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Notes/Urdu/The creation of Pakistan and the evolution of democracy (چوتھا موضوع، قیامِ پاکستان)
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The creation of Pakistan and the evolution of democracy (چوتھا موضوع، قیامِ پاکستان)

This topic carries the first sub-theme of Edexcel's fourth theme, چوتھا موضوع: پاکستانی سیاست کے رُخ, the directions of Pakistani politics. The theme is set in Pakistan only and covers political culture past and present; its first sub-theme is قیامِ پاکستان (1947), the creation of Pakistan, with three aspects: the political effects on Pakistan, the social effects of the partition of India and Pakistan on the people of Pakistan, and the evolution of democracy in Pakistan. This is the most sensitive material on the specification and the material where the difference between a strong and a weak answer is most visible, because the strong answer is not the one with the most information but the one that keeps its categories straight. Dated institutional facts are stated flatly. Interpretations belong to the people who hold them. Live arguments are named as arguments. And the naming itself is part of the subject: the same set of events is called قیامِ پاکستان, تقسیمِ ہند and آزادی by different people, and the specification uses two of those phrases in a single sub-theme.

5 sections·~34 min reading time·4 competencies·Level Advanced 5

T·0555 / 12
Exam profile
AO1 · Understand and respond in writing to spoken Urdu about politics, history and the stateAO2 · Understand and respond in writing to written Urdu of historical and political registerAO3 · Manipulate Urdu accurately, using constitutional vocabulary and complex structuresAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, political culture in Pakistan
Operators:بیان کیجیےتجزیہ کیجیےموازنہ کیجیےوضاحت کیجیےدلیل دیجیےتنقیدی جائزہ لیجیےترجمہ کیجیےخلاصہ لکھیے

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is an accurate chronology and accurate institutional vocabulary: what happened in 1947, what a constitution is and how many Pakistan has had, what the National Assembly and the Election Commission are, and a reasoned personal view expressed in correct Urdu with secure agreement and correct oblique forms.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the chronology handled as argument. Which claims about 1947 are dated facts and which are interpretations, and whose? What would count as evidence that democracy has evolved rather than merely alternated? Why do the numbers for Partition differ so widely between sources, and what follows from that? Answers must attribute every evaluation, must resist a single national narrative in either direction, and must use the pluperfect, the passive, the subjunctive and subordination deliberately.

Depth

Reading depth: In depth

Text

Text size: Standard

Contents · 5 sections▾
  1. The creation of Pakistan and the evolution of democracy (چوتھا موضوع، قیامِ پاکستان)
    • 01Theme 4, and how to write about a past that is argued about●
    • 021947 and its political effects on Pakistan●
    • 03The social effects of partition on the people of Pakistan●
    • 04The evolution of democracy in Pakistan●
    • 05The political register in Urdu: writing about the state without sloganeering●
§ 01

Theme 4, and how to write about a past that is argued about#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 4 — پاکستانی سیاست کے رُخLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 1 Section A (translation into English)

Key points

Theme 4 is the political-culture theme and, like Themes 1 and 3, it is set in Pakistan only. Its two sub-themes are قیامِ پاکستان (1947), handled in this topic, and جاگیرداری نظام, the feudal system, handled in the second political-life topic; its research subject is measures relating to environmental issues in Pakistan, which the second topic also carries. The first sub-theme's three aspects are the political effects of 1947 on Pakistan, the social effects of the partition of India and Pakistan on the people of Pakistan, and the evolution of democracy in Pakistan. Notice that the aspects run from a moment to a process: the sub-theme is not only about 1947 but about what the state built after it, which is why the third aspect reaches to the present day.
The specification's own vocabulary contains the theme's central difficulty. Its sub-theme heading is قیامِ پاکستان, the establishment of Pakistan; one of its aspects speaks of تقسیمِ پاک و ہند, the partition of Pakistan and India; and in ordinary Urdu the same period is also called آزادی, independence, and ہجرت, the migration. Those are not four words for one thing; they are four framings, and each foregrounds something different — a founding, a division, a liberation, a displacement. A candidate who notices this and says so has made an analytical observation of exactly the kind the AO4 grid rewards: اِن ناموں کا فرق محض لفظی نہیں، بلکہ ہر نام واقعے کے ایک مختلف پہلو کو مرکز بناتا ہے.
Four disciplines will carry you through everything in this theme. State dated institutional facts flatly: a constitution was adopted in a given year, an assembly was elected, an amendment was passed. Attach every interpretation to whoever makes it: کچھ مؤرخین کے نزدیک, حکومتی موقف یہ ہے کہ, ناقدین کا کہنا ہے کہ. Name a live argument as an argument rather than resolving it silently. And mark your own conclusion as your own. These are not rules of politeness; they are the operational meaning of the phrase critical analysis in the mark grid, and an answer built this way is structurally stronger than one that is merely well informed.
The fifth discipline is about numbers, and it matters more in this sub-theme than anywhere else on the specification. The scale of the displacement of 1947 and of the violence that accompanied it is estimated very differently by different historians and by the governments involved, and the estimates are not close to one another; the same is true of many later figures in Pakistani political history. There is no version of an examination answer in which an unsourced number helps you. Either name whose estimate it is — اندازوں میں بہت فرق ہے؛ ایک محتاط طریقہ یہ ہے کہ عدد کے ساتھ اُس کا ماخذ بھی بتایا جائے — or describe the order of magnitude in words and say that estimates differ. The second option costs nothing and is never wrong.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section A: a paragraph about how a past is narrated, out of Urdu into English

