when the Taliban could easily execute a person on a mere suspicion of being opposed to their reign of terror. Similarly, the military personnel stationed in Swat to fight the Taliban would also detain or torture any person without any evidence if suspected of being a supporter of the Taliban. It was a time, as Salman states, when “people were even afraid of their shadows.” On the radio, he chanced upon a program that reminded him of the “old times” as Salman narrates: Example 5.2 001 Salman: There was this radio station… I incidentally switched on the radio so that person 002 [the radio host] was saying very good things. It reminded us of those old times. 003 TK: What was he saying that reminded you of the old times? 004 Salman: I mean that Swat was the place of peace and like that and that we want and we 005 ask God that that kind of peace returns, that swat becomes peaceful. I mean—would 006 walk anytime without any fear or without that, and there was no fear of robbery, of 007 theft, of killing and there was no fear of such things. We want that this time comes. So I 008 liked this talk very much. So I also dialed their [radio program] number and I also talked 009 with them. It was like—they were taking live calls. So I made a call to it from my village 174 010 and I showed my name that I am that and I am of that village. So I told them that the 011 cause that you have started—I want this kind of peace comes. May God let this peace 012 come so that we once again spend our time with peace! I said exactly these things, like 013 very neutral. So this talk—all these people had heard, all the people of [my] village. So 014 they knew that this person—But from that people took different meanings. But I asked 015 them, “tell me what did I say wrong?” This example demonstrates the performative power of the past. The past is not a mere duration that has ceased to exist, but here past leaves a trace in the form of memories that animate the desire to refuse to accept and to intervene in the oppressive present for an alternative futurity that is free of oppression. The peaceful time has vanished as a duration, but it nevertheless has a materiality contained in the traces of memory that “have an indelible materiality” (Munoz 2009:70). Moreover, the past need not be spectacular or eventful to be performative. The quotidian memories of simply walking and doing ones business without fear of danger to life are equally performative. Similarly, Salman’s recollection of the past is not nostalgic longing, but a node of disidentification that disrupts the present. The past functions as a lost object that prompts him to desire a futurity that is radically different from the poisoned present moment. Though past inspires him to act, he is also mindful of the precarity of life under the state and the Taliban. Open and direct resistance is not an option. Rather than openly rejecting the sovereign nodes in Swat, he tactically speaks in “neutral” terms (line 13). He does not give any hint of his opposition to the Taliban or the state. Nonetheless, the invocation of the past is the critique of the present; though the people responsible for this broken-down present cannot be named directly. Using disidentification as a strategy of survival he not only critiques the sovereign nodes but he also deflects any harm that might fall in his way. When people in the village gossip that he has taken on the Taliban or the state, he simply responds by asking “what did I say wrong?” and who would not agree with his desire for peace? Moreover, by remembering the old times, he relives those moments and using the medium of radio he amplifies the performative power of the past by reaching out to his fellow residents. Furthermore, the gossip and the conversation that his radio call animates helps in documenting 175 the ephemeral knowledge and thus giving those memories a materiality that is very much his own. Similarly, Shahid reveals the performative power of the past that inspired him to study Pashto language and Pashtun literary figures on his own despite the demonization of Pashto language as “language of hell” and therefore by association un-Islamic. In twelfth grade, Shahid had a Pashtun teacher who would teach the class the Pakistan Studies, a compulsory subject up to graduate level that teaches official history of Pakistan. Shahid recalls how the teacher would teach the subject in the class: Example 5.3 001 Shahid: When the teacher would enter the class—when he would open the [Pakistan 002 Studies] lesson, he would say [to the class], “This [Pakistan Studies] is all lies.” Everybody 003 would laugh. [He would continue], “just memorize them [the lessons] so you pass [the 004 subject], but always remember this is all lies.” He was a very good teacher. He was also a 005 [Pashto] poet.[…] He would read us his poetry in class. So that was in my mind 006 somewhere, I don’t know it was lying somewhere in some place [in my mind]. […] After 007 so many years [after graduating from the class], it [interest in Pashto literature] 008 emerged, and I studied Pashto on my own. In this example, the teacher not only disrupts the official history but also neutralizes the ideological power of the history by turning it in a joke (“it is all lies”). Moreover, he uses the very state institution, that employs him to inculcate the official ideology in the minds of the young children, to introduce the young students to Pashto literature that is not allowed within the premises of state institutions. For Salman the teacher’s disidentificatory reading of the official history had a great impact on the shaping of his own thoughts and his Pashtun identity. Though many years passed by since he studied in the class, the performative power of the past memory remained intact and later inspired him to apprise him of Pashtun literary figures on his own. Another way in which my research participants draw on the potentiality of the past is by disseminating their history, that is deliberately erased in the official history, through unofficial and informal channels. For this purpose, technology, social media to be more specific, comes in 176 handy. Anecdotes, pictures, professional and amateur documentaries are shared regularly on social