Punjabi Language Movement in Pakistan

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• published: 02 Mar 2011
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PLM stages hunger strike on The Mother Language Day ( 21 Feb 2011 ) in front of Punjab Assembly Building Lahore demanding National , Official and Educational status for PUNJABI .LET US SAVE PUNJABI Hunger strike to protest against the 150 years old continuous ban imposed by the imperialists on mother tongue as medium of instruction in Punjab and to support the demands to declare Sindhi,Punjabi,Pushto and Balochi as the national languages of Pakistan.Let us join hands to end the 150 years old state sponsored terrorism and exploitation against our mother tongue. THE TRAGEDY OF PUNJABI LANGUAGE In 1947 we inherited a trilingual society which was an illegitimate child of British Raj, responsible of deliberately imposing an alien language in Punjab. English enjoyed the supreme position of official language, while Urdu along with English was made language of learning and Punjabi which was language of the soil was allowed to be alive only as a spoken language of Punjabis. People accepted this phenomena as a circumstantial oppression but situation altogether changed after partition when Punjabi was discarded outright for being a language of abuses spoken by Kaafirs . Mothers started speaking Urdu to the infants and within a span of two decades trilingual character of our society changed into bilingual leaving Punjabi at the mercy of highly anti Punjabi mindset ruling elite and instinctively hostile bureaucracy. This is the tragedy of Punjab language which is the language of majority in Pakistan. It is the mother tongue of more than 100 million people of Punjab and is spoken as first language by 60 % and easily understood by almost 80 % of Pakistanis. It is the 12th most spoken language in the world.11th most spoken language in India.4th most spoken language in Canada.3rd most spoken language in South Asia and 2nd most spoken language in Britain. It is a complete standardized language owned by approximately 150 million people around the globe.