Translate and account for every joint. ایک ہی واقعے کو مختلف نام دیے جاتے ہیں، اور ہر نام اپنے ساتھ ایک تشریح لاتا ہے۔ جس شخص نے سب کچھ پیچھے چھوڑا تھا، اُس کے لیے یہ ہجرت تھی؛ جس نے نئی ریاست بنتے دیکھی، اُس کے لیے قیام۔ مؤرخین کا کہنا ہے کہ دونوں بیانات درست ہو سکتے ہیں، کیونکہ وہ ایک ہی عمل کے مختلف رُخ بیان کرتے ہیں۔

  1. 01Sentence one: a passive without an agent, then a metaphorical verb

    ایک ہی واقعے کو مختلف نام دیے جاتے ہیں، اور ہر نام اپنے ساتھ ایک تشریح لاتا ہے۔ نام دیے جاتے ہیں is a habitual passive, masculine plural for نام, and the agent is deliberately absent — English needs are given, not people give. واقعے کو is the oblique with کو, which is why the verb agrees with نام and not with واقعہ. اپنے ساتھ … لاتا ہے, brings with it, uses the reflexive possessive اپنا referring back to نام. English: The same event is given different names, and each name brings an interpretation with it.

  2. 02Sentence two: two correlative relatives in parallel, with an ellipsis

    جس شخص نے سب کچھ پیچھے چھوڑا تھا، اُس کے لیے یہ ہجرت تھی؛ جس نے نئی ریاست بنتے دیکھی، اُس کے لیے قیام۔ Both halves use جس … اُس. The ergative نے appears twice because چھوڑنا and دیکھنا are transitive and both are in perfective tenses; چھوڑا تھا is a pluperfect. بنتے دیکھی is a present participle governed by a verb of perception — saw it being formed — and it is feminine to agree with ریاست. The second half ends with قیام and no verb: Urdu simply drops the repeated تھی, and a good English translation may either restore it or match the compression. English: For the person who had left everything behind, it was a migration; for the one who watched a new state being formed, it was a founding.

  3. 03Sentence three: attribution, modal possibility, and a reason clause

    مؤرخین کا کہنا ہے کہ دونوں بیانات درست ہو سکتے ہیں، کیونکہ وہ ایک ہی عمل کے مختلف رُخ بیان کرتے ہیں۔ مؤرخین is historians. کا کہنا ہے کہ, the attribution formula. ہو سکتے ہیں is the potential compound with سکنا: can be. کیونکہ introduces the reason. رُخ, here aspects or faces, is exactly the word the specification uses in its own theme title, پاکستانی سیاست کے رُخ. English: Historians say that both accounts can be correct, because they describe different aspects of one and the same process.

  4. 04Check that you have not resolved what the Urdu left open

    The paragraph's whole point is that two framings coexist. Translations of contested material fail most often by hardening: rendering ہو سکتے ہیں as are rather than can be, or turning مؤرخین کا کہنا ہے کہ into it is a fact that. Reread your English and check that every hedge in the Urdu is still a hedge, and that no attribution has quietly become an assertion. That check is worth marks in Section A and it is the same discipline the AO4 grid rewards everywhere else.

Result: The same event is given different names, and each name brings an interpretation with it. For the person who had left everything behind, it was a migration; for the one who watched a new state being formed, it was a founding. Historians say that both accounts can be correct, because they describe different aspects of one and the same process.

Exam focus

  • Point out that قیامِ پاکستان, تقسیمِ ہند, آزادی and ہجرت frame the same period differently. It is a whole analytical move in one sentence (AO4).
  • Sort every sentence you write into dated fact, attributed interpretation, named argument or own judgement. Nothing else belongs in a Theme 4 answer.
  • Never write an unsourced casualty or migration figure. Say that estimates differ widely and, if you use one, say whose it is.

Typical mistakes

  • Reproducing a single national narrative, from any direction, as though it were the settled account.
  • Quoting a death toll or a migration total from memory. The estimates differ enormously and an examiner cannot credit an unsourced one.
  • Treating 1947 as the whole sub-theme. The third aspect runs from 1947 to the present.
  • Using آزادی and تقسیم as synonyms without noticing. They are not, and noticing is a mark.