media to denaturalize the official version of the history that begins with the advent of Islam and ends in the creation of Pakistan. There are plenty of examples that demonstrate the use of social media as an informal and effective means to tap into the potentiality of the past, but here I will focus on a single story that deals with the killing of a Pashtun youth at the hands of the Pakistani military. On October 7, 2015, the Voice of America Pashto Radio Service, Mashaal Radio (2015) that is based in Washington, D.C., aired a life history narrative of a Pashtun mother who lost her young son, Ulus Yaar, in anti-marital law demonstration in Quetta, Pakistan in 1983. The audio of the narrative, uploaded on the Facebook page of the Mashaal Radio, became an instant sensation among Pashtun social media users and was widely shared. Here is an excerpt from the narrative of the mother where she narrates her conversation with her son in a hospital moment before he died: Example 5.4 001 Radio Host: You, of course, have many memories [of your son]… but would you like to 002 share anything particular with our listeners? 003 Mother: […] Ulus Yaar told me when he was alive, “mother, we lived for so many years 004 in Afghanistan [as refugees], we could not find a house, we lived in a rented house. Now 005 that we have come to our homeland [Quetta] we still live in other people’s houses…. We 006 don’t have our house, the one we had is destroyed.” I said, “Wait for sometimes, when 007 Pashtunistan 165 comes into being—Pashtunistan will give everyone home, and then you 008 will have a home.” He replied, “We will not be alive then.” I said, “Why would you not 009 be alive? You are young.” He would also say, “I will make my homeland free, if I could 010 not, I will carry this hope to my grave.” This is what he would say, “I will carry this hope 012 to my grave.” So he took [that hope of free Pashtun land to his grave]. I wrote this on his 013 grave, “The hero died with his great hopes/ the mountain with its great rocks stayed 014 steady.” 165 Pashtunistan is literally translated as “the Land of Pashtun.” A free and independent land of Pashtun comprising of the Pashtun Belt striding Pakistan-Afghanistan’s disputed border has been a long standing demand among some sections of Pashtun of Pakistan and Afghanistan. 177 This powerful and poignant narrative of the mother highlights the oppressive conditions of the majority of Pashtun who do not subscribe to the state’s official nationalist project. They are not only the target of the state’s sovereign spectacle as evidenced by the fatally wounded body of Ulus Yaar, but they are also subjected to state abandonment and slow death characterized by displacement, subjection to the dependent and client status (“we still live in other people’s houses), and a restricted and suffocating environment that has become the norm. In this poisoned present, the heartbroken mother has nothing to offer but a vague hope of Pashtunistan that will miraculously relieve them of their present misery. Though the mother’s words are of little relief to the dying son, his response, “we will not be alive then” indicates his belief that such a future free of oppression might come to pass, though he would not live to see it. The audio clip was enthusiastically received by the Pashtun social media users. On the Facebook page of the Mashaal Radio alone the audio clip had more than 34k “likes” (the total subscribers of the page are more than 0.6 million) and was shared by more than 500 people (last checked on October 14, 2015). The response to the clip in the form of written comments was equally enthusiastic with 283 comments. Some commenters in the comment section provided links to similar stories of significant and heroic figures in Pashtun history. 166 Social media in this way has emerged as an effective means to introduce Pashtun to their history that is denied to them in the official history. Many commenters admitted that they had not heard about Ulus Yaar before and thanked the Radio for making them aware of their history. As I have noted in the earlier chapters, my research participants came across Pashtun historical figures such as poets, political leaders, and freedom fighters mostly not in the schools but in the streets and in folk gatherings. Social media is now a new means to unofficially disseminate Pashtun history. (However, there is always the fear that social media might be banned as YouTube is already banned in Pakistan). Some commenters used the comment section to taunt the assimilationist Pashtun and reminded them of the brutalities of the state that they were so loyal to. Other commenters wondered why they were not taught such stories in the schools. In 166 Pashtun literary and political figures that are celebrated on social media include: Khushal Khan Baba, Rehman Baba, Ghani Khan, Ajmal Khattak, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abudul Samad Khan Achakzai, Gaju Khan, and Malalai Trore. Significant events in Pashtun history remembered on social media include: Babra massacre, and First and Second Anglo-Afghan War. 178 this way, the audio clip, recording the sacrifices that Pashtun rendered in the past, became a site of potentiality that inspired the Pashtun social media users to not only question the state’s all-pervasive temporality but to share resources and disseminate knowledge about Pashtun history in informal but effective way. In other words, Ulus Yaar’s narrative serves as a source of potentiality that animates the struggle for a desired futurity that he believed might one day see the light of the day. Using Official Temporality as Raw Material to Expose the Elision of Alternative Temporalities Social media also provides a forum to disrupt and intervene in the official temporality, particularly origin myth of Pakistan that provides no space for Pashtun history. Being marginalized and voiceless in the mainstream society, Pashtun take to the social media, particularly Facebook, to disrupt the ideological messages circulating in the mainstream society. This subversive use of social media is a more common sight on the state’s celebratory occasions such as the Independence Day, and the commemoration of an officially recognized