EL CLIENTELISMO Y LOS RESULTADOS ELECTORALES

A total of four school heads and ten schoolteachers of the government and private primary schools in rural and urban school in Multan were interviewed to investigate the influence of schools upon language use in Multan. The reason I chose to investigate the language policies and practices in primary schools was that it is in the early stages of one’s life that one is influenced to opt for one language or the other. Stereotypes, negative or positive, about different languages are formed at this stage and primary school teachers influence the parents’ decision to continue or discontinue using any language with their children.

These interviews were also structured with open-ended questions which demanded lengthy responses. I had planned to record all of these interviews because I knew that some of my questions would lead to other questions and would require longer answers but I ended up audio recording only a few. I took notes during the rest of the interviews. The interviewees working in the state schools asked me not to audio record their interviews because perhaps they felt threatened that anything said against the government policies may cost them their job or at the minimum may start disciplinary proceedings against them. Hence they did not want me to have a ‘proof or a permanent record of their views.

The main interview questions for the school heads and schoolteachers were as follows. In some cases though, I probed further and asked more questions. For each question I encouraged the interviewees to give a detailed answer.

1) What is the school’s policy towards the use of certain languages by teachers in classrooms?

2) What is the school’s policy towards the use of certain languages by students in the classrooms? In the playgrounds?

3) Which language(s) do the teachers in and outside classrooms use with students?

4) Which language(s) do the students use with teachers in and outside classes? 5) Which language(s) do the students use among themselves in the

classroom/playgrounds?

6) Do students ever use Siraiki in the classroom? If yes, what age-group of students? How do you/your teachers respond?

7) Should Siraiki be taught as a subject in schools? 8) Should the students be taught to read in Siraiki?

I also conducted interviews with five Siraiki researchers, scholars and teachers. These were semi structured, in-depth interviews because I wanted to give myself the

latitude to ask whatever I wanted, in the form and order I determined. I could prompt, probe and ask supplementary questions as the respondents warranted. While interviewing them I wanted to keep my mind free to concentrate more on the responses which in many cases generated more questions. I wanted to be able to keep track of exactly what was said during the interview, therefore I used audio recording. The interviewees were comfortable with my recording their interviews on the tape recorder and using their names in my thesis. They openly talked about and criticized government policies and general attitudes towards the Siraiki language (cf. 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.6). They did not object to my keeping a permanent record of their opinions because all of them have been working for the cause of Siraiki language for several years, some even for decades and many of them pointed out that they are past the stage when just taking the name of Siraiki was sufficient to label them as traitors. In the past many of them had faced the investigations of the special agencies so by now they had become ‘bold’ enough to be interviewed by a researcher who had an academic and not political interest in Siraiki language.

For the researchers and writers of Siraiki there was no uniform questionnaire as each interviewee had a different field of interest. The aim of these interviews was to get a picture of the Siraiki language in Multan from the Siraiki intelligentsia to analyse the language situation in Multan. The questions were prepared keeping in view their expertise and research interests. Some sample questions asked during these interviews are as follows:

1) What is your view about the origin of the Siraiki language? 2) Why was the Siraiki movement started?

3) What is/was the role of ordinary people in the Siraiki movement?

5) What is the Punjabi-Siraiki controversy?

6) What changes, if any, have occurred in the Siraiki language due to its contact with Punjabi, Urdu and English?

7) Has the Siraiki language usage increased/decreased during the recent times? 8) In which genre is the literature being written in the Siraiki language? 9) Please comment on its standard.

10) What is the major incentive for the writers writing in the Siraiki language? 11) What do you think of the readership?

12) Should Siraiki be taught as a subject in schools and colleges?

13) What efforts are being made to include Siraiki as a subject at the B.A. and F.A levels?

14) Why has the number of students studying Siraiki at the M.A. level decreased? 15) Are parents transmitting Siraiki to their children?

16) Is Multani/Siraiki identity possible without the Siraiki language? 17) Is the Siraiki language dying?

18) Are the Siraikis emotionally attached to their language?

19) Why hasn’t there been a consensus on uniform script for the Siraiki language?

As evident from the above questions, the interview questions encompassed different themes e.g. the Siraiki movement, Siraiki identity, Siraiki literature, Siraiki language usage, politics related to the Siraiki language, and Siraiki as a subject at different educational levels. The answers given in response to these questions gave a first-hand knowledge about what the Siraiki intellectuals think of Siraiki language and its present status in Multan.

The process of data collection is not without problems, some of which were anticipated while others were unanticipated. In the following section I discuss the problems that I encountered in the field.