Active revision

ڈیڑھ سو الفاظ میں وضاحت کیجیے کہ قیامِ پاکستان، تقسیمِ ہند، آزادی اور ہجرت — اِن چاروں الفاظ میں سے ہر ایک واقعے کے کس پہلو کو نمایاں کرتا ہے۔ کوئی عدد نہ لکھیے، اور آخر میں ایک جملے میں یہ بتائیے کہ آپ کس لفظ کو کیوں ترجیح دیتے ہیں

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 02

1947 and its political effects on Pakistan#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 4 — قیامِ پاکستان (1947): پاکستان پر سیاسی اثراتLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 2 Section A (translation into Urdu)

Ten fixed points in Pakistan's constitutional history

Pakistan: ten constitutional fixed pointsTimeline from 1945 to 2020, 1947: Independence, 1956: Constitution I, 1958: Martial law, 1971: Bangladesh, 1973: Constitution III, 1977: Martial law II, 1988: Polls resume, 1999: Army takeover, 2010: 18th Amendment, 2013: Term handover19452020Year1947Independence1956Constitution I1958Martial law1971Bangladesh1973Constitution III1977Martial law II1988Polls resume1999Army takeover201018th Amendment2013Term handover
Fig. 1A Theme 4 answer needs a spine of dates it can state flatly, so that the argument can happen around them rather than instead of them. These ten are the fixed points: three constitutions, two interruptions, a partition of the state itself, the resumption of elections, a major amendment and the first completed civilian handover. The emphasised event is 2010, because the Eighteenth Amendment reorganised the federation, restored parliamentary supremacy and inserted the education right that Theme 1's research subject depends on. Labels are in English, since the figure engine has no bidi handling.

Key points

The dated frame can be stated plainly. Pakistan became independent on 14 August 1947 and India on 15 August 1947, as two dominions with a shared administrative inheritance and a border drawn under acute time pressure. The new state took over a share of the civil service, the army and the treasury, and had to build a capital, a currency and a constitution while receiving an enormous refugee population. Its first Constituent Assembly served as both legislature and constitution-making body; the Objectives Resolution was adopted in 1949 and set out the principles later constitutions would work from; and the first constitution was not adopted until 1956, nine years after independence. That gap between independence and a constitution is itself one of the most-discussed political effects of 1947.
The structural consequences that historians most often name are worth learning as a short list, and each of them can be stated as a fact before it is evaluated. The territory was in two wings separated by roughly a thousand miles of another country, with the majority of the population in the eastern wing. The administrative capacity inherited was thinner in the areas that became Pakistan than in the areas that did not, because the great administrative and commercial centres of British India largely lay elsewhere. A national language policy had to be made for a state whose citizens spoke many languages, and Urdu was named the national language, a decision that had immediate political consequences in the eastern wing. And a boundary dispute over Jammu and Kashmir began in 1947 and has shaped the state's politics and expenditure ever since.
The language question deserves a full paragraph, because it belongs to this qualification twice over — as history and as the subject of the qualification itself. The decision to make Urdu the national language was contested in East Bengal, where Bengali was the majority language of the country as a whole; a language movement followed, and on 21 February 1952 students were killed during protests in Dhaka. UNESCO designated 21 February as International Mother Language Day in 1999. Those are dated institutional facts. What the movement means — whether it was primarily linguistic, primarily political, or inseparably both — is argued about, and an answer should say so rather than choose quietly. Article 251 of the 1973 Constitution, which names Urdu the national language and provides for arrangements to be made for its official use, is where the settled position now sits.
The word to avoid in this aspect is inevitable. It is very easy to write that Pakistan's later political history followed necessarily from the conditions of 1947, and the sentence sounds sophisticated; but it is a strong causal claim, historians disagree about it, and it cannot be supported inside 350 words. The disciplined version is comparative and hedged: 1947 کے حالات نے بعد کی سیاست پر گہرا اثر ڈالا، مگر یہ کہنا کہ ہر بعد کا واقعہ اُنہی حالات کا لازمی نتیجہ تھا، ایک الگ اور زیادہ متنازع دعویٰ ہے — conditions in 1947 deeply affected later politics, but saying that every later event followed necessarily from them is a separate and far more contested claim. That distinction, between influence and necessity, is one of the most reusable analytical moves in the whole theme.
Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: an English historical paragraph into Urdu, keeping fact and interpretation apart

Translate into Urdu and justify each tense and hedge. 'The first constitution was adopted in 1956, nine years after independence. Some historians argue that the delay weakened the new parliament; others point out that the state was still absorbing a very large refugee population. Both explanations are compatible with the same facts.'

  1. 01Sentence one: a dated fact in the passive, with no hedging at all

    پہلا آئین 1956 میں منظور کیا گیا، یعنی آزادی کے نو برس بعد۔ منظور کیا گیا is a perfective passive: adopted, with no agent named, which is right because the English named none. آئین is masculine, so the participle is masculine singular. یعنی introduces a gloss. نو برس بعد — note that برس does not take an oblique plural here because it is a measure phrase before بعد. This sentence must not be hedged: it is a dated fact and hedging it would be an error of category as much as of translation.