historical figure or event. These messages are intended to symbolically reproduce the state. But the social media users deploy these messages for oppositional reading. A Facebook user who goes by the name of Maiwand Afghan posts a link to a newspaper report about the Independence Day celebration with the following description in Urdu language: Example 5.5 001 Congratulations to all Al-Bakistanio and special congratulations to Patanian who have 002 learnt Pakistan Studies by heart. The rest as usual should wait for their turn to present 003 their lives for sacrifice for the greatest national interest. The word Al-Bakistanio is a play on the word “Pakistani” to satirize the official temporality that traces the history of Pakistan to Muslim Arabia. Al- is an Arabic language inflection and the letter “B” in Al-Bakistanio mimics the stereotypical Arabic speaker who pronounces “P” as “B.” Similarly, the word “Patanian,” a recent coinage on social media, references the assimilationist Pashtun who uncritically identify with the state’s ideology. The post also parodies the Urdu phrase Qawm ke azeem tur mafad (“in the greatest interest of the 179 nation”) that is ubiquitous in the mainstream society usually used to discourage people from critiquing the ethnic and linguistic hierarchies, national elites, and state institutions. The choice of Urdu language suggests that the intended audience of the post is mainstream society whose ideological and fabricated notions of history he wants to disrupt. Also the post with a link to the report on the Independence Day celebration cues the reader to read the ideological message in oppositional way. Moreover, using humor and satire, the user draws attention to what is missing. By suggesting that the state is being Arabized (Al-Bakistanio), the user draws attention to what is missing i.e, the indigenous history. Another social media user, who holds a Facebook account by the name Qadarmund Dawozai disrupts the official temporality in a similar fashion. He posts a fictitious picture, supposedly that of Muhammad Bin Qasim, an Arab general who invaded modern day Sindh province in Pakistan in 712 C.E., who is officially celebrated as a hero in Pakistani textbooks. The picture and its short description in Urdu language (translated here into English) are reproduced below: Example 5.6 001 Muhammad Bin Qasim was born in the Pakistani city Lahore on 14 August, 700 A.D. 002 Praise be to God! 003 The Devil will stop you from sharing this post. Figure 5.2 A fictitious picture of a man dressed in Pakistani flag colors The fictitious picture depicts a man with Middle Eastern phenotype wearing a traditional Middle Eastern head scarf and a Jinnah Cap (a type of cap popularized by Jinnah, the official founder of Pakistan) with a crescent and a star. The picture as a whole mimics the Pakistani flag 180 with white and green and a crescent and star in the middle. The description anachronistically situates Pakistan in the 8th century prior to its birth, highlighting the teleological and constructed temporality of the state. The Quranic expression “Praise be to Allah” (Arabic. Subhanallah) mocks the common perception of the creation of Pakistan as a special favor by God. The postscript “The Devil will stop you from sharing this post” draws attention to the demonization of those who do not subscribe to the official origin story of Pakistan as antiPakistan, and by extension anti-Islam, and therefore believers of devil. Another Facebook account holder with the name Junaid Yousafzai parodies the journalistic jargon used in newspapers to pay homage to the officially honored historical figures in a way that draws attention to the erasure of Pashtun history. His status update reads: Example 5.8 001 The Dawn [English language newspaper in Pakistan] 002 Today the nation celebrates the death anniversary of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. NOT. Abdul Ghaffar Khan as mentioned earlier is a revered Pashtun leader and a champion of non-violence who led Pashtun in their resistance against the British colonial rule in the subcontinent. An ardent supporter of education in the mother-tongue (Pashto) for Pashtun children and a supporter of United India and later autonomous Pashtunistan ([independent] Land of Pashtun), he does not fit in the Pakistani nationalist narrative. In fact, the official history of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pashtun majority province in Pakistan and the birth place of Khan, released on the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan Movement under the title “NWFP’s Part in Pakistan’s Movement” (Sabir 1990) provides an extensive bibliographic database on the regional history with a glaring omission of Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Ayres 2009:136). By parodying the headlines in newspapers paying homage to historical figures, here the user locates Pashtun historical figure by drawing attention to his conspicuous absence in the official history. Though denied any official recognition, Pashtun Facebook users unofficially and informally celebrate their historical events and figures on social media. In fact, on any significant day in Pashtun history, the social media is abuzz with posts commemorating their history. In this way, Pashtun make use of social media to enact an alternative temporality that 181 is Pashtun and secular as opposed to the state’s official temporality that privileges a teleological narrative that recognizes figures and events that serve the state’s nationalist narrative. Enacting Disidentificatory Temporality through Pashto Language Language is another site where the uneven temporalities are enacted. The official valorization of Urdu language by emphasizing its association and linkage with Arabic language plays a key role in the production of nationalist narrative that hinges on Islam and Urdu language as a means of integrating the ethnically and linguistically diverse population of Pakistan. On the other hand, the indigenous languages, such as Pashto, in the official temporality are demonized as remnants of pre-Islamic past and/or the corrupting influence of the non-Muslim population with whom Muslims have been living in close proximity for generations. In