Citing Punjab’s historical links with Jammu and Kashmir since Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s time, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention for the inclusion of Punjabi in the official list of languages of the UT.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Amarinder urged him to advise the Union ministry of home affairs to reconsider and review the official list and include Punjabi also as one of the official languages of J&K.
Voicing the resentment of the Punjabi community over the exclusion of Punjabi from the list of official languages, he pointed out that J&K was a part of Punjab during the era of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with Punjabi one of the vernacular languages of the region. When Jammu and Kashmir came into existence as an independent state, Punjabi was a widely spoken language in the state and is now the mother tongue of Punjabis in the Jammu region, besides being spoken by the Punjabi community living in the Kashmir Valley, he wrote.
The CM said that under the Jammu and Kashmir Languages Bill, 2020, which was passed by both Houses of Parliament with a voice vote in September 2020, Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi were included in the list of official languages in the UT, in addition to the existing Urdu and English. Unfortunately, Punjabi was not included in the list of languages which are not just official languages now of the UT but will also be taught in schools as compulsory subjects, he said.
{{/usCountry}}The CM said that under the Jammu and Kashmir Languages Bill, 2020, which was passed by both Houses of Parliament with a voice vote in September 2020, Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi were included in the list of official languages in the UT, in addition to the existing Urdu and English. Unfortunately, Punjabi was not included in the list of languages which are not just official languages now of the UT but will also be taught in schools as compulsory subjects, he said.
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