  2. 02Sentence two, first half: attribute and use a verb of arguing

    کچھ مؤرخین کا استدلال ہے کہ اِس تاخیر نے نئی پارلیمان کو کمزور کیا۔ کچھ مؤرخین keeps the claim partial; کا استدلال ہے کہ is argue that. نے appears because کمزور کرنا is transitive and the tense perfective, and the object پارلیمان carries کو, so the verb takes the default masculine singular form کیا rather than agreeing. That is a rule worth stating to yourself explicitly every time you write an ergative sentence with a marked object.

  3. 03Sentence two, second half: the counter-position with a continuous past

    جبکہ دوسرے یہ یاد دلاتے ہیں کہ ریاست اُس وقت بھی ایک بہت بڑی مہاجر آبادی کو کھپا رہی تھی۔ جبکہ is the contrastive whereas and is the right connector for two positions. یاد دلانا, to remind, is a good register-lifting alternative to کہنا. کھپا رہی تھی is a past continuous — was still absorbing — feminine to agree with ریاست, and the continuous is doing real work: it says the process was ongoing, which is the whole force of the counter-argument.

  4. 04Sentence three: say that the two explanations do not exclude each other

    دونوں وضاحتیں اُنہی حقائق کے ساتھ ہم آہنگ ہو سکتی ہیں۔ ہم آہنگ, in harmony or compatible, with ہو سکتی ہیں, the potential compound, feminine plural for وضاحتیں. This is the sentence that makes the paragraph analytical rather than a list of opinions, and the same construction — دونوں مؤقف ایک ساتھ درست ہو سکتے ہیں — is reusable in almost every Theme 4 answer you will write.

Result: پہلا آئین 1956 میں منظور کیا گیا، یعنی آزادی کے نو برس بعد۔ کچھ مؤرخین کا استدلال ہے کہ اِس تاخیر نے نئی پارلیمان کو کمزور کیا، جبکہ دوسرے یہ یاد دلاتے ہیں کہ ریاست اُس وقت بھی ایک بہت بڑی مہاجر آبادی کو کھپا رہی تھی۔ دونوں وضاحتیں اُنہی حقائق کے ساتھ ہم آہنگ ہو سکتی ہیں۔

Exam focus

  • Get the dates right: 14 and 15 August 1947, the Objectives Resolution of 1949, the first constitution in 1956.
  • Separate influence from necessity. It is the single most reusable analytical move in this aspect (AO4).
  • Use the language question as your worked example of a political effect that is also a fact about this qualification's own subject.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing that Pakistan and India became independent on the same day. The dates are adjacent, not identical.
  • Calling the 1956 document Pakistan's only constitution. There have been three — 1956, 1962 and 1973, the last still in force as amended.
  • Asserting that later events were inevitable. That is a contested causal claim, not a description.
  • Writing قیام with a feminine verb. قیام is masculine: قیامِ پاکستان کے بعد ملک کو نیا آئین بنانا پڑا.

Active revision

دو سو الفاظ میں 1947 کے تین سیاسی اثرات بیان کیجیے۔ ہر اثر کے ساتھ ایک سنہ دیجیے، کم از کم ایک تعبیر کو مؤرخین سے منسوب کیجیے، اور آخر میں ایک جملے میں ’اثر‘ اور ’لازمی نتیجہ‘ کا فرق واضح کیجیے

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 03

The social effects of partition on the people of Pakistan#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 4 — قیامِ پاکستان (1947): پاکستان کے عوام پر تقسیمِ پاک و ہند کے سماجی اثراتLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 1 Section B (reading)

Key points

This aspect asks about people rather than institutions, and the right way to write it is through people. Millions crossed the new border in both directions, above all in Punjab and in Bengal; the movement was accompanied by very large-scale violence; families were separated, women were abducted, and property was abandoned on both sides. The estimates of how many died and how many moved differ enormously between historians and between governments, and the responsible sentence says so: اعداد و شمار میں مؤرخین کے درمیان بہت فرق ہے، اِس لیے کوئی بھی عدد اپنے ماخذ کے ساتھ ہی لکھنا چاہیے. Writing that sentence costs you eighteen words and protects everything else you say.
The receiving side of the movement is what this aspect is specifically about, because the specification asks for the effects on the people of Pakistan. New arrivals had to be housed, fed and given work; the administration of abandoned property became a long-running legal and political question; and the demographic composition of some places changed permanently. Karachi is the clearest case: a port city that became the new state's first capital and received a very large Urdu-speaking population from northern India, which reshaped its languages, its commerce and eventually its politics. Sindh and Punjab absorbed the largest numbers. Naming a city and saying what changed there is worth more than a paragraph about migration in general.
The long effects reach into the present and are not only material. Divided families and a border regime that makes visiting difficult; a boundary in Kashmir that has been a line of military confrontation since 1947; and a national memory transmitted at home rather than through archives, because so much of what happened was never officially recorded. Urdu literature is one of the main places that memory is held, and naming writers is a safe and strong move: Saadat Hasan Manto, Intizar Husain and Qurratulain Hyder are the names most often cited in any account of Partition in Urdu prose. The specification's own prescribed novel, آنگن by خدیجہ مستور, is generally described as set in the years leading up to 1947 — read the text itself rather than a summary before you write about it.
Two cautions specific to this aspect. First, the violence of 1947 was committed by people from every community involved and suffered by people from every community involved; an account that assigns it to one side is not a defensible historical claim and will read to an examiner as a political statement rather than an analysis. Second, resist the temptation to make the human material do emotional work. The AO4 grid rewards knowledge, understanding and critical analysis, not affect. Write concretely about what happened to identifiable kinds of people, attribute the interpretations, name the disputes about numbers, and let the material carry its own weight.
Worked example