this way, Urdu and Arabic languages are principle means through which the state concretizes its link with Islamic Arabia. Pashto and other indigenous languages, on the other hand, are positioned as oppositional formations of linguistic practices that are associated with demonized temporal identities. The Taliban in particular, who take the state’s agenda of tracing the past of Muslims of the subcontinent to early Islamic Arabia to an extreme, draw on Arabic phonology, vocabulary, and Arab cultural expressions both in everyday language use and in their official communication. In doing so the Taliban, who hold sway in parts of Pashtun Belt, contribute to and facilitate the state’s agenda of undermining Pashto linguistic and cultural heritage. The Pashtun, on the other hand, emphasize the use of Pashto language to counter what they perceive to be the Arabization of Pashtun culture and language. In this way, the two different forms of linguistic practices, one that draws excessively on Arabic and Urdu language, and the other on indigenous Pashto, align with the two different and antithetical ways in which they relate to the past. Both these language practices index particular stances that position them in temporalities that are informed by particular understanding of the past. Here I will discuss an excerpt from an interview that the Taliban head, Fazlulah, gave to BBC on October 2, 2013. In the interview he speaks in Pashto but he draws heavily on Arabic and Urdu language: 182 Example 5.9 001 Fazlulah: Our respected Urdu leader Arabic Mister Urdu Hakeem Ullah Mehsud under whose 002 leadership Urdu whatever the central Shura Arabic decides, God willing Arabic and 003 as much as Arabic we can, we will abide Arabic by it in such a way that Muslim Ummah Arabic 004 will see it with its own eyes. Though the base language is Pashto and follows Pashto syntax, the expression is interspersed with Arabic and Urdu lexical elements. These elements are not used in common parlance in Pashto speech and therefore stand out. The Arabic lexemes used in this text are: Ameer (‫( )اﻣﯾر‬leader) Shura (‫()ﺷوری‬council) Be thofique (‫( )ﺑﺗوﻓﯾق‬as much as possible) Atat (‫( )ﻋطﺎط‬abide) Ummat Muslima (‫( )اﻣت ﻣﺳﻠﻣﮫ‬Muslim nation) Urdu Lexical items used in the text are: Muhtaram (‫( )ﻣﺣﺗرم‬respected) Saib (‫( )ﺻﯾب‬Mister) Kiyadat (‫( )ﻗﯾﺎدت‬leadership) Moreover, the text is heavily influenced by Arabic phonology. Even Urdu and Pashto language elements are pronounced with Arabic phonology. Of particular importance in this regard are the ways in which “h” and “a” spellings are pronounced. In Pashto, the letter “h” is either silent or is pronounced softly with no stress. For instance, the word “Mohammad” becomes “Mammad” in Pashto. However, the speaker stresses and exaggerates the “h” sound in accordance with Arabic spellings. Moreover, there is a heavy use of Arabic lexemes and Urdu words that are derived from Arabic lexical roots. “Ameer” is an Arabic word which is usually used to mean a leader of a Muslim community. The Pashto equivalent for the word is mashr. Shura is a council in Arabic. The traditional word for council in Pashto is Jirga. Atat meaning “abide by” is Arabic and its equivalent in Pashto is tabedari. Ummat again is Arabic for PanIslamic community which the Taliban generally use to undermine their ethnic or national identity and to align themselves with Arabic language and culture. 183 Such Arabization of Pashto language instils a sense of temporal rupture among Pashtun language activists who see that such language practices encouraged by the state would lead to the loss of Pashto language and Pashtun heritage contained in it. Responding to this alarming trend, there is a growing sense of urgency among Pashto language activists “to collect, memorialize, and preserve what is perceived to be “lost”” (Inoue 2004:2). For this reason, these activists are making attempts to resurrect their language practices and the temporalities that they index. A number of these language activists have established pages on Facebook as informal and unofficial means to provide material to Pashto language users for “correct” usage of Pashto. For instance, there is a page called “Pashto Purification” on Facebook that serves such purpose. The page has 13499 subscribers and provides Pashto vocabulary relating to ordinary objects and concepts that people encounter in their daily life (last checked on July 18, 2015). These words are accompanied by pictorial representation of the objects or concepts they signify. These Pashto lexemes are then contrasted with their synonyms in Urdu and/or Arabic that are becoming common in Pashto language usage (see figure 5.2). The page also has video contents that provide detailed information about the origin of Pashto words and differentiate them from Arabic and Urdu derived lexemes. Similarly, another page with 33,737 subscribers with the name‫“( ﭘښﺗو زده ﮐړه‬Learn Pure Pashto”) is another informal use of technology based on individual initiative that is aimed at native Pashto speakers who are being influenced by Urdu and Arabic language to the extent that they are perceive to be losing their own native language (last checked on July 18, 2015). 184 Figure 5.3 A screen grab of Facebook page “Pashto Purification” Conclusion The contact between the state and Pashtun is highly asymmetrical. The state uses the institutional, official, and symbolic means at its disposal to negate Pashtun their language, their culture, and their socio-economic practices. State controlled educational institutions that provide education to the rural Pashtun are sites where language injustice prevails. Pashto language and Pashtun temporality are denied any space in these institutions. Similarly, electronic media is another site where the state recruits Pashtun citizen-subjects who would distance themselves from their cultural heritage. Moreover, the integration of Pashtun in the state’s market economy and its hierarchies through rural-urban divide is another site where the state and Pashtun collide in unequal relation of power. In such a scenario, Pashtun are at a disadvantage in enacting their socio-cultural, temporal and linguistic difference. In this chapter in particular, I have discussed