LAHORE – Prominent Punjabi organizations will stage a strong protest against elite Beaconhouse School System tomorrow, October 20th, over a controversial circular ‘banning’ Punjabi language, despite the fact that an inquiry is underway.
Activists from leading organizations such as Punjabi Parchar, Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board, Masud Khadarposh Trust, Punjabi Adabi Sangat, Punjabi Sangat Pakistan, Punjabi Adabi Parchar, Punjabi Khoj Garh, Baba Farid Trust and Sungri will gather outside Beconhouse head office on Guru Mangat Road, Gulberg, Lahore, at 12:00pm to record their protest against ‘the colonial-era prejudice’, and ‘obnoxious policy’ towards Punjabi language.
Punjabi – the only living language among the Indo-European languages – is the native language of more than a 100 million people around the world and is the 10th most widely spoken language with a rich history dating back to the 7th century A.D.
The call for Thursday’s protest comes a day after Beaconhouse School System issued a clarification note in a Facebook post on Tuesday, explaining the confusion which stems from a circular issued in August on the letterhead of the Sahiwal head branch.
The letter states, verbatim: “Foul language is NOT ALLOWED within and outside the school premises, in the morning, during the school hours and after home time. Foul language includes taunts, abuses, Punjabi and the hate speech.”
In its clarification note, the school said the operative word, “curses”, was unfortunately missed in the circular.
“Beaconhouse is deeply embarrassed by this omission and cannot emphasize enough that it was a simple miscommunication caused by a lapse in language.
“Nonetheless, we have launched a full inquiry into this matter to identify how this lapse occurred in the first place, and why it was not identified by senior management,” the note further reads.
The controversial circular provoked a kerfuffle on social media, with strong reaction from a large number of people who are in favor of Punjabi language. They warned the school of strong protests if the circular was not withdrawn.
Prior to the latest clarification, the school had taken an aggressive stance and refused to disown its ‘mis-constructed’ circular. Taking on ‘hashtag activists’ for spreading ‘hate and misinformation’, the school authorities termed it a malicious campaign by ‘their competitors’ or by ‘others with vested interests’.
However, the school’s clarification has apparently done not much to ease the Punjabis’ concern about an undeclared divide between the urban and rural classes in the country. Generally, it appears as a constant struggle to choose between one’s mother tongue (Punjabi), one’s adopted language (Urdu) and one’s official language (English) that was brought in by colonizers. But the continuous westernization of Pakistani society has been taking a dreadful turn, with elite English-medium schools preferring English – a foreign language – only.
Tempers are still running high and activists working for the promotion of Punjabi language have rejected the school’s clarification outright.
“We reject this clarification which follows such a disrespectful circular. The [Beaconhouse] school must seek for public apology and immediately remove the persons responsible for the controversial circular,” said Ahmed Raza, Director Punjabi Parchar.
Talking to Daily Pakistan, he demanded of the Punjab government to declare Punjabi language a compulsory subject from primary to graduation so that such inciting incidents could be avoided.
Mushtaq Sufi, senior columnist and Chairman Pakistan Punjabi Adbi Board, also called for an enquiry into the matter. Referring to their writ petition submitted in the Lahore High Court the other day, he said the Chief Justice expressing serious concern summoned Secretary Education for November 15.
According to the Article-251 of Constitution of Pakistan, Sufi stated, the state is bound to teach and promote national language (Urdu) and all the regional languages (including Punjabi) without any prejudice. “But the government has badly failed to protect our regional language Punjabi,” he regretted.
Expressing his resentment, Punjab Khoj Garh president Iqbal Qaiser held “the school made a mockery of Punjabis by issuing such a hateful circular.” “We will pursue this case, and will take to a logical end.”
Prof (r) Tariq Jattala, general secretary Punjabi Parchar, said: “Criticizing the mother language of over 150 million people is absolutely intolerable. The school blames this on its admin head claiming he was trying to be ‘diplomatic’ and meant Punjabi ‘curses’, but my question is why curses in Punjabi in particular?
“Curses and swearing in any language are bad, looked down upon and should be banned, but why single out Punjabi?”
“The fact that this school felt the need to write “Punjabi” separately in the same sentence as banning foul languages shows the kind of language bias that we need to address,” he added.
Baba Najmi, a revolutionary Punjabi poet, was shocked and in grief over the issue. “It is so regrettable that I feel like crying,” he told Daily Pakistan.
On the other hand, Beaconhouse Regional Director Ali Ahmad Khan has ruled out any mala fide intention behind issuing the controversial circular and termed it a human error. “We’re not against any regional language, especially Punjabi. And if Punjabi is declared as a compulsary subject, we’d happily teach it in our schools,” Mr Khan said when asked for his comments on Punjabi language.
“I’m also a Punjabi, and so is more than half of our staff. We can never think of banning our own language, but only the curses,” he added.
To a question about Thursday’s protest at Beaconhouse head office, the top Beconhouse official said it was highly unjustified of the campaigners to react in such a manner. “We’ve already apologized publicly for the circular in a press release (issued on Tuesday). You tell me, is degrading a senior teacher at a press conference going to make any difference,” Mr Khan asked this correspondent when informed about the demands of protestors.
Punjabi is spoken as a native language by over 44.15% of Pakistanis. About 70.0% of the people of Pakistan speak Punjabi as either their first or second language, and for some as their third language.
Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, is the largest Punjabi-speaking city in the world. 86% of the total population of Lahore is native Punjabi and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is 71% native Punjabis at 3rd after Faisalabad where 76% are native. There are also a large number of Punjabi speakers in Karachi.