Paper 1 Section B: a retrieval and an inference on a passage about memory

Passage: تقسیم کے بارے میں جو کچھ ہم جانتے ہیں، اُس کا بڑا حصہ سرکاری کاغذات میں نہیں بلکہ گھروں کی کہانیوں میں محفوظ رہا۔ یہی وجہ ہے کہ اعداد و شمار پر آج تک اتفاق نہیں ہو سکا۔ ایک محقق نے لکھا ہے کہ جن لوگوں نے سب سے زیادہ دیکھا، اُن میں سے اکثر نے سب سے کم لکھا۔ Question (a): متن کے مطابق تقسیم کی یاد کہاں محفوظ رہی؟ Question (b): آخری جملے سے مصنف کیا نتیجہ نکلوانا چاہتے ہیں؟

  1. 01Read the passage for its argument before answering anything

    Three sentences and one argument: memory was domestic rather than archival, therefore the numbers are disputed, and the people best placed to record it recorded least. Seeing the argument first means both answers come out of the same understanding rather than out of two separate searches, which is faster and more accurate.

  2. 02Answer (a) precisely and without lifting

    The text says گھروں کی کہانیوں میں, in the stories of households, and explicitly not سرکاری کاغذات میں, in official papers. Answer: متن کے مطابق تقسیم کی یاد سرکاری دستاویزات کے بجائے گھریلو کہانیوں میں محفوظ رہی۔ Note دستاویزات as a synonym for کاغذات and گھریلو as an adjective for گھروں کی — paraphrase rather than copy, which is what an open-response question rewards.

  3. 03For (b), identify the paradox and name what it implies

    جن لوگوں نے سب سے زیادہ دیکھا، اُن میں سے اکثر نے سب سے کم لکھا — a correlative relative with two ergative clauses, both transitive perfectives. The paradox is that the best witnesses left the least testimony. What the author wants you to conclude is that the written record is systematically incomplete, and therefore that confident numerical claims about 1947 rest on a thin base. That is the inference; the passage never states it.

  4. 04Write the inference answer as a claim about the record, not about feelings

    مصنف یہ نتیجہ نکلوانا چاہتے ہیں کہ تحریری ریکارڈ نامکمل ہے، کیونکہ سب سے اہم گواہوں نے سب سے کم لکھا؛ اِس لیے تقسیم کے بارے میں قطعی اعداد پر بھروسہ نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔ Note بھروسہ نہیں کیا جا سکتا, a negated passive potential — cannot be relied upon — which is three items off the AO3 complex-language list in four words. And note that the answer stays with the record; an answer about how sad the passage is would score nothing.

Result: (a) متن کے مطابق تقسیم کی یاد سرکاری دستاویزات کے بجائے گھریلو کہانیوں میں محفوظ رہی۔ (b) مصنف یہ نتیجہ نکلوانا چاہتے ہیں کہ تحریری ریکارڈ نامکمل ہے، کیونکہ سب سے اہم گواہوں نے سب سے کم لکھا، اِس لیے تقسیم کے بارے میں قطعی اعداد پر بھروسہ نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔

Exam focus

  • Name a place and say what changed there — Karachi is the clearest case — instead of writing about migration in general (AO4).
  • State that the estimates differ before you use any figure, and name whose figure it is if you use one.
  • Name Urdu writers on Partition as evidence about memory. Manto, Intizar Husain and Qurratulain Hyder are the standard references.

Typical mistakes

  • Assigning the violence of 1947 to one community. It is not supportable and it is not analysis.
  • Using a casualty figure with no source. The range between published estimates is very wide.
  • Writing only about departure. The aspect asks about effects on the people of Pakistan, which means the receiving side too.
  • Describing a prescribed work's plot from a summary. Read the text; the specification's essays are marked on evidence from the work.

