I strongly condemn the declaring of Urdu as a medium of instruction by Murad Raas, minister of Education Government of Punjab, and demand the immediate U-Turn of this highly unjust decision. While declaring his decision, the minister referred to a so-called survey report in which the majority of educationists, parents, and students voted in favor of Urdu.

Accepting the right of education in one’s own language worthy minister categorically denied the existence of Punjabi language in Punjab and very clearly mentioned Urdu as the language of Punjab. He was of the view that Punjabi is not a sole representative language of Punjab because there are small lingual units in Punjab speaking different languages. He blatantly showed his total unawareness about the fact that every big language has a considerable number of dialects and this kind of diversity does not affect the oneness of a language.

Such an intriguing act to reject the language of Punjab and swap it with Urdu as ( mother) language of Punjab is not only an open disgrace to 12 crores Punjabis whose mother language is Punjabi but it is also an infringement of basic human rights related to the language of a person or a nation.

He perhaps does not know that despite all intrigues Punjabi is the largest spoken language of Pakistan. According to Census 2017 report in Punjab Punjabi is the mother language of 75 % of the population whereas 20 % of the population has mentioned Saraiki as their mother language which is actually Multani dialect of Punjabi.

We find ourselves unable to understand that what bars government to grant the right of education to Punjabis in their own language when it is not only a divine right but the constitution of Pakistan and the manifesto of Unesco also grant the right of education in one’s own language. We strongly believe that without making Punjabi the language of instruction in schools neither the quality of education can be improved nor the literacy rate increased.

We demand the immediate repeal of the decision of making Urdu the medium of instruction and want Punjabi to be declared the language of education in Punjab. It is also to be noted that worthy Lahore High Court has also given the verdict in favor of Punjabi on 12 Feb 2019 and have issued orders to the government to make necessary arrangements for the implementation of this decision. But how deplorable is it that instead of implementing the verdict of worthy high court government has gone contrary to it and in this way is committing Toheen E Adaalat

TARIQ JATALA,

Lahore.