Shivang Satya Gupta
The continuing demand of Punjabi-speaking people of Jammu & Kashmir deserves more than routine coverage. After listening to the concerns being raised publicly and examining the statutory position, I believe the issue has reached a stage where the elected government should engage directly with the representatives of the movement and begin examining the constitutional route available under law.
One distinction must be made clearly at the outset. These are not “Punjabis” seeking some separate geographical identity. They are Punjabi-speaking people of Jammu & Kashmir. They belong to this soil. Their families have lived here for generations. Punjabi is their mother tongue, cultural language or literary inheritance, and they are asking their own government to protect and recognise it.
Punjabi is not seeking entry into Jammu & Kashmir today. Its historical presence is already recorded. The Constitution of the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir recognised Punjabi among its regional languages. The Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Act, 2020 also specifically provides for special efforts for the promotion and development of Punjabi.
That immediately raises a legitimate question. Six years after the legislation, what have those “special efforts” produced on the ground?
How many schools presently offer Punjabi? How many students are studying it? How many Punjabi teachers are available? How many sanctioned posts are vacant? Are textbooks reaching students? What institutional roadmap exists to ensure that the language survives among future generations?
These are not emotional questions. They are measurable questions of governance.
But while examining the issue, another important fact becomes clear: there is already a statutory route through which the demand for official-language status can be taken forward.
Section 47(1) of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 provides that the Legislative Assembly may, by law, adopt one or more languages in use in the Union Territory as an official language or languages for all or any official purposes.
That provision deserves public attention.
It means the issue cannot simply remain suspended indefinitely between Jammu & Kashmir and New Delhi while every institution waits for somebody else to move first.
Jammu & Kashmir today has an elected government, a Council of Ministers and a functioning Legislative Assembly.
And that is why I want to address Chief Minister Omar Abdullah directly.
Omar Sahib, please take the initiative.
Nobody is suggesting that the Chief Minister can declare Punjabi an official language through a single executive order. The legal situation requires careful examination because the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Act, 2020 is itself an Act of Parliament.
But legal complexity does not mean governmental helplessness. Your government can call representatives of the present movement. Your Cabinet can examine their demand. Your Law Department can give a formal opinion on the scope of Section 47.
The matter can be discussed before the elected Legislative Assembly.
And if the final constitutional route requires Presidential assent, cooperation from the Union Government or an amendment by Parliament, the elected government of Jammu & Kashmir can formally pursue that route.
The existence of a legal process should be a reason to begin—not a reason to postpone.
There is also one part of the demand that can be examined much more immediately: education.
If Punjabi-speaking parents want their children to study Punjabi and sufficient demand exists in a school or locality, the administration should determine what facilities are required. Conduct a school-wise assessment. Count the students seeking the subject. Identify the requirement of teachers. Examine vacancies. Ensure books are available. Establish a transparent mechanism through which Punjabi can actually be studied wherever the prescribed educational criteria are fulfilled.
Because a language cannot survive merely through praise from a stage. It survives in a classroom.
It survives when a child can read what his grandfather could read. It survives when a mother tongue becomes a written inheritance rather than merely a language remembered inside the home.
Imagine a grandfather in Jammu speaking Punjabi to his grandchild. The child understands him. Perhaps the child even speaks the language. But if that child cannot read it, cannot write it and has little opportunity to study its literature, the connection has already begun to weaken.
One generation speaks it fluently. The next understands it. The third remembers a few expressions.
Languages can disappear without ever being formally prohibited. Sometimes neglect is enough. That is why the present movement deserves to be understood in human terms as well as constitutional ones.
The Punjabi-speaking people raising this demand are approaching democratic institutions. Their case should therefore move from protest to dialogue, from dialogue to legal examination and from legal examination towards an institutional decision.
And this is where I believe journalism also has a role. It is not enough merely to report that another dharna took place. The press should examine the grievance. It should examine the law.
And, where possible, it should identify the institution capable of moving towards a solution.
That is what I am placing before the Chief Minister today. Section 47 provides a route.
So, Omar Sahib, call the representatives of the Punjabi-speaking people. Hear them across the table.
Ask your Law Department to place the legal position before the Cabinet. Ask the concerned department to place the actual educational figures before you. Determine what your government can do administratively, what requires legislation and what requires cooperation from New Delhi. Then place that position transparently before the people.
The Punjabi-speaking citizens raising their voice today should not have to keep moving from one institution to another merely to discover who will consider their demand.
They deserve an institutional answer. The final constitutional process may involve several authorities. Nobody should pretend otherwise. But somebody has to initiate it.
And the elected government of Jammu & Kashmir is in a position to take that first step.
Punjabi-speaking people of J&K are asking their own government for an answer. They deserve one.
