Government efforts to adopt Urdu as official language lauded

Islamabad: All higher state functionaries from top to bottom, senior echelon of public administration and every citizen is legally obliged to preserve, protect and defend constitutional provisions to help government implement Urdu as official language of the country as enunciated by its founder right from the day one  of the inception of this Muslim State in South Asia.

Urdu is our national identity and pride and for its promotion all steps taken by the state organs, especially by National Language promotion department are well appreciable and laudable.

This was stated by Muhamad Yousuf Aziz, President Pakistan National Movement, former secretary, Pemra and literary figure here on Monday while delivering a lecture to the participants of Senior Management Course on the topic of "Need and significance of understanding a bilingual medium (Urdu) of instructions/ communication and basic tips for writing official correspondence", conducted by National Institute of Management. The course is meant to enhance the capacity of potential BS 20 officers for their effective service delivery to the masses. Reasonable number of nominees of various service / occupational groups are participating in the training course.

 Tracing the history of changing of medium of English some 281 years earlier in some time 1835/ 36 by Lord Macaulay to deprive the Muslims of South Asia from their  language pride and well preserved traditions of rich literary background in Urdu , Muhammad Yousuf Aziz highlighted all major historical developments that helped continue English as official medium correspondence / communication.

Especially, he highlighted the era of 1930, when during the population census, even Urdu language was ceased. He said that it was late Chaudhary Rahmat Ali, who protested against this move and wrote in his pamphlet, Now or Never", "Despite all these safeguards and guarantees, we enjoyed in the past, the very name of our national language--Urdu- even now the lingua franca  of this great continent-- has been wiped out of the list of Indian languages. We have just to open the latest census report to verify it.

After the inception of our homeland, all constitutions/ even provisional constitutional Orders contained prominent clauses for the adaption of Urdu language as official media as we see Article 214 and 215 of the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions and Article 267 of the interim Constitution of 1972 and Article 251 of the 1973 constitution respectively. Comparing national language policies of various regional and almanac scenarios, he deplored that despite all these statutory provisions, we as a nation are still wondering in the bewilderment as how to implement medium of Urdu which is used by all Pakistanis as their shared common medium of expression from Gawadar to Chitral.

He appreciated the efforts of NIM/NIPA and other training institutes, who have taken a step ahead to further this national cause.