the (re) enactment of Pashtun temporality in the face of the institutionalized erasure of their history. Deprived of any official recognition of their history and cultural heritage, Pashtun use unofficial and informal means to resurrect and revitalize their 185 marginalized temporality. For this purpose, they creatively and critically make use of technology, especially the social media to disrupt the teleological, linear, and prescriptive temporality of the state. In the enactment of Pashtun temporality, they deploy the past as a disidentificatory node that animates their desire to step outside the official script and imagine alternative futurity free of the oppressive prevailing temporality. Moreover, rather than abandoning the ideological message of the state, Pashtun use these messages as raw material to rework them for disidentificatory practices in a way to locate the temporal elision and situate themselves in the official temporal narrative. Furthermore, Pashtun align their language with alternative temporality in opposition to the officially privileged Urdu and Arabic language to construct queer temporalities. In the next and final chapter, I revisit the key points discussed in the earlier chapters and argue that the denial and demonization of Pashtun as the Other serve as the outside against which the state constructs and defines the normative Pakistani society. 186 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: INCLUSIVE EXCLUSION AND THE DENIAL OF DIFFERENCE In this dissertation, I focused on the ways in which the postcolonial state of Pakistan came into contact with the indigenous rural Pashtun homeland that has historically been peripheral to the now mainstream Pakistani society. The questions that guided this dissertation were: How the Pakistani state-making practices and nationalist project disrupt Pashtun culture and Pashto language, and how Pashtun respond to these cultural and linguistic disruptions? In order to investigate these questions, I looked at four sites where the contact between the state and Pashtun unfold “in context of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt 1991:34). These sites were: (1) the state controlled Urdu-medium based educational institutions; (2) the mainstream electronic media; (3) the rural-urban divide; and 4) the prescriptive and teleological temporality of the state. In the light of the preceding chapters, I can draw the following conclusions: the Pakistani state’s nationalist project is based on “inclusive exclusion” (Agamben 1998:7) in which the indigenous Pashtun rural homelands, their people, and language are the outside against which the normative mainstream Pakistani society is defined. In other words, Pashtun are included in the normative political community through their exclusion as the Other. In this institutionalized inclusive exclusion (or “exception” in Agambean sense), the Pashtun culture and language are the objects and sites through which the state sovereignty manifests its self. We see this sovereign expression through inclusive exclusion unfold in multiple forms. In chapter 2, I discussed the ways in which Pashto language and Pashtun culture are the sites of sovereign exception. The state through the institutions of education simultaneously demonizes and erases Pashto language, and Pashtun heritage and history. By subjecting Pashtun heritage to erasure, the state predicates Pashtun’s inclusion in the mainstream Pakistani citizenship on the negation of their culture and language. In other words, self-negation and assimilation through subordination are the price for inclusive citizenship. However, for many this inclusion through assimilation remains an allusive and an unattainable goal even if they desire it. The state not only deprives Pashtun of their language and culture, it also poorly compensates them with an 187 impoverished and contaminated language input. In this way, the state has institutionalized the production of failure for ethnically-marked Pashtun. In chapter 3, we saw the inclusive exclusion played out in the mainstream Pakistani media, particularly in the use of what I call Mock Pashto in the comedic performances. In these performances, the Mock Pashto users index Pashtun as linguistically deficient and clownish while projecting linguistic and metalinguistic practices of Urdu-speakers as the invisible norm. Furthermore, the Mock Pashto users through stancetaking align themselves with the normative national identity and oppose or disalign themselves with the rural Pashtun who are indexed as coarse and unrefined and therefore inauthentic and undesirable citizen-subjects unworthy of inclusion in the Pakistani state-sanctioned national identity. In this way, Mock Pashto is the site for the production of normative Pakistani citizenship that preys upon the linguistic and cultural practices of Pashtun. In chapter 4, I investigated the Pakistani state’s attempt to assimilate and co-opt the rural Pashtun into the urban economy through the rural-urban divide. Again, the inclusive exclusion is central to the creation of this divide. The state maintains the Pashtun rural areas as spaces of exception that are marked by state neglect and abandonment. Unlike the urban centers, these rural areas generally lack the basic necessities of life such as well-equipped hospitals, piped water, electricity, paved roads, a network of schools and the like. This lack of infrastructural growth and absence of amenities in contrast to the cities adds to the sense of peripherality among the rural population. Moreover, the state neglect compels rural Pashtun to migrate and participate in the urban economy that in turn disrupts the traditional socioeconomic life in the rural areas. As the rural population becomes reliant on urban economy, the state penetration in the indigenous Pashtun rural areas grows. They now become susceptible to the state’s economic, bureaucratic, and legal institutions. Moreover, by expanding its sphere in the rural areas, the state projects itself as the repository of power recruiting people to nest themselves in the state patronage system through which they can distribute patronage for economic and political influence. This effectively reworks the traditional patron-client