In 1961 when the res­i­dents of Chandi­garh and neigh­bour­ing ar­eas re­turned Hindi as their mother tongue and when the masses other than Sikhs re­turned Hindi as their mother tongue at the be­hest of anti-Sikh lead­ers and a sec­tion of the anti-Sikh me­dia, a mav­er­ick Pro­fes­sor of Pun­jabi of the Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity and sub­se­quently a mem­ber of the up­per House of Par­lia­ment -Dr Vishwa Nath Ti­wari, set out into the bazars and by­lanes of the cap­i­tal city and recorded their con­ver­sa­tions in Pun­jabi, hid­ing a tape-recorder in his cloth­ing. He showed them that they were ugly cit­i­zens of City Beau­ti­ful. 60 years later, when a sim­i­lar tragedy is un­fold­ing in Jammu and Kash­mir, where the In­dian state has of­fi­cially de­barred Pun­jabi, his son and Con­gress MP from Anand­pur Sahib Man­ish Tewari roared in In­dian Par­lia­ment seek­ing re­in­state­ment of Pun­jabi as one of the of­fi­cial lan­guages of Jammu and Kash­mir.

VERY RARELY DO CON­GRESS PARTY MEM­BERS OF PAR­LIA­MENT PRO­VIDE SUC­COUR AND SUP­PORT TO the peo­ple of Pun­jab and the var­i­ous causes and con­cerns of the peo­ple. Thank you Man­ish Tewari for un­do­ing that im­age. Thank you, Man­ish Tewari, for be­ing truth­ful to the City of Bliss -Anand­pur Sahib, whose con­stituents elected you to the In­dian Par­lia­ment. Thank you Man­ish Tewari for car­ry­ing on the legacy of your il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther, even though the Sikhs did not do jus­tice to him.

And of course, thank you for tak­ing up the cause of Pun­jabi in Jammu and Kash­mir, when the Akalis are silent and even the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab -Ma­haraja Amarinder Singh had not had time, since the last 12 days to voice his con­ster­na­tion against the move of the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment to dis­lodge Pun­jabi as the of­fi­cial lan­guage of the newly carved state of Jammu and Kash­mir.

Thank you for tak­ing up the cause of Pun­jabi in Jammu and Kash­mir, when the Akalis are silent.

We have got a taste of the In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s hate for Pun­jabi many a time over the decades. When the whole coun­try was di­vided into lin­guis­tic lines, Pun­jab had to put up an ag­i­ta­tion, send­ing thou­sands to prison and los­ing lives too.

Very re­cently, when the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia in­au­gu­rated the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor, on the In­dian side, the plaque un­veiled by Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi was in Hindi.

Man­ish Tewari ap­peal­ing to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia in his speech to the In­dian Par­lia­ment on 14 Sep­tem­ber 2020 -the first day of the Mon­soon ses­sion, as­sumes sig­nif­i­cance be­cause in the eyes of the In­dian state Pun­jabi must be sup­pressed be­cause it is the lan­guage of the Sikhs. Like his fa­ther Dr Ti­wari who op­posed those who were de­nounc­ing Pun­jabi and ac­cept­ing the im­po­si­tion of Hindi, Man­ish Ti­wari stand­ing for Pun­jabi is praise­wor­thy as well as a de­nun­ci­a­tion of link­ing the lan­guage to a com­mu­nity.

To­day Man­ish Tewari has lent sup­port to the var­i­ous Sikh bod­ies in Jammu and Kash­mir who have been protest­ing ga­lore against the pro­posed move of the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia. The All-Party Sikh Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee led by Jag­mo­han Singh Raina, the Jammu and Kash­mir Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee led by Tar­lochan Singh Wazir, youth bod­ies like the Supreme Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion J & K have been lead­ing street protests and have pe­ti­tioned the Gov­