As the world celebrates International Mother Language Day, Sikhs worldwide take pride in their mother tongue Punjabi and vow to uphold the language meeting challenges in their homeland Punjab. It is time to take the British government to task for its systematic destruction of Punjabi nearly two centuries ago on the line of the First Nations suit against the federal government of Canada, says WSN editor Jagmohan Singh.

While we are legitimately concerned about the non-use of Punjabi by the Punjabis themselves, those tracing the fall of the language cannot ignore the nefarious role played by the British when they annexed the Punjab in 1849.

The law suit won by the First Nations students against the Canadian government for its role in destroying their traditional education system by the Residential schools prompts us to think that the British government must be held accountable for the situation today.

Canadian officials announced on 20 January that the federal government and 325 First Nations have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit, seeking reparations for the loss of language and culture brought on by Indian residential schools, for $2.8 billion.

After thorough documentation, the British must be asked how they destroyed the Qaida-e-Noor to oblivion and how the Macaulay education model weaned the people of Punjab from indigenous Punjabi. The price of a Sikh head was lower than that of Sikh Qaidas -language learning primers, found in a Sikh house which were set ablaze in bonfires to deter people from even daring to study the Punjabi language.

The sad tale of how the British rulers smashed Punjabi out of Punjab and destroyed the traditional education system has been exhaustively chronicled by British historian Dr W G Leitner -the founder of Government College Lahore in his magnum opus -History of Indigenous Education in The Punjab.

Dr Leitner has made shocking revelations about students before 1857 and how things deteriorated in less than two decades. He unflinchingly mentions that the entire tradition of education was far superior to that in Europe during those times.

We think that is time to take the British government to court as the First Nations have done.