relationship for the benefit of the state power. The growing penetration of the state in the indigenous Pashtun areas and the disruption caused by it results in a complex and ambivalent 188 moral geography and an emerging structure of feeling that attempts to redefine Pashtun social life as it is faced with disruption at the hands of the state. In chapter 5, I focused on the state’s assimilationist project by investigating the prescriptive and teleological temporality of the state that denies Pashtun their history and heritage. The official state temporality valorizes the Arab origin narrative and Muslim identity at the exclusion of non-normative indigenous temporalities as a means of national integration. According to this prescriptive temporality, the indigenous Pashtun temporality with its cultural and linguistic heritage is an oppositional un-Islamic temporality that is antithetical to the values of the state-sanctioned mainstream values and therefore needs to be purged of all the ‘undesirable’ influences. In other words, the prescriptive temporality of the state is mandatory for inclusion in the mainstream Pakistani society. Therefore, in order to be included in the normative society, Pashtun are pressured to negate their heritage, and align themselves historically, culturally, and linguistically with early Islamic Arabia. This denial of indigenous temporality is partly achieved by utilizing exception to which the rural especially the Pashtun of the Tribal Areas are subjected. These areas function as zones of exception where people are excluded from political community and therefore denied protection. In these zones of exception the state through its studied ignorance and even direct support collude with the informal sovereignties of the Taliban and other extremist groups whose abhorrence of secular and traditional Pashtun cultural and linguistic practices converge with the state’s necropolitical interests. In this way, the Taliban who attempt to recreate early-Islamic Arabia in its entirety and purity oppress those who subscribe to nonnormative temporalities with impunity—a project that is central to the state-making in Pakistan. In the beginning of this dissertation, drawing on Young (1990:229), I argued that the “denial of difference” is at the heart of the state-making project in Pakistan. In this section, in the light of the preceding chapters I would like to unpack what it means for Pashtun to be systematically and institutionally denied their group differences. As discussed at length in the earlier chapters, the Pakistani state is committed to assimilationist ideal that prescribes that inclusion in the Pakistani citizenship is conditioned on the identification with state sanctioned cultural and linguistic practices. In such a scenario, the specificity of the dominant mainstream 189 Pakistani culture based on Muslim identity, Urdu speaking urban culture, and teleological history is projected as a neutral norm against which the Pashtun cultural and linguistic practices are constructed as suspect, deviant, and inferior. This institutionalized denial of difference gives rise to the oppression of Pashtun. I use the term “oppression” not in a vague manner but to call to attention the specific conditions under which Pashtun struggle in their day to day life. Some of the ways in which Pashtun find their life oppressive in their contact with the state can be named as follows: powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. 167 Viewed as suspects and deviants, the ethnically marked Pashtun are powerless in the sense that they are denied decision-making power especially over the policies and conditions that influence and shape their lives. For instance, Pashtun have no power over the choice of the medium of instruction and the syllabi taught in schools. These fundamental issues that significantly impact their social, economic, and cultural life are left to the technocrats appointed by the center to head textbook boards who under the federal guidelines devise syllabi. The depoliticization of these political issues renders Pashtun disenfranchised and are therefore effectively made powerless. Despite the difficulties and challenges that Pashtun contend with in the state educational institutions, they have no institutional means available to voice their concerns. Closely tied to the condition of powerlessness is the concept of cultural imperialism. With their encapsulation by the state, Pashtun are increasingly subjected to cultural imperialism: a condition under which a powerless group’s experiences, norms, and values are simultaneously made invisible as well as hypervisible in a distorted manner to mark them as deviant and inferior. We see this erasure of Pashtun in the refusal of the state to acknowledge their historical figures, such as poets, ethnic heroes, their history, and their cultural institutions. Their language is not given recognition in the state institutions. Pashto is reduced to a ghettoizing language that does not provide any material prosperity or upward mobility. Similarly, the textbooks do not mention any reference to the historical Pashtun leaders revered by Pashtun (for instance, Abdul Ghaffar Khan) as it would disrupt the official teleological history that culminates in Pakistan. At the same time Pashtun are judged against an invisible norm 167 Here I draw on Young’s (1990:37) discussion of “oppression” which she defines as “the institutional constraint on self-development.” Young (1990:40) conceptualizes oppression as a broader term that, she states, has five aspects, namely, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. My following discussion draws on these aspects detailed by Young. 