Active revision

دو سو الفاظ میں تقسیم کے تین سماجی اثرات بیان کیجیے جو پاکستان کے عوام پر پڑے۔ کسی ایک شہر یا علاقے کا نام لے کر بتائیے کہ وہاں کیا بدلا، اعداد کے بارے میں اختلاف کا ذکر کیجیے، اور کسی ایک ادیب کا نام لیجیے جس کے ہاں یہ یاد محفوظ ہے

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 04

The evolution of democracy in Pakistan#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 4 — قیامِ پاکستان (1947): پاکستان میں جمہوریت کا ارتقاLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 3 Section B

Key points

This aspect runs from 1947 to the present and is best carried by a chronology of dated institutional facts. Pakistan has had three constitutions: 1956, which made it an Islamic republic; 1962, which established a presidential system; and 1973, a parliamentary constitution which remains in force as amended and which contains Article 251 on the national language. Military rule interrupted civilian government from 1958, from 1977 and from 1999. The eastern wing separated in 1971 and became Bangladesh. General elections resumed in 1988. The Eighteenth Amendment of 2010 restored parliamentary supremacy, removed the presidential power to dissolve the National Assembly, devolved substantial subjects to the provinces and inserted the right to education. In 2013 an elected civilian government that had completed its term was succeeded by another through an election for the first time.
The institutions themselves are worth naming precisely, because precise institutional vocabulary is the fastest AO3 range available in this theme. مجلسِ شوریٰ, the Parliament, consists of the قومی اسمبلی, National Assembly, and the سینیٹ, Senate; each province has a صوبائی اسمبلی. الیکشن کمیشن آف پاکستان is the constitutional body that conducts elections, and the نگراں حکومت, the caretaker government, is the interim administration under which they are held — an arrangement that is itself distinctive and worth explaining. عدلیہ, انتظامیہ and مقننہ are judiciary, executive and legislature. آئینی ترمیم is a constitutional amendment. Use these words and an examiner sees a candidate who has read about the system rather than about opinions of it.
The word ارتقا, evolution, in the specification's own aspect is a question, not an assumption, and the strongest answers treat it that way. What would count as evidence of evolution rather than of alternation? Candidates for such evidence include the completion of parliamentary terms, transfers of power through elections, the survival of the 1973 constitution across changes of government, the devolution effected in 2010, and the growth of an independent press and judiciary. Candidates against include the recurrence of interruption, the persistence of disputes about the conduct of elections, and arguments about the actual location of decision-making. Both sets are argued in Pakistan by people with evidence. Set the criterion first, then apply it — that is what turns this aspect from a narrative into an analysis.
Two disciplines apply with special force here. First, contemporary Pakistani politics is intensely argued about, and a Section C or Paper 3 answer is not the place to adjudicate a current controversy; report positions, attribute them, and confine your own conclusion to what your evidence supports. Second, keep the institutional and the electoral separate from the personal. An answer built out of the names of politicians and judgements about them is a weak answer; an answer built out of constitutions, amendments, election cycles and named institutions, with politicians appearing only where a dated act requires them, is a strong one. جمہوریت کا جائزہ اداروں کے ذریعے لیا جانا چاہیے، شخصیات کے ذریعے نہیں.
Worked example

Paper 3 Section B: the 5(c) evaluation, on two sources about institutional change

The heard source is an interview with a retired election official: he says the process is far better documented than it was, that complaints now have formal routes, and that public confidence has not risen at the same rate. The read source is a column arguing that documentation is not the same as trust, and that trust depends on what happens after a complaint. Write the 5(c) evaluation — 220 to 270 words in the exam; plan and open it here.

  1. 01Notice that the two sources agree more than they appear to

    The official has already conceded the column's premise: confidence has not risen at the same rate. So the real disagreement is not about facts but about what follows from them — whether improved process is progress that trust will catch up with, or whether process without outcomes is not progress at all. Naming that is your opening sentence. دونوں ذرائع ایک ہی حقیقت تسلیم کرتے ہیں؛ اختلاف اِس پر ہے کہ اُس سے کیا نتیجہ نکلتا ہے۔

  2. 02Weigh the heard source at its strongest

    افسر کی سب سے مضبوط بات یہ ہے کہ اعتماد ایک تاخیر سے آنے والی چیز ہے: اگر طریقۂ کار بہتر ہو چکا ہو تو اُس کا اثر فوراً ظاہر نہیں ہوتا۔ The conditional with a perfect subjunctive protasis — اگر … ہو چکا ہو — is exactly the AO3 complex language the grid names, and it is doing genuine argumentative work: it states the mechanism by which the official's position could be true.

  3. 03Weigh the read source at its strongest

    کالم نگار کی سب سے مضبوط بات یہ ہے کہ اعتماد شکایت درج ہونے سے نہیں بلکہ اُس کے فیصلے سے پیدا ہوتا ہے؛ اگر شکایتیں سالوں تک زیر التوا رہیں تو دستاویز بندی خود ایک رسم بن جاتی ہے۔ Note رہیں, a subjunctive in the conditional, and بن جاتی ہے, an intensive compound. The argument is about the location of trust, and stating it that precisely is what the AO2 grid means by using the written source.

