Status of Punjabi in Pakistan

As an outsider, this makes for interesting reading...

The politics of language in Pakistan
Punjabi yet to get due status, despite struggle
by Nirupama Dutt (The Chandigarh Tribune)

A recent literary column in The Dawn, the leading paper of Pakistan, by Mushir Anwar has caused ripples in the Punjabi literary and intellectual circles in Punjab for it once again defends the imposition of Urdu as the official language of Punjab. In response to the very provocative statement made by Anwar — "Punjabi is an undeveloped form of Urdu" — Maqsood Saqib, editor of Pancham, a Punjabi monthly published in Pakistan, argued in a letter to the editor responding to the column. The letter titled 'Punjabi is Punjab's mother tongue', Saqib says, tongue in cheek, that if Urdu is being described as the language of the people of Punjab, then by that logic it may soon also be called the language of Japan!

Saying that Urdu should be seen as the federal language of Pakistan, linking the Baluchis, Sindhis, Pathans and Punjabis, Saqib goes on to say that it should not be thrust upon the Punjabis. He further adds: "The demand for the Punjabi language as a medium of instruction in Punjab is as old as the birth of Pakistan and it is not a new thing for all of us. We should all endorse this demand, as the dropout rate of school-going children in Punjab is very high. One of the factors of this deplorable situation is that children are denied their basic human right to read and write in their mother language." However, the newspaper did not carry this letter as the politics of language in Pakistan is biased in favour of the Urdu language. Circulating this letter online, Saqib says: "I wrote this letter in response to that column but the paper has not carried it. The reasons for this are all too obvious."

When Saqib says that the struggle for getting Punjabi its due status in Punjab is as old as the birth of Pakistan, it is not an exaggeration. And the situation today is not happy for a language that is the mother tongue of the majority of the people in Pakistan. As the census figures go Punjabi (including Saraiki, Hindko and other varying dialects) is the "commonly spoken in household" language of 60.43 per cent Pakistanis, followed by Pushto for 13.4 per cent, Sindhi for 11.7 per cent, Urdu for 7.60 per cent and Baluchi for 3.02 per cent. In spite of this Punjabi has no official status either in Pakistan or in West Punjab. The medium of instruction in the schools in West Punjab is Urdu, and to a lesser extent English. A study conducted in 2001 shows that there is not a single Punjabi medium school in the country. On the other hand there are 36, 750 Sindhi medium schools in Sindh and 10,731 Pushto schools in the North-West Frontier Province.

While the people of East Punjab in India too have had to struggle for getting Punjabi its due official status, the situation has never been so bad. This so especially because of the Sikh Punjabis whose sacred text, Guru Granth Sahib, is in Punjabi in the Gurmukhi script.
If we are to study this phenomenon in the context here to East Punjab, Punjabi was often seen as the poor rustic cousin of Urdu and Hindi. Punjabi parents often speak to their children in Hindi and that is often the peer-group language. To some extent the Sikh identity has been able to reverse trends. In Punjab we find people choosing to speak in English and Punjabi and rejecting Hindi. However, the Punjabis living in metropolis, by and large still suffer from low self-esteem as far as their lingual identity goes.

However, it is heartening to meet a group of committed writers, artists, teachers and other intellectuals who have been working ceaselessly as language activists. In the forefront is the name of a senior poet-playwright of Punjabi called Syed Najm Hosain, who was the founder head of the Department of Punjabi in Punjab University at Lahore. Every Friday there is a Sangat held in his home on The Mall in Lahore and the practice has been going on for three decades. Writers, painters and others get together to read and sing Sufi poetry as well as the verses of the Sikh Gurus. Many of them have learnt the Gurmukhi script to bridge the Shahmukhi-Gurmukhi gap between West Punjab and East Punjab. For Shahmukhi is the name for the Persian script used to write Punjabi in Pakistan.

Zubair Ahmad, a Punjabi writer who also takes care of the Kitab Trinjan Trust that publishes books in Punjabi, says: " Punjabi language has never been encouraged by the media and the establishment but the writers have done their bit and are still doing it. We have had fine poets like Munir Niazi and Ustad Daman. Ustad Daman was a true product of the oral, a poet of baaghs (gardens). Put behind bars by all rulers for reciting his poetry in public places, his only book was published posthumously by his friends and pupils."

Punjabi fiction has some prominent names like Mansha Yaad, Fakhar Zaman of the World Punjabi Conferences fame, Anwar Ali and Ahmed Salim. And now Saqib has taken the lead and started printing books in Gurmukhi too.

The struggle for getting the mother tongue its due has been a long one and still very little has been achieved for there are forces that will even shy away from publishing a letter to the editor in favour of Punjabi. So when Eric Cyprrian, a Pakistani communist leader and an early language activist in Pakistan called Punjabis in Pakistan, 'A people without a language' he was making a scathing comment on the establishment. Otherwise, Punjabi continues to be in vigorous use in homes, bazaars, teahouses, mazaars of the Sufi poets and saints as well as the streets. When will the Pakistani officialdom wake up to this reality?