The fight to keep Punjabi alive in Pakistan

About Punjabi

Punjabi is part of the Indo-European language family and specifically belongs to the modern Indo-Aryan branch. It is primarily spoken in the Punjab regions of both India and Pakistan, with significant diaspora communities in East Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. According to linguist Tej K Bhatia in his 2005 work Punjabi: Descriptive Grammars, the language has evolved through three distinct stages: old Punjabi (10th-16th century), medieval Punjabi (16th-19th century), and modern Punjabi (19th century-present).

Punjabi began appearing in literary texts as early as the 11th century, with the earliest writings based largely on the western Punjabi dialect, Lahnda. Today, it is most commonly written in the Gurmukhi script.

One of the earliest known Punjabi writers was the Sufi saint Farīduddīn Masūd Ganjshakar, better known as Baba Farid, who is believed to have composed poetry in Punjabi using the Persian script. His work laid the foundation for a rich tradition of Punjabi Sufi poetry, carried forward by luminaries such as Shah Hussain, Sultan Bahu, Bulleh Shah, and Waris Shah. Sikhism also embraced Punjabi. When Guru Nanak founded the faith in the early 16th century, Punjabi became the primary language of the emerging Sikh community.

Guru Nanak (Source: Wikipedia)

During the time of the Sikh gurus and Sufi poets, the official language of Punjab was Persian. Introduced by the Ghaznavid rulers during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni (997-1030), Persian remained dominant under the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and even during the rule of the Sikh kingdom of Lahore. As historian Farina Mir explains in The Social Space of Language (2010), “The status of Persian as a court language helped ensure that with the expansion of Muslim rule in the subcontinent, Persian was widely adopted as a language of letters.”

Mir, however, points out that Persian wasn’t the only literary language in Punjab. Sanskrit and Arabic were still used for religion and scholarship, while Punjabi and Urdu also grew as literary languages — Punjabi from around the 11th century, and Urdu from the mid-18th century.

The British annexation of Punjab

Until the mid-19th century, Punjab remained a culturally and geographically unified region. As Mir describes, it could be seen “as an axis connecting the major cities of Amritsar, Lahore, and Multan, or more broadly as the five doabs and the cis-Sutlej territory.” This unity began to break with the advance of British colonial power.

The Sikh Empire of Lahore (as Punjab was known then), founded by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1799, was a formidable threat to the British. It was only after a series of military campaigns that the British East India Company annexed Punjab in 1849. The new colonial administrative unit, Punjab Province, encompassed much of the former Mughal subas (provinces) of Lahore, Multan, and parts of Kabul.

Initially, the British continued the precolonial tradition of using Persian as the language of administration in the subcontinent. This changed with Act 29 of 1837, the Language of Judicial and Revenue Proceedings Act, which replaced Persian with Indian vernaculars at provincial and local levels, while English remained the language of higher administration. In Punjab, however, the colonial government chose Urdu, not Punjabi, as the language of administration.

Urdu quickly became dominant not only in bureaucratic and educational contexts but also in the region’s growing print and literary culture. According to Mir, this decision was influenced by British perceptions of Punjabi as primarily a Sikh language. Officials feared that elevating Punjabi could strengthen Sikh political claims. There were also concerns about unrest from remnants of the Sikh military, who had not been fully disarmed after British annexation.  Beyond politics, Punjabi was viewed as lacking cultural refinement. It was dismissed as rustic, especially when compared to classical languages like Persian and Sanskrit, or institutionalised vernaculars like Urdu, Tamil, and Gujarati.

Practical considerations further cemented Urdu’s position. Using Urdu allowed the British to draw on an existing pool of administrative personnel, both British and Indian, mainly from North India and Bengal. These officials typically spoke Hindustani or Bengali and were also proficient in Urdu and Persian, but not Punjabi. As one colonial official, cited by Mir, remarked: “If Punjabee [Punjabi] is declared the Court language, what is to become of the Chiefs who almost universally speak very fair Oordoo [Urdu] and the more educated classes who really cannot speak the veritable Punjabee?”

“By 1854, the whole province of Punjab was Urdu in the lower levels of administration, judiciary and education,” writes academic Tariq Rahman in his book Language and Politics in Pakistan (2003).

This position was challenged by both Hindus and Sikhs, while Muslims continued to support Urdu. The Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in Bombay in 1875, gained significant traction in Punjab, particularly among the urban Hindu middle class, and advocated for the adoption of Hindi. Around the same time, the Singh Sabha movement emerged within the Sikh community. Founded in Amritsar in 1873, it quickly spread across Punjab, promoting a distinct Sikh identity anchored in the Punjabi language, written in the Gurmukhi script. Meanwhile, Muslim groups continued to petition the colonial government to preserve Urdu’s official status.

A Hindu illustrated manuscript written in the Gurmukhi script (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Yet by the 1940s, little had changed in terms of language policy. Citing data, Rahman notes that by 1940, there were 1,245 Urdu-medium primary schools in Punjab, compared to a mere 13 Punjabi-medium schools. He argues that Punjabi came to be seen as having a “ghettoizing effect” on its speakers. By the mid-20th century, even many Sikhs were willing to abandon Punjabi in pursuit of social mobility within an Urdu-dominant bureaucracy.

