Punjabi: The Linguistically Inferior

Two days ago, a tweet by Sabahat Zakariya shook the Pakistani twitter, Sabahat being an influential person of the Pakistani twitterati caused quite a stir by her tweet which was a condemnation of actions and behavior towards the Punjabis that are racist which is about their language and how they are made fun of often and how everyone ignores that.

Here are her exact words:

'The only ethnicity in Pakistan against whom you you can get away with saying simply anything are Punjabis. Criticism of the Punjabi establishment is deployed to get away with being racist towards the average Punjabi and his/her language, manner and background.'

A lot of people seemed to have been offended with this tweet of hers with many of them condemning her for centering the conversation towards Punjabis when other ethnicities are less privileged and have suffered by the Punjabi domination in Pakistan's ruling elite. Many have absurdly even drawn comparisons with PTM and the racial profiling of Pashtuns and how that is a bigger issue that needs to be in the limelight. No doubt that the racial profiling of Pashtuns and the atrocities that they have to face are far more greater than Punjabis suffering because of their ethnicity but it does not change the fact that Punjabis are made fun of for their language, culture, background and the way they walk and talk, they are mocked by even, in fact by usually the most 'liberal' of Punjabis and that is somehow acceptable in these circles.

What Sabahat clearly pointed out was a reason that has persisted since decades; a sort of perpetual behavior shown towards the Punjabi language/culture that somehow it is the language of the uncouth, the illiterate and that has contributed towards the phenomena of the language and cultural erasure of this ethnicity. Again this notion was and has been perpetuated by the most educated of Punjabis themselves and not by other ethnicities, on a minor scale yes by other groups as well but in a larger term unfortunately by the Punjabis.

The tweet was mistook by many thinking she was calling out the Pashtuns; it was directed generally towards anyone that displays such behavior but to a larger extent towards the liberal discourse.

Then debates by the opposing side were extended with comparisons of Punjabi domination with white supremacy and patriarchy or such systems of oppression. Many termed this as 'reverse racism', while there is definitely a system of oppression against minority ethnicities, it clearly cannot be compared with or treated as an equivalent to white supremacy/British colonialism or patriarchy, the concept of Punjabi domination is way more complex than any of these three. Punjab being the most populous province gets the most share of the national budget and is the most richest of the provinces that is true.

However, the British considered other nations as inferior and below them because they took pride in themselves and their heritage thinking they are the most blessed and holy of all groups of people, the white man's burden as they used to justify it. Same can be said about the white supremacists and the system of patriarchy with men being as the superiors to women. The same cannot be said about the systemic oppression against ethnicities in Pakistan. For one Punjabis don't take pride in their culture or language in Pakistan; in fact they themselves consider the Punjabi culture and language 'paindu' and not worthy of them, this mindset is sustained by the elite and educated Punjabis. These are also the ones that hold the chains of this system of oppression, they are wealthy and in the majority and they exploit that but they do not use them being Punjabi as the reason for this or in other words there is no 'Punjabi man's burden' here .

This in turn results in other oppressed ethnicities being racist towards the Punjabi language and culture, that does not effect the ruling elite from Punjab but an average Punjabi lets say from Dera Ghazi Khan a district with the lowest human development index bears the brunt of it because they are the one who speak the Punjabi language, own their culture and their heritage. They are also to a certain extent victims of this oppressive system.

Similarly people get away with being racist towards the Punjabis is when jokes are cracked by the most woke crowds about Punjabis and their painduness and that is somehow not racist and is acceptable.

There is also this notion that Urdu speakers are linguistically superior to Punjabi speakers and such a mindset is often encouraged. I saw a tweet where a person had written that you think (Lahoris and Islamabadis) that your cities are better but can you even speak proper Urdu. While it was clearly a lighthearted humor I have to point out that this is the thinking that maligns Punjabis for not speaking proper Urdu and makes them a butt of jokes just like it is done when any Pakistani can't speak proper English, they are made fun of. As English is not our language so whenever a person is made fun of people do consider it wrong but simultaneously it is seen okay to make fun of the Lahori or the Punjabi accent and us ruining Urdu, this is a polite reminder to all those trolls that Urdu is also not the language of Punjab, it is a language originated in Delhi and Lucknow and is the foreign language so there is no shame here if Punjabis don't speak Urdu with a Lakhnawi accent.

So the tweet and the issue was completely simple and was that of the cultural erasure of Punjab encouraged by such racist and demeaning attitude towards the ethnicity and nobody being held accountable or called out for that since the ethnicity here is in the majority and that is ludicrous to say the least.