People like me who are away from their motherland keep browsing the internet to find positive news about Pakistan and the last two weeks provide optimistic and encouraging reports from Islamabad.
The visit of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to Islamabad culminated in the agreement between the governments of Pakistan and Tajikistan in the field of arts and culture. This development has a special interest for those who know that the Tajik language and culture are very rich and have proximity with Punjabi culture and language. There is a dire need for documentation of similarities between Tajiki and Punjabi cultures and their similar style of storytelling and oral history.
The proximity of Punjabi culture with Tajiki culture is not because both cultures have a language of the Turkic family, rather due to centuries-old interconnection and interlinking between the land of Pakistani Punjab with Bokhara, Samarkand, and Dushanbe. It may be remembered that Bukhara and Samarkand had been under the influence of Tajik society for centuries. The linkage of the subcontinent with Central Asia was terminated when the former Soviet Union engulfed Central Asian areas under the iron curtain. One can certainly say that name of Punjab comes from the Persian dialect of Tajiki background words panj (five Панҷ) and Ob (об water). The reason for giving the background of Tajiki Persian was necessary to indicate that Punjabi storytelling and Punjabi mimes are still alive in central Asian states, particularly in today’s Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
By taking the opportunity of the recently signed agreement in the field of arts and culture, I propose establishing an institution by Pakistan and Tajikistan to document storytelling, the art of oral history and folklore which can be very helpful for students of semiotic and languages.
An institution of this kind has already been established in Central Asia named Miros in Samarkand, Uzbekistan where Mirasis are considered the highest source of documentation of the oral history and visits of our Punjabi academics to the institution Miros and such other central Asian institutions will provide opportunities to our academics and also give the tangible manifestation of their long-lasting dream for establishing an institution for the documentation of art of oral history.
Today, in Pakistan, the words Bhands and Mirasi are a byword for someone illiterate, a comical character and a person with whom we usually avoid having a relationship. This unfortunate attitude is a legacy of the British Raj. Since Mirasi and Bhands were two main sources to narrate stories of the heroes of the land, thereby the British Raj discouraged them economically and socially and a distorted history was formed through books; so our documented history during the era of British Raj is biased, sometimes replete with lies and misconceptions.
Although Punjabi society has always been based on the caste system yet it never establishes any hierarchy between the castes until the British wrote their first census by the name of the castes of Punjab in which they categorise castes into different social statuses such as ones who can own land and others who cannot.
The zamindari system was introduced by Cornwallis in 1793 through the Permanent Settlement Act and it was introduced in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Varanasi that were under the control of the East India Company.
The zamindars were recognised as the owner of the lands and the actual farmers became tenants. Income out of land would be divided into 11 parts. 1/11 of the share belonged to Zamindars and 10/11 of the share belonged to the East India Company.
In 1820, the ryotwari system was introduced and major areas of introduction include Madras, Bombay, parts of Assam, and Coorg provinces of British India. In the ryotwari system the ownership rights were handed over to the farmhands. British Government collected taxes directly from the peasants.
In 1822, the Mahalwari system was introduced by Holt Mackenzie. Later, the system was reformed during the period of William Bentick (1833). It was introduced in Central Province, North-West Frontier, Agra, Punjab, and Gangetic Valley. These three systems were not only land systems rather, they were based on the caste system too and the 1860 census further divided the population into their professions.
As a result of a caste-related revenue system, people who were linked with performing arts suffered a lot. I am looking forward to this recent agreement as a beacon of hope that our heritage (Miras) will be protected and documented by first-hand owners (Mirasi) and there will be a time when all those related to Punjabi oral history will be treated as respectfully as the Mirasi of Central Asia who are considered the flag bearers of Miros (Miras).
Shazia Anwer Cheema
The writer heads the Thought Centre of the Dispatch News Desk (DND). She is a Ph.D. Scholar of Semiotics and Philosophy of Communi-cation at Charles University Prague. She tweets @ShaziaAnwer
Ch and can be reached at shaziaanwer
@yahoo.com