The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)’s president and a key BJP-led NDA ally, Sukhbir Singh Badal has said that the exclusion of Punjabi as one of the official languages in Jammu and Kashmir is bound to be seen as an “anti-minority and anti-Sikh” move.

Badal urged the Lieutenant Governor of J & K to immediately restore to the Punjabi language its due status as an official language there.

The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on 2 September reportedly approved a Bill under which Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi, apart from the existing Urdu and English, will be the official languages in the Union Territory of J & K.

Announcing the decision at a news briefing then, Union minister Prakash Javadekar had said the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020, will be introduced in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.

In his letter to the J & K LG that he released here this afternoon, Sukhbir Singh Badal sought to draw his attention to “reports of the discriminatory exclusion of the Punjabi language as one of the official languages of the Jammu and Kashmir,” saying that “Punjabi is not only the mother tongue of a very significant part of the people of the state but it was also a recognised language duly certified in the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Stating that the SAD had always been in the forefront in the fight for justice for the mother tongue of crores of Punjabis, Badal declared that his party “would not hesitate to do so in future also”.

The SAD president pointed out that the Punjabi language had profound religious, cultural and emotional implications for the Sikh community.

“As such, the exclusion of Punjabi as an official language in Jammu and Kashmir is bound to be seen as an antiminority and is certain to be seen as an anti-Sikh step of the J and K administration,” he stated in his hard-hitting letter. Badal also cautioned that “decisions such as these provide dangerous propaganda ammunition to those who are always looking for such opportunities to disturb peace and communal harmony in the country, especially in the sensitive border states of Punjab and J and K“.

The Akali stalwart described the move as “violative of the spirit that runs through every word of the Constitution of India which stands for unity in diversity”. He said the move would deliver “a severe blow to the idea of cooperative cultural and political federalism in the country.”

Badal also highlighted that the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution were inspired by a vision of India as a multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual nation. “Respect for regional languages was seen as a significant tool for preserving and promoting this ideal,” he said.

Pointing out that the Punjabi language featured prominently among the officially recognised languages in the Constitution and was also the mother tongue of all Punjabis across the globe, Badal emphasised the special status of the language in Punjab and its neighbouring states such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and J & K.