190 based on Urdu-speaking urban sensibilities. Rather than acknowledging their difference and uniqueness, Pashtun are penalized for not conforming to the mainstream society. As a result their linguistic practices, their mannerism, their body comportment and the like are subjected to ridicule. These ubiquitous messages of ridicule emanating from the state institutions and aimed at Pashtun incline them to see their own culture, language, and history as inferior and laughable, while perceiving the dominant culture as an object of desire. In other words, they are pressured to negate their self and align with something that does not speak to their lived experiences. One of my respondents’ comments mentioned in chapter 3 best articulates this condition when he mentions that he “consciously tried to remove Pashto roots—like remove my Pashto and Pashtunness… I saw Urdu speakers as very sophisticated” (example 3.6). The final aspect of oppression that is relevant to the Pashtun context is violence. By violence I mean both the threat of physical violence and the everyday ridicule and harassment ordinary Pashtun go through at the hands of the mainstream society who see Pashtun in an essentialized way through the prism of the stereotypes that are perpetuated in the mainstream. Pashtun frequently witness this harassment and intimidation in the state institutions and at the hands of the state agents. Pashtun appearing for a job interview are acutely aware of their hypervisibility and fear that they would be treated degradingly and that their stigmatized mannerism, their language practices, their embodiment and the like would be subjected to ridicule and most likely held against them, therefore minimizing their chances of upward mobility. This threat of harassment is not just limited to the state institutions and their agents, but ordinary citizenry who imbibe the pervasive and negative stereotypes of Pashtun recycle them in public interaction. For instance, recall the example 3.8 where a young Pashtun man voices this less severe but highly degrading form of violence when he states that he is often treated as a drug or gun dealer and that people show surprise when they come across any educated Pashtun. Similarly, the threat of physical violence is part of the day to day life for millions of Pashtun especially those living in the peripheral areas of Swat and the Tribal Areas where the Taliban and affiliated militants exercise de facto sovereignty. These areas and their population are practically living in a zone of exception where the state at times outsources its sovereignty to these informal sovereign nodes and other times seems to challenge them 191 depending upon its regional and global interests that shift occasionally. As anyone living in a zone of exception where sovereignty manifests itself in its ultimate form, i.e., the power to destroy with impunity, the Pashtun are daily killed, maimed, and displaced without any form of accountability. It is no surprise that Pashtun are being treated as such. Conceptualized as deviants, suspects, traitors, and mocked and ridiculed for their ‘alien’ and ‘threatening’ culture, and therefore a threat to the official nationalism of Pakistan the national policy towards them for decades has viewed them expendable and unmournable who are valuable to the state only in their death and destruction. In such a scenario, Pashtun cultural institutions, and their social life are exposed to erosion and disruption forcing them to rupture their pre-contact past from the poisoned present. The data that I shared in chapter 5 amply speaks to these necropolitical policies of the state and the resultant precarity of Pashtun life and their cultural, linguistic, and social practices. Recall the words of the dying young Pashtun man, Ulus Yaar, killed by the state agents for his activism against the state oppression (see example 5.4). Lying on the hospital bed with his distraught mother besides him, he revisits the precarity of his and fellow Pashtun life in Pakistan. He speaks of displacement from his own ancestral land and his final journey to his homeland to find his home and family destroyed, and his ancestral values banished from the very land that gave birth to them. The mother’s reassurance that a day would come when they would be free of oppression evokes a painful response, “we would not be alive then!”—a response that shows dissatisfaction with the present but also conveys a message that future is the realm of potentiality and hope. It is only fitting that the mother engraves these lines on her son’s tombstones: “The hero died with his great hopes/ the mountain with its great rocks stayed steady”—a message that conveys both the dissatisfaction with the present and a vision of an unpoisoned future. Having highlighted the powerlessness of Pashtun in their contact with the state, I want to reiterate that this powerlessness is in no way absolute. As Gramsci (1971:253) reminds us control and regulation are never complete or total. The contact between the Pakistani state and Pashtun is no exception to that. There is no denying the fact that Pashtun are placed at a disadvantage in these asymmetrical and unequal relations of power. The state has enormous institutional resources at its disposal to deny Pashtun their culture, language, and traditional 192 socio-economic lifestyle. But it is also a fact that Pashtun do find ways, albeit from a position of disadvantage, to counter the state power and assert their cultural and linguistic identities. Take for instance, the creative ways in which Pashtun respond to their encapsulation by the Pakistani state through the integration in the urban economy. The urban migration and displacement have made Pashtun vulnerable to the ebb and flow of the state economy. This reliance on and participation in the urban state economy has indeed been disruptive to the traditional Pashtun way of life. However, in the attempts to accommodate the contradictory interests that spring from the rural and urban divide, Pashtun are redefining and reinventing Pashtunwali, the ancestral and traditional Pashtun way of life. The practice of dual residence (an emerging spatial practice through which people maintain dual residence and therefore presence in both the ancestral rural areas and the urban areas where they reside for economic reasons) is one such example. Through the kinship division of labor, family members are distributed between the two spaces in a way to ensure connection with the indigenous home as well as stay relevant in the urban economy. Similarly, in their language practices the two spaces are conceptualized differently. Village is the place where they are “from,” a place of permanence, belonging, and affective attachment, whereas city is the