  4. 04Conclude with a criterion, and say what would test it

    میری رائے میں فیصلہ کن معیار یہ ہے کہ درج شدہ شکایتوں میں سے کتنی، اور کتنے عرصے میں، نمٹائی جاتی ہیں؛ اگر یہ اعداد شائع ہوں تو دونوں مؤقفوں میں سے ایک کی تصدیق ہو سکے گی، اور اُس وقت تک دونوں معقول ہیں۔ Ending on the evidence that would settle the question is the strongest available close in 250 words: it is a judgement, it is marked as yours, and it acknowledges the limits of what the two sources can prove.

Result: Opening and close: دونوں ذرائع ایک ہی حقیقت تسلیم کرتے ہیں کہ طریقۂ کار بہتر ہوا ہے مگر اعتماد اُسی رفتار سے نہیں بڑھا؛ اختلاف اِس پر ہے کہ اِس سے کیا نتیجہ نکلتا ہے۔ … میری رائے میں فیصلہ کن معیار یہ ہے کہ درج شدہ شکایتوں میں سے کتنی، اور کتنے عرصے میں، نمٹائی جاتی ہیں؛ اگر یہ اعداد شائع ہوں تو دونوں مؤقفوں میں سے ایک کی تصدیق ہو سکے گی، اور اُس وقت تک دونوں معقول ہیں۔

Exam focus

  • Set a criterion for 'evolution' before you narrate anything. The aspect's own word is the question (AO4).
  • Use precise institutional vocabulary — مجلسِ شوریٰ, نگراں حکومت, آئینی ترمیم, الیکشن کمیشن. It is direct AO3 range.
  • Anchor on 1956, 1962, 1973, 1971, 1988, 2010 and 2013. Seven dates carry the whole aspect.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing a history of politicians instead of a history of institutions.
  • Assuming 'evolution' and treating the aspect as a narrative of progress. It is a claim that has to be tested.
  • Adjudicating a current political controversy in an examination answer. Report and attribute; conclude only as far as your evidence goes.
  • Confusing the caretaker government with the elected one. نگراں حکومت is an interim body with a defined and limited role.

Active revision

دو سو الفاظ میں اِس سوال کا جواب دیجیے: پاکستان میں جمہوریت کے ’ارتقا‘ کا فیصلہ کن معیار پر کیا جانا چاہیے؟ پہلے ایک معیار مقرر کیجیے، پھر کم از کم تین سنہ دار حقائق سے اُس پر عمل کیجیے، اور آخر میں اپنی رائے کو اپنی رائے کہہ کر پیش کیجیے

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

§ 05

The political register in Urdu: writing about the state without sloganeering#

●●●AdvancedLPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Theme 4 (all aspects)LPPearson Edexcel 9UR0 Paper 2 Section A; Paper 1 Section C

Key points

Urdu has a magnificent tradition of political rhetoric, and it is the wrong register for this examination. The AO3 grid rewards variation of structure, complex language and articulate expression; the AO4 grid rewards knowledge, understanding and critical analysis. Neither rewards eloquence about the nation. The practical consequence is a habit: whenever an evaluative adjective appears in your draft — عظیم, ناکام, بدترین, مثالی — ask what fact or attribution it is standing in for, and replace it. تاریخی طور پر اہم becomes a date and a consequence; ناکام becomes an attributed judgement with a criterion attached. The prose gets plainer, and the mark goes up.
The vocabulary that does the analytical work is institutional and abstract, and it is worth building deliberately. آئین, constitution; دستور, the same, in a slightly more formal register; ترمیم, amendment; مقننہ, انتظامیہ, عدلیہ, the three branches; وفاق and صوبائی خود مختاری, federation and provincial autonomy; انتخابات, elections; حلقہ, constituency; رائے دہندگان, voters; نگراں حکومت, caretaker government; قانون سازی, legislation; اختیارات کی تقسیم, the separation or division of powers; احتساب, accountability; شفافیت, transparency. Fifteen nouns. A candidate who has them can write about any political question on this specification without ever reaching for a slogan.
The structures matter as much as the nouns, because political argument is built out of subordination. Concession: اگرچہ … تاہم, بلاشبہ … لیکن. Condition: اگر … تو, and with the subjunctive for the hypothetical. Consequence: چنانچہ, لہٰذا, نتیجتاً. Cause: چونکہ … اِس لیے. Contrast: جبکہ, اِس کے برعکس. Qualification: ایک حد تک, جزوی طور پر, بعض صورتوں میں. Attribution: کے مطابق, کے نزدیک, کا کہنا ہے کہ. Learn those seven families and your Urdu can carry an argument of real complexity — which is precisely what the AO3 grid's phrase about extended sentences expressing abstract ideas and justified arguments describes.
Finally, a note about honorifics and register that applies across the whole qualification. Urdu marks respect grammatically: آپ takes plural agreement, and verbs of speaking are often raised — فرمانا rather than کہنا, تشریف لانا rather than آنا — when the subject is a person to whom deference is due. In expository and analytical prose this is used sparingly and consistently: a historical figure may be referred to with the honorific plural, and a source may be introduced with فرماتے ہیں. What you must not do is switch between registers within a paragraph, or use honorific forms for some actors and plain forms for others in a way that quietly encodes a judgement. Consistency here is an accuracy question, and inconsistency is visible to any Urdu-reading examiner.
Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: a rhetorical English paragraph rewritten as analytical Urdu

Translate into Urdu, and where the English is loose, translate what it means rather than how it sounds. 'The eighteenth amendment was a turning point. It gave the provinces powers they had never had, took away a presidential power that had brought down governments, and made education a right. Whether it has been fully implemented is another question, and one that is still argued about.'

