My Dear MPA:

Please accept our congratulations on your election to the exalted office of member Punjab assembly. We earnestly hope you will measure up to the expectations of the people of your constituency in particular and the people of Punjab in general. We are sure you will discharge your responsibilities devolved on you by virtue of this August office under the light of your conscience.

I would like to draw your attention to the issues of paramount importance, which have invariably been sidelined by successive regimes and governments. The civilized societies of the world have solved these issues thus achieving a high standard of literacy. Official mandarins of Pakistan through jugglery of statistics, have our gullible people believe that our literacy rate is around 45%, which is a travesty of fact since UNESCO counts it at 25%. This lamentably low literacy rate is due to the criminal behavior on our part for neglecting mother tongues as the medium of instructions. UNESCO has declared in its empirical studies that the countries where medium of instructions at primary level is other than the mother tongue have the highest number of initial dropouts, thereby resulting in higher rate of illiteracy. The province of Punjab is such an unfortunate example where mother tongue has been suppressed by the protagonists of one language hegemony and mindless advocates of the puerile theory that promotion of peoples languages pose threat to Nazariya-e-Pakistan. This is our considerate opinion that graduates and postgraduates are not educated if they are ignorant of their mother tongue and its literature, of cultural heritage, fine arts, Sufi tradition and history.

World Punjabi Congress has consistently been demanding that Punjabi should be introduced as the medium of instruction at the primary level but the thickheaded bureaucrats and politicians of questionable wisdom have always disappointed us. We, therefore, urge you, the respected MPAs from Punjab, to make solid efforts and have Punjabi declared as medium of instruction like Sindhi in Sindh province.

We are pleased to note that the present Punjab government does not seem to be anti-Punjabi and that provincial assembly speaker has allowed speeches in Punjabi on the floor. We exhort the MPAs to speak in their mother tongue. This will give them a sense of confidence to grapple with the crisis of identity from which Punjabis are suffering since long times.

We also request the respected MPAs to exert influence for the promotion of Punjabi language and culture and frustrate the designs of chauvinists who are hell-bent upon imposing THEIR language. We have always resolved that all languages spoken in Pakistan are the National languages of Pakistan, whereas Urdu is the State language, intercommunication language and a link language. We heartily accept this status of Urdu. We also urge MPAs to prevail upon the government to provide employment to 9000 unemployed young men holding Master's degree in Punjabi.

In the end, we once again reiterate that the members should realize their role as representatives of 7 crore Punjabis who are alienated from their language, culture and history due to the conspiracies of few linguistic imperialists and play an historical role for obtaining rightful place for the mother tongue. This is, my dear friends, a defining moment and I'm sure you will not disappoint.   

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