Punjab CM seeks PM's intervention in designating Punjabi as J&K's official language

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh requested the Union government to designate Punjabi as an official language in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. On September 2, 2020, the Union Cabinet approved the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020 whereby Urdu, Kashmiri, Dogri, Hindi, and English have been designated as the official languages of J&K. Subsequently, this bill was cleared by both Houses of Parliament via voice vote in the Monsoon session. In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, Singh lamented that Punjabi had not been included in this list.

He pointed out that J&K was a part of Punjab during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Thus, he added that Punjabi was a very widely spoken language in J&K by the time it became a State in India. According to the senior Congress leader, Punjabi is now the mother tongue of all the Punjabi people in Jammu and is also spoken by the Punjabi community in the Kashmir Valley. Moreover, he contended that the exclusion of Punjabi from the list of official languages had caused resentment among the Punjabi community. Before the reorganisation of J&K in August 2019, Urdu was the sole official language of the State. 

Read: Punjab CM Kick-starts Rs 213 Crore Worth Projects On Republic Day

Demand for the inclusion of Punjabi 

When the aforesaid bill was being debated in the Lok Sabha, Congress MP Manish Tewari too batted for the inclusion of Punjabi. He highlighted that most of the refugees who came to Jammu after partition spoke Punjabi. The Congress leader called for an end to the alleged discrimination being meted out to the Punjabi language in J&K. Besides this, Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma has put forth the same demand, asserting that over 70 per cent of the population of J&K understood or spoke Punjabi. 

Congress MP Manish Tewari remarked, "It is very regrettable that the Centre approved the J&K Official Languages Bill on September 2. In this bill, only Urdu, Kashmiri, Dogri, Hindi and English have been granted the official language status. I demand the government include the Punjabi language in this bill. This kind of discrimination being meted out to the Punjabi language in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir should end."

Read: Punjab CM Amarinder Singh Denounces Farmer Rally Violence, Issues 'vacate Delhi' Appeal