Mother Language Day

Mother Language Day is celebrated on 21 February throughout the world as a symbol of love for mother language of a certain region but in Punjab the case is different. Here this day usually goes unnoticed because a majority of Punjabis have discarded the use of their mother tongue at all levels and have deliberately changed the language of their next generations. This apathetic attitude of Punjabis towards their mother tongue is the outcome of 169 years old undeclared ban on education in Punjabi in Punjab.
We in Punjab inherited a trilingual society in which English being the supreme both English and Urdu were made the language of learning and Punjabi was allowed to survive only as a spoken language. But after the Independence, situation altogether changed when influenced by anti-Punjabi mindset propaganda Punjabis discarded their mother tongue thinking it a language of Sikhs and kaafirs and illiterates. This phenomenon has played havoc with Punjabi society by depriving them of their god blessed identity. It is not a matter of mere identity of a certain people, the extinction of a language in its birth place is nothing less than a global cultural loss too, which must be avoided at any cast.
Punjab wants its language back. For how long the children of Punjabi mothers would be deprived of their legitimate right to get education in their mother tongue? It is a proven fact that a child gets better primary education in his mother tongue? Is it justified to usurp the right of the language of 60 percent of Pakistanis by making another one the national language which is originally an Indian language and owned as a mother tongue by not more than 7 percent of the whole population of Pakistan?
TARIQ MAHMUD JATALA
Lahore