It was, says Rahman, “the common people of Punjab, less conscious of the exigencies of modernity, [who] continued to enjoy Punjabi literature.” The situation was exacerbated by the 1947 Partition. As Mir notes, an estimated twelve million people were displaced in Punjab alone, “with Muslims moving westward into Pakistan and Sikhs and Hindus heading eastward into India.” The cultural and linguistic fabric of Punjab, once deeply interwoven, was violently torn apart.

Punjabiyat in Punjab, Pakistan

The colonial-era policy of privileging Urdu as the official language in Punjab continued in post-Partition Pakistan. Punjabi Muslims increasingly adopted Urdu for both oral and written communication. This linguistic trend was further solidified in the 1973 Constitution, which declared Urdu the national language of Pakistan. “The choice of Urdu as the national language for Pakistan was intimately related to a language ideology that posited Urdu as the bearer of high Muslim culture in the region…,” writes Alyssa Ayres in her essay Language, the Nation, and Symbolic Capital: The Case of Punjab (2012). She adds that, along with Urdu, English, at varying proficiency levels, was seen as essential for elite economic and social mobility.

With a population between 77 million and 83 million, Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous province. As Ayres notes, Punjabis hold considerable power in key national institutions such as the army and the federal bureaucracy. Since independence, other ethnic groups have frequently accused Punjab of monopolising national resources. The province also enjoys several natural advantages, including fertile land, cleaner water, better access to technology, and higher literacy rates. Within this context, many Punjabis have strategically embraced a Pakistani identity centered around Urdu, even at the cost of their native language. According to Ayres, this helps them maintain favourable ties with state institutions and supports social mobility. Ahmad believes that Urdu-centric national identity helps Punjabi elites ease tensions with marginalised ethnic groups such as Balochis, Pakhtuns, and Sindhis, who resent Punjabi dominance.

Yet, in a rare act of resistance, a movement emerged to reclaim the Punjabi language and identity. Ayres refers to this as the Punjabiyat movement, driven not by the elite who benefit from Urdu’s dominance but by “disenfranchised individuals” seeking to restore Punjabi’s cultural standing and protect the psychological well-being of its speakers.

This resurgence was reflected in the rise of Punjabi newspapers and films, most notably the 1979 blockbuster Maula Jatt, which, as Ayres notes, “resulted in Punjabi eclipsing Urdu as the most prolific and highest-grossing cinema in the country.” Omer adds that the film industry’s shift from Lahore to Urdu-dominated Karachi has significantly altered the cultural landscape, leading to a sharp decline in Punjabi productions.

The poster of Maula Jatt (Source: Wikipedia)

Under Pakistan’s first democratically elected government led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1971-77), the state supported cultural initiatives like Lok Virsa and established regional institutions such as the Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board. Prominent writers like Fakhar Zaman and Munnoo Bhai championed Punjabi literature during this time. However, this momentum was abruptly halted following General Zia-ul-Haq’s military coup in 1977, after which Punjabi identity faced renewed suppression.

Omer says, “In remote villages of South Punjab, Pakistan, many people can’t speak and barely understand Urdu, let alone English. In courtrooms, this creates serious challenges. They depend entirely on their lawyers’ interpretations.”

In contrast, Anshu Malhotra, Chair of Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, tells indianexpress.com, “In Indian Punjab, Punjabi remains widely spoken. It is taught in schools and actively used in daily life. This is largely rooted in the events of 1966, when Haryana was carved out of Punjab. Following the reorganisation, a little over 58% of the population in the newly defined Punjab identified as Sikh. As a result, Punjabi became closely intertwined with Sikh identity. “But even there,” she cautions, “there’s a growing concern that the language could slowly fade.”

Punjabi in Pakistan today

Amandeep Kaur, who teaches history at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, recalls a recent conversation with her daughter in New York. “She told me, whenever she sits in a cab with a Pakistani driver, he speaks Punjabi. But the Pakistani students she meets speak Urdu. They say they don’t know Punjabi even though they are Punjabis.”

For historians like Anne Murphy at the University of British Columbia in Canada, this disconnect is concerning. “Punjab became part of Pakistan because it was a Muslim-majority province under British rule… And yet today, the majority language of that region [Punjabi] is denied to its own children,” she says. “You can get a PhD in Punjabi in Pakistan, but you can’t study it in elementary school. That’s what activists are really fighting for — basic education in Punjabi. Without that, the life of the language suffers.”

For Omer, the loss feels deeply personal. The Punjabi words he once spoke as a child have vanished. “English is overtaking Urdu, forget Punjabi,” he says. “My kids will know the word ‘blue,’ but not neela.” In villages, Punjabi still lingers, but for how long? He reflects on the irony with frustration: “Success should come from skill, not language. But Punjabi-speaking locals suffer.”

And yet, a spark endures. Punjabi cinema and music have surged onto the global stage, keeping the language alive in unexpected ways. Even across borders, cultural pain is shared. “The death of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala hit us hard here in Punjab, Pakistan,” Omer says, his voice low.

In her book, Mir offers a powerful reminder: “Punjabi may not produce a nationalist politics, but the language remains the site of sustained and political engagement by its speakers.” Perhaps that’s its quiet power. Without state support or official status, Punjabi endures in Pakistan.

Further reading: 

1. The Social Space of Language (2010) by Farina Mir

2. Language and Politics in Pakistan (2003) by Tariq Rahman

3. Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and Practice (2012) by Anshu Malhotra and Farina Mir

4. Global Issues in Language, Education and Development (2007) by Naz Rassool

5. Punjabi: Descriptive Grammars (2005) by Tej K. Bhatia