Bureau Report
LAHORE: The Centre for Governance and Policy at IT University, Lahore launched its report ‘South Punjab: Why Still a Dream’ on Wednesday.
Written by a research fellow, Abdul Wasay, it is a comprehensive report on the history, present status, and future issues concerning the creation of a province or provinces in the south of Punjab.
The policy brief discusses in detail the inception of the Siraiki language movement in Pakistan, beginning with the standardisation of the language in the 1960s and 1970s. It shows how initially Siraiki was simply a dialect of Landha (Western) Punjabi, but that following the work of several activists, the dialect was separated from Punjabi, and by 1981 was recognised as a separate language.
Many Siraiki journals and especially the Jashn-e-Farid played a major part in making Siraiki a recognisable and different language.
The brief then describes how the Siraiki province movement in fact originated as demand for the restoration of the Bahawalpur State in 1970 after the dissolution of the One Unit. Bahawalpur state which had got the status of a province in 1952, was merged with West Pakistan in 1955 and should have been restored in 1970 with the breakup of the One Unit, but it was instead merged with Punjab.
Thereafter, a movement started for its restoration but met with severe resistance, and after the separation of East Pakistan as Bangladesh in 1971, fizzled out.
