The Punjabi language movement in Pakistan

Literary organising after independence

Tariq Rahman traces an early gathering of Punjabi intellectuals to Dyal Singh College in Lahore in 1948. Participants wanted Punjabi to become a language of education and encouraged writers to publish in it. The monthly Punjabi began in 1951, edited by Faqir Muhammad Faqir. It drew contributions from literary figures already established in Urdu. Print offered a continuing forum for a language whose everyday reach did not automatically give it equivalent educational or administrative standing.[1]

Rahman also describes the 1956 Punjabi Conference at Lyallpur, now Faisalabad. It called for Punjabi as a medium at the lower levels of education. The campaign did not require every supporter to reject Urdu: Abdul Majid Salik defended Punjabi’s development while retaining Urdu’s national role. That combination shows why advocating a mother tongue cannot be reduced to one uniform position on Pakistan’s other languages.[1]

One influential strand linked language with class

Virinder Kalra and Waqas Butt argue that the movement’s history cannot be explained solely as elite competition for status. Their study examines the Mazdoor Kisan Party’s use of Punjabi to engage peasants and workers in the early 1970s. Party documents and resolutions appeared in Punjabi, and poetry helped carry political ideas into meetings. This was one influential strand of activism, rather than proof that every Punjabi writer or language supporter belonged to the same party.[2]

Activity extended beyond Lahore

The same study follows student politics at Government College Sahiwal, where pupils from a broad rural hinterland encountered socialist organising. The authors connect the National Students Federation’s work with the wider language question. Their case changes the geographical emphasis: Punjabi activism was not confined to prominent Lahore literary circles. Language could connect political education with the people and places outside major centres of institutional power. The study’s interpretation concerns a particular historical network, not the political views of all Punjabi speakers.[2]

Teaching and research acquired an institutional home

Muhammad Irfanul Haq’s history of the University of the Punjab’s Punjabi department records its re-establishment in 1970, including regular MA classes and research. The department’s journal Khoj followed in 1978. In 2021 it became the Institute of Punjabi and Cultural Studies. These institutional milestones demonstrate a sustained academic presence, while they do not establish that every demand for Punjabi-medium schooling or administration had been achieved. Literary publication, party mobilisation and university teaching remained different ways of widening the language’s public possibilities. Haq also records the university’s 1928 decision to establish language research departments and identifies Mohan Singh Diwana as a pioneer of its Punjabi teaching.[3]