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Talk of Ma-Boli
back in Punjab, Punjabi compulsory now
WSN Bureau
CHANDIGARH: More than
60 years after British left India and the Brahamanical rulers
ensured Muslimization of Urdu and Hinduization of Hindi, and more
than four decades after Indian rulers presented a truncated Punjab,
talk is again in the air about getting the rightful place for
Punjabi.
Clearly, it is a
shameful admission that those who were tasked with caring for the
Punjabi language failed miserably in their duty.
Enemies of Punjab and
Punjabi carved away vast swathes of Punjabi-speaking areas out of
Punjab, and then sons and daughters of Punjabi shunned their mother
tongue.
If earlier it was
often under a mistaken notion of what is fashionable, or due to
massive push to Hindi, now Punjabi was losing out to market forces,
job prospect evaluations and clarion call from the call centers.
Voices from an era
bygone are now hitting newspaper headlines like blast from the past.
 Punjab Chief Minister
is asking officers to use Punjabi, a minister is pushing through an
ordinance and punitive clauses are being talked about. Punjabi is
being made compulsory in all schools, and resistance to the move is
already visible. Many English medium private schools are planning
strategies to thwart, and there is much talk about the move being
regressive.
But will this time be
any different from the times of Sardar Lachhman Singh Gill? Not long
ago, it was the same Punjab Government that made English compulsory
from Class I against unanimous advice of educationists who said
primary school children should be imparted all education in mother
tongue.
Now, the Akali Dal
government has decided to make Punjabi compulsory in all schools and
gazetted offices of the state; an ordinance is being issued to this
effect, and CM Parkash Singh Badal has made it clear that he would
not wait till the next assembly session to implement the decision.
Education and
Languages Minister Upinderjit Kaur has said there will be a punitive
clause in the ordinance and it will be a legally watertight Act.
Already, all the government departments, boards, corporations,
subordinate courts and educational institutions have been told to
start using Punjabi language in the right earnest keeping in view
the spirit of ordinance to amend Punjab Languages Act (PLA).
So Punjab may soon
witness change of many name plates, notice boards, forms,
applications and other documents, and hear and read Punjabi in day
to day functions. That Public Relations Department of the Punjab
Government is lagging in this aspect should be seen as an
aberration, at least for some more time given its general
inefficiency.
A conscious policy
decision has been taken by the Punjab Government to make Punjabi
language one of the compulsory subjects from the academic session
2008-09. “The Punjab Learning of Punjabi and other Languages Act
2008” has been drafted to ensure proper and compulsory learning and
teaching of Punjabi language in all the schools from standard I to X
whether run by any Society, Trust, Board, Management or any Central
school etc.
The Secretary
Education has been told to get the draft ready within a matter of
days and it should become a law before the month of April makes way
for May.
 “In pursuance to the
unanimous resolutions adopted by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha recently, a
collective responsibility on our shoulders has been added to promote
our mother tongue Punjabi in the state," the Minister said, adding
she would also constitute a legal committee that would study the
implementation of Punjabi language in court work in the State.
But is an Act of the
Assembly enough to preserve the language and script of the great
scripture of the Sikhs? Or do we not need a much larger plan to
ensure that our children feel proud of their language? What about
higher education, medical, engineering streams, the myriad new
avenues of education and jobs coming up regularly? An ordinance is
welcome, and a resolute minister also, but lovers of Punjabi and
Punjabiyat will have to do much more. When action starts 40 years
too late, it must be well planned and we should be ready for the
long haul.
We all know how the
communal elements had succeeded in Sikhiszation of Punjabi. This
time we must guard against such machinations, even if these are from
Akalis’ alliance partners.
30
April 2008
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