February 23, 2025
Everyone is aware of the importance of language. When a child starts speaking, his existence begins to take shape and later on, language becomes his identity and that is why it is also said that every human being is hidden under his language. The scholar and the ignorant, the wise and the ignorant, the civilized and the uncivilized, the conscious and the unconscious, the polite and the impolite, the standard for distinguishing between all these is language. Language alone can determine the level of knowledge of a person. Therefore, abuse and exploitation of language and linguistics should not be tolerated in primary and higher educational institutions. In this regard, an attempt was made to blame technology, saying that technology is increasing and the quality of language is decreasing. However, if we think positively, it becomes clear that technology is proving to be helpful in learning and understanding the languages we are familiar with and improving the quality of linguistics.
In the last few decades, for unknown reasons, the numbers game has started in educational institutions. Linguistics papers have also started being arranged on the basis of objective questions, and in this way, whether the student has learned the language or not, all the energy has been spent (or wasted?) on making his exam result look very attractive. In fact, this game of exam marks does not start after the exam, but from the school classroom itself. When the science teacher addresses the students upon entering the class: “Children! Today we are going to study a very important lesson, ‘The Life of a Frog’. This lesson carries a full 8 marks. That is why it is very important.” After some time, the language teacher enters the classroom and addresses them. “Today we are going to study the lesson ‘Maulana Azad: Life and Achievements’. We will study it briefly because if we look at all the previous exam papers, it is found that only one and a half marks question has been asked about this lesson so far. Yes! You read correctly. It is being said in our classroom that ‘The Life of a Frog’ is important because it carries 8 marks and ‘Maulana Azad: Life and Achievements’ is of no importance because only one and a half marks question is being asked about it in the exam.
Numbers, marks, first rank, distinction, merit list, when the education system started revolving around all these, it went into a world of controversy because all the efforts of students, teachers, parents and administration were focused on how to make the exam report card look as attractive as possible. Seeing the system of knowledge, education, acquisition of knowledge, learner, teacher, all these being brutally destroyed, our teachers remember today what was the attitude of those teachers towards language and why they remember it. See:
(1) One of our Urdu teachers had given us two and a half periods of 40-40 minutes each to explain a poem by Iqbal ‘Kiya Main Ne Us Khakdan Se Kanara Jahan Rizq Ka Naam Hai Aab Wa Daana’. I keep myself away from the world where only earning is the purpose of life). While interpreting this poem, he could have taught us this: ‘I have withdrawn from this world where the sole purpose of life is to earn a living,’ meaning he could have remained silent by converting the poem into prose, or he could have interpreted it in two or three minutes, saying that only two marks are allotted in the exam for interpreting the poem, so there is no harm in writing the interpretation in three or four lines. Saying this, he would have gone on to tell other tricks to increase the marks.
(2) We would also like to tell those who lead students astray in the jungle of numbers that our teacher had spent an entire period of 40 minutes explaining the interpretation of a single line ‘Shamsir wa Sanaan Awal, Taos wa Rabab Akhar’ (Hardship first and then comes ease) and during that time he had not even looked at the clock. Only two numbers are allotted for the interpretation of this poem, he did not even make the mistake of telling us this.
(3) In explaining Ghalib’s line ‘Likkan Aankhen Rozen Dewar Zindan Hodayin’ (But the eyes became the windows of the prison), the teacher arranged the entire period in such a way that when the period bell rang, everyone’s eyes were moist.
(4) Before teaching a subject by Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali, our teacher had discussed his works ‘Hayat Javed’ and ‘Muqaddam Sher-oShayeri’ in detail, while such a detailed introduction of Maulana Hali was not going to be asked in the examination paper for a single mark, and that introduction of Hali was not even mentioned in the textbook. Despite this, why did those teachers consider it necessary to give the students a complete introduction of Hali (including Sir Syed’s thoughts on Hali) when it was not going to add a single mark to the students’ mark sheet?
(5) Our teacher had not asked us to memorize the words describing the character of Mirza Zahir Dar Beg in Deputy Nazir Ahmed’s famous novel ‘Tawbata Nusah’, nor had he said how many marks we would get for writing a paragraph on this character, but all those lines are still preserved in our minds word for word. See: “I had planned to light a lamp, but on a hot day, moths will gather in large numbers and you will be disturbed, and there are many mosquitoes in this house. Seeing the light, they will start to fall and make it difficult for you to sit. Wait a little longer, the moon will come out.” Several decades ago, the respected teacher had read something that is still preserved in our minds, and then whenever I saw this character, a reflection of hypocrisy and outward appearance, I was not surprised. I used to say in my heart that Deputy Nazir Ahmed had already presented this character in the form of Mirza Zahir Baig.
Respected teachers! I remember these writings, their characters, all this because the teachers of that era did not say how many marks this lesson would bring in the exam as soon as they entered the classroom, but they would take them into the depth and depth of the language, so the students of that era thought outside the textbook and formed their own opinions, but rather, from their student days, they would convey their thoughts and opinions to others through newspapers and magazines. In those days, students who scored 100% marks on the report card of the exam result were not prepared. Of course, an army of highly capable, worthy, and positive-thinking students were being prepared in our educational institutions. Finally, I would also like to mention that the monthly salary of these teachers who used to refer to many topics, events, and histories to explain each and every point was only two hundred to five hundred rupees!
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