place where they “live,” i.e., temporarily reside. Moreover, village is the place of gham khadi (sorrow-joy rituals) where traditional rituals such as burying their dead, celebrating religious and cultural holidays, and other important cultural practices are performed. All these novel practices demonstrate that Pashtunwali as a broader framework (opposed to a rigid code) continues to be functional as Pashtun interpret and reinterpret it in response to the disruptive influence of the state. In this way, there is no break with the past and the ways of the ancestors. The most important and significant realm where Pashto and Pashtunness is enacted and asserted despite the state’s structural and institutional oppression is the informal places or what Ngugi (1986:37) calls “empty spaces:” vibrant spaces of cultural and linguistic activities, such as the village streets, where the reach of the state influence and surveillance is not as intense as in the institutions of the state. It is in these empty spaces that Pashtun preserve their culture and language for their posterity. It is no accident that my respondents come across the exploit of Pashtun heroes, the works of Pashtun literary figures, and important historical events 193 in their daily informal life. Recall the excitement of one of my respondents (see example 3.7) who is surprised to discover that “one could write in Pashto or that there are Pashtun poets too”; significantly he makes this discovery in the “village and streets” not in the school where there is no mention of them. Social media is another such informal empty space that provides Pashtun the means to circumvent the state and assert their culture, language, and indigenous temporality. Posts are shared about important events in Pashtun temporality, tributes are paid to historical and legendary figures, and important days in Pashtun temporality are commemorated. In this way, social media not only serves as a tool of disseminating information about Pashtun culture and language, but these posts also generate insightful and intense debates about the condition of Pashtun life under the Pakistani state. Moreover, social media also provide a platform where Pashtun engage the state narrative in a disidentificatory fashion. The official teleological temporality is especially subjected to parody and subversive humor to expose the temporal inconsistencies and gaps within the teleology of the state and to foreground the Pashtun temporality that is erased from the state narrative. Social media also serves as an informal means of learning Pashto language that is banished from the educational institutions and bureaucracy. Similarly, the linguistic muzzle has not reduced Pashtun to semilinguals in the sense of being stranded between languages. Rather Pashtun have found novel ways such as the flexible language practices that allow them to draw on multiple language resources available to them to express themselves and engage the mainstream Pakistani society. What the above discussion demonstrates is that Pashtun are not helpless bystanders in their contact with the state oppression. They are rather actively engaged in what Young (1990:86) calls “the politics of difference:” the ways in which a subordinate culture affirms and asserts its positive group differences as well as critiques the dominant culture to expose and dislodge its claim to universality. Being a fellow Pashtun researcher, I see this dissertation project as an extension of this enactment of the politics of difference that Pashtun on the ground are engaged in. I do not intend to remind Pashtun of the multiple ways in which they are oppressed. Pashtun do not need to be reminded that they are oppressed and that they are struggling against the formidable power of the state. They know it and they are reminded of it 194 every day in the muzzling of their language, in the erasure of their heritage and temporality in the textbooks, in the degrading stereotypes to which they are subjected to in the print and electronic media, in the institutions of the state where they are negatively evaluated by the mainstream norms, and in the violence that visits their body with impunity. Ulus Yaar’s life and his dying words are testament to the precarity and struggle of Pashtun life. Instead, I see this dissertation to be a political project of disidentification with that state’s assimilationist project that preys on Pashtun cultural, social, and linguistic practices. Moreover, I intend my work to be used as a resource by Pashtun activists to effectively articulate and assert their positive group differences and challenge the assimilationist project of the state. Some of the ways in which this research can be used as a means of intervention is to critically investigate the many different points of contacts where the state and Pashtun grapple in an asymmetrical fashion. Most of the scholarship emanating from the mainstream Pakistani society has so far focused on the assimilation or acculturation of Pashtun into the dominant Pakistani society. I consider such work to be ideological, whether intentional or unintentional, that ultimately serves the Pakistani state power at the detriment of Pashtun way of life. I see my work as a contribution to the body of scholarship that aims to dislodge this assimilationist discourse and effectively articulate a call for a shift towards a transcultural investigation that highlights the asymmetrical and unequal relations of power at the point of contact. Such a shift would foreground the power struggle and would bring to light the disruptions that result from it. In my writing, I have confined myself to the four zones of contacts, namely, the educational institutions, the electronic media, the rural-urban contact, and the indigenous Pashtun culture and the state sanctioned Urdu-speaking urban high culture with particular focus on their competing temporalities. There are many other possible fronts where this contact and power struggle plays out and they need to be subjected to critical enquiry. The global “war on terror” that has particularly impacted Pashtun indigenous land and its population can be another area of such transcultural study. 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