Chandigarh, January 28: Citing Punjab’s historical linkswith Jammu & Kashmir since Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s time,
Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday soughtPrime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention for the inclusion of Punjabi in theofficial list of languages of the UT.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Captain Amarinder urgedhim to advise the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to reconsider and review theofficial list and include Punjabi also as one of the official languages in theUT of Jammu & Kashmir.
Voicing the resentment of the Punjabi community over theexclusion of Punjabi from the list of official languages, Captain AmarinderSingh pointed out that Jammu & Kashmir was a part of Punjab during the eraof Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with Punjabi one of the vernacular language of theregion. When Jammu & Kashmir came into existence as an Independent State,Punjabi was a widely spoken language in the State and is now the mother tongueof all the Punjabis in the Jammu region, besides being spoken by the Punjabicommunity living in Kashmir Valley, he wrote.
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The Chief Minister pointed out that under the Jammu &Kashmir Languages Bill, 2020 which was passed by both the Houses of Parliamentwith voice vote in September 2020, Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi were included inthe list of official languages in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir,in addition to the existing Urdu and English. Unfortunately, Punjabi was notincluded in the list of languages which are not just official languages now ofthe UT but will also be taught in schools as compulsory subjects.