By Harjap Singh Aujla 

A small group of Phothohari dialect speaking Hindu and Sikh Punjabis ended up in Delhi as early as in March of 1947, when brutal violence erupted in Rawalpindi and Jhelum districts of West Punjab. That was just a trickle, compared to the flood of refugees arriving in hordes in July, August and September of the same year. The newly arriving refugees were from all districts in West (Pakistani) Punjab. But most were from the thickly populated central Punjab districts of Gujjranwala, Sheikhupura, Sialkot and Lahore. Some refugees were from the then Multan division districts of Mianwali, Muzzaffargarh, Jhang, Multan, Lyallpur and Montgomery. Barring the people from newly settled districts Lyallpur and Montgomery, which had a sizable Hindu and Sikh population from the Eastern districts and Lahore division of central Punjab, all other refugees from Multan division spoke Saraiki and Jhangi dialects of Punjabi language. The Hindu and Sikh forced migrants from Sargodha, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujarat Campbellpore and Dera Ghazi Khan districts of erstwhile Rawalpindi division did not lag behind in heading to Delhi. I think East Punjab should have accommodated more urban area refugees. Although they spoke Hindko dialect of Punjabi, the refugees from Peshawar, Kohat, Abbotabad, Haripur, Hazara, Swat and Dera Ismael Khan districts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa did not technically belong to Punjab, they were to be accommodated elesewhere in India including in Delhi and other parts of Northern India. But most of them ended up in the more secure environments of the national capital region only.

At the time of India's independence, the combined population of Old Delhi and New Delhi was around half a million. It was slightly more than Amritsar's population of four hunded thousand, but much less than that of Lahore, which was more than seven hundred thousand. The population of Delhi was evenly matched. Half of them were Muslims and half were Hindus. Some Muslims were committed to the idea of Pakistan and they voluntarily left for Pakistan. Their numbers did not exceed fifty thousand. By the time of the end of 1947, the population of Delhi exceeded a million, out of which more than half were Punjabi refugees from West Pakistan. In fact the Punjabi population of Delhi for the first time exceeded the numbers of original Delhiites in 1948 estimates. In 1951, the population of Delhi exceeded one million four hundred thousand. Out of this more than sixty percent were speaking Standard (central) Punjabi, Saraiki, Hindko, Jhangi and Pothohari dialects of Punjabi. Over a period of next two decades, the Standard Punjabi speaking population of Delhi overpowered the other minor dialects. Delhi from 1947 to 1967 was a de-facto Punjabi speaking region. But the communally divided Punjabis of Delhi, by acts of omission and commission, did not assert enough to preserve their language and culture.

The 1947 division of Punjab left its scars on the psyche of its three dominant communities. The Sikhs owned their language in Gurmukhi Script. The Muslims rejected the Gurmukhi script, they preferred Urdu and Farsi over Punjabi and those who could accept Punjabi would do so in Shahmukhi Script, in which Heer Waris Shah, Mirza Sahiban and other other old literature was written. A strong arm Hindu nationalist leader of Lahore, Lala Jagat Narayan, who founded the most circulated Urdu daily “Hind Samachar” and later Punjab Kesri, gave a call to the Punjabi Hindus to declare Hindi as their mother tongue and disown Punjabi language. His message and that of the other similar thinkers reverberated all over the Punjab, including the hill districts and the districts abutting Delhi as well as in Delhi and other North Indian states. His message spread like a wild fire. Consequently virtually all the Punjabi Hindus declared Hindi as their mother tongue, there by restricting the influence of Punjabi language to the Sikh majority districts of East Punjab. Practically, from August of 1947 up to 1967, the Punjabis were the dominant ethnic group in Delhi, but due to a deep communal divide, they could not assert their identity and cultural aspirations. Roughly speaking about seventy percent Punjabis in Delhi are Hindus and remaining thirty percent are Sikhs, mostly from West Punjab, but in spite of their superior numbers for two decades, they miserably failed to secure their cultural and linguistic rights.

During the later decades of the twentieth century, there has been a spurt of migration, in search of greener pastures, from the Hindi speaking states of U.P., Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Haryana to Delhi. The flood of these recent economic migrants have once again altered the balance of population in Delhi in favor of Hindi, Urdu or Hindustani language speakers. Since Delhi is the national capital, with ever increasing educational, industrial and business opportunities, people from all parts of India nurse a desire to settle in there. First migrants, as usual, were from the neighboring states due to their geographical proximity to the city.

Lately a lot of South Indian's, especially the folks engaged in the IT business, are now settling in Delhi. Today New Delhi is the microcosm of entire India. For the last so many years, the people from the seven sister states of North Eastern India are being found in plenty in New Delhi. Initially they come for education, but slowly they find jobs for themselves and become accustomed to the culture of Delhi. Since Bombay region is the commercial and industrial capital of India, there is markedly less migration of Maharashtrians in New Delhi. The same is true of the Gujarati population in Delhi. Bangladeshi migrants, though mostly illegal in India, find safe havens in the ever congesting metropolis of Delhi.

Although by now the Punjabis own ninety percent of the real estate in Delhi, but their contribution to the cultural and linguistic life of Delhi is rapidly diminishing. The older Punjabi speaking population displaced from West Punjab is in eighties and some are dying, the second generation's language is only superficially Punjabi and their Punjabi culture is also only skin deep. The third generation will merely be a hodge podge product of the ever expanding melting pot of Delhi. The refugee Punjabis, due to their internal ideological differences, did not exert their influence, when they were in majority from 1947 to 1967, now due to increasing migration from other states, their proportion is diminishing. Financially all Delhiite Punjabis are very well off, but culturally and linguistically they are getting shallower and hollower. Three dialects of Punjabi language viz Hindko, Saraiki and Bahawalpuri are nearly extinct in the Delhi area and Pothohari is on the verge of extinction. What are still alive in Delhi are the remnants of Standard Punjabi speaking population displaced from the districts of erstwhile Lahore division. Recent migrants from Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts and Ferozepore and Jalandhar cities of East Punjab in Delhi are giving booster shots to the stubborn remnants of Standard Punjabi speakers in India's national capital region. There should have been a full fledged Punjabi channel at All India Radio Delhi, which we could not secure. It is a sad story, but nevertheless it is true.

harjapaujla@gmail.com