Miles apart, Poles apart - visit of Bangladeshi Journalists to Pakistan

[Umair Nawaz]

Its a wrong assertion. Urdu was the language of Muslims of South Asia. Thats is why Jinnah declared Urdu as the national language. If we start talking about regional language then Pakistan as a unit cant exist. Language is a binding force. Its not imposed, its adopted.



The language rights emphasized the fact that Pakistan cant exist as a nation if we start to promote regional language, be it Punjabi or Bengali.

It also proves that Jinnah was right in adopting one common language for whole Pakistan. As we divide ourselves into languages, regions, ethnicitiy, we will one day demands provinces to be independent units. Pakistan being a multi language nation needs one language to create its identity

Even indian who r also multi cultural and language nation also did same with their Urdu's rip off Hindi.

 

[Meengla]

@Umair Nawaz and @Armstrong ,
It's obvious you missed my quotes around 'imposed'
I know that an attempt was made to unite all provinces based on Urdu as the national language. But the most violent reaction came from the E. Pakistan. The union between the East and West Pakistan was not going to last very long and in 1948--long before any 'discrimination' was even introduced, the East Pakistanis rejected the Founder of Pakistan's attempt to forge a nation.
The dye was cast then. I don't want to go into a nullification of the Two Nation Theory debate here. Briefly: The separation of E. Pakistan was not necessarily a nullification of the Partition's Two Nation Theory.

 

[Armstrong]

@Umair Nawaz and @Armstrong ,
It's obvious you missed my quotes around 'imposed'
I know that an attempt was made to unite all provinces based on Urdu as the national language. But the most violent reaction came from the E. Pakistan. The union between the East and West Pakistan was not going to last very long and in 1948--long before any 'discrimination' was even introduced, the East Pakistanis rejected the Founder of Pakistan's attempt to forge a nation.
The dye was cast then. I don't want to go into a nullification of the Two Nation Theory debate here. Briefly: The separation of E. Pakistan was not necessarily a nullification of the Partition's Two Nation Theory.

Oh don't get me wrong - I'm very content with us having only West-Pakistan & were it up to me I would've never gone for a Pakistan separated by a 1000 miles of hostile territory with only religion as the common denominator that held us together !

For me the Two Nation Theory never really was about 'Muslims are One Country' but simply that Muslims are a distinct group with their own unique culture, language, jurisprudence, reading of history, anthropology, politics & views of life & about life - Respect that & give'em the space to express themselves in those regard & everything is Perfectly fine within the same country.....try to make Hindu Mohemmedans out of them & they'd resist & they did - Thats it...thats all the Two Nation Theory was, in my opinion !

In the West - we've been living for centuries upon centuries with each other with numerous ethnic groups emerging that are, honestly, trans-ethnic in the sense that they exist on the peripheries of two or more major ethnic groups & borrow heavily from both in a cultural & linguistic sense - e.g the Pukhtoons of Mianwali or the Baluch of Southern Punjab !

That said if the Quaid had said 'Chinese will be our national language' - I would've still willingly learned it because thats what the Father of us all said .

Besides Urdu as our national language made & still makes all the sense in the world !