  1. 01Sentence one: replace the metaphor with a claim you can defend

    اٹھارہویں ترمیم نے ملک کے آئینی ڈھانچے میں نمایاں تبدیلی کی۔ Turning point is a metaphor and a judgement; ڈھانچے میں نمایاں تبدیلی, a marked change in the structure, is a claim that the next sentence will evidence. نے appears because تبدیلی کرنا is transitive and perfective; the object تبدیلی is feminine, so کی. اٹھارہویں is the ordinal, feminine to agree with ترمیم.

  2. 02Sentence two: three parallel verbs, three institutional facts

    اِس نے صوبوں کو ایسے اختیارات دیے جو پہلے اُن کے پاس نہیں تھے، صدر کا وہ اختیار ختم کیا جس سے حکومتیں برطرف کی جاتی رہی تھیں، اور تعلیم کو ایک بنیادی حق قرار دیا۔ Three coordinated ergative clauses under one نے. جو … تھے and جس سے … رہی تھیں are relative clauses; برطرف کی جاتی رہی تھیں is a past habitual passive with رہنا for continuation, which is a genuinely advanced construction and exactly what the AO3 grid means by complex language. قرار دینا, to declare, is the right verb for a constitutional act.

  3. 03Sentence three: separate the empirical question from the legal fact

    اِس پر عمل درآمد کہاں تک ہوا، یہ ایک الگ سوال ہے جس پر آج بھی بحث جاری ہے۔ عمل درآمد, implementation, is the exact institutional noun. کہاں تک, how far, keeps the question open. یہ ایک الگ سوال ہے is the move the English made and it is the analytically important one: a constitutional provision and its implementation are two different objects, and confusing them is the commonest error in writing about the amendment.

  4. 04Read the Urdu back for slogans

    Check that no sentence praises or condemns. Here the amendment is described by what it did — devolved powers, removed a specific presidential power, created a right — and the open question is named as open. If you find an evaluative adjective on the reread, ask which of the four claim types it was trying to be, and rewrite it as that type. This pass takes two minutes and is the most reliable way to raise a Theme 4 answer by a band.

Result: اٹھارہویں ترمیم نے ملک کے آئینی ڈھانچے میں نمایاں تبدیلی کی۔ اِس نے صوبوں کو ایسے اختیارات دیے جو پہلے اُن کے پاس نہیں تھے، صدر کا وہ اختیار ختم کیا جس سے حکومتیں برطرف کی جاتی رہی تھیں، اور تعلیم کو ایک بنیادی حق قرار دیا۔ اِس پر عمل درآمد کہاں تک ہوا، یہ ایک الگ سوال ہے جس پر آج بھی بحث جاری ہے۔

Exam focus

  • Replace every evaluative adjective in your draft with a date, a mechanism or an attribution. It is the single most effective revision habit for this theme.
  • Build the fifteen institutional nouns into active vocabulary. They are direct AO3 range and they make sloganeering unnecessary.
  • Use honorific register consistently or not at all. Inconsistent deference encodes a judgement you did not intend.

Typical mistakes

  • Writing in the register of a newspaper editorial. Editorials persuade; the mark grids reward analysis.
  • Using عظیم or ناکام as though they were descriptions. They are judgements and need owners.
  • Mixing honorific and plain verb forms for the same person across a paragraph.
  • Confusing مقننہ (legislature) with انتظامیہ (executive). These are the two words most often swapped, and the swap makes a sentence nonsense.

Active revision

ڈیڑھ سو الفاظ کا ایک پیراگراف لکھیے جس میں کوئی تعریفی یا تنقیدی صفت استعمال نہ ہو۔ اُسی مواد کو صرف سنہ دار حقائق، منسوب تعبیروں اور ایک واضح ذاتی نتیجے سے بیان کیجیے، اور کم از کم تین ادارہ جاتی اصطلاحات لائیے

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification (Pearson Edexcel) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

Contents

Section -- / 05

    • 01Theme 4, and how to write about a past that is argued about●
    • 021947 and its political effects on Pakistan●
    • 03The social effects of partition on the people of Pakistan●
    • 04The evolution of democracy in Pakistan●
    • 05The political register in Urdu: writing about the state without sloganeering●

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From notes into training

The creation of Pakistan and the evolution of democracy (چوتھا موضوع، قیامِ پاکستان)

Reinforce this topic with matching tasks from the question bank.

~34
min
4
Competencies
Practise

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

  • Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Urdu (9UR0) specification

Department for Education

  • GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

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