Punjabis should safeguard their language: Sekhon

Tribune News Service

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Ludhiana, September 5

MS Sekhon, an activist, who has been campaigning for Punjabi, says that the language is the identity of Punjabis, and they should come together to offset design and conspiracies to kill the language. He was speaking at Punjabi Bhawan during a progamme ‘Gunaha Da Iqbal’.

He said all states follow three-language formula — English, Hindi and their state language, but in Punjab, Punjabi was being neglected and Hindi was being imposed and projected as national language.

“Punjabi is mother tongue for people of Punjab. Why work is not being done in Punjabi in BSNL offices, provident fund offices, railways and post offices?” he asked.

He further said, “Hindi is projected as national language by the Centre, but Punjabi is the first language for people of Punjab,” he said.

“It is a conspiracy of the Centre to uproot and kill Punjabi language, and unfortunately, Punjabis are not objecting and campaigning against the disrespect and neglect of their own mother tongue,” he said.

He said people of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal did not let other languages dominate at the cost of their mother tongue, but people and the state government here were allowing this to happen.

He also said Hindi was being imposed in Punjab through bureaucracy and several other ways and Punjabis should not let that happen.

He further said the same was the case in private schools where teachers had been instructed not to speak in Punjabi and even children were not allowed to speak Punjabi in schools.

“All this continue to happen under the nose of the government, and strangely, parents are not protesting against disallowing their children to speak their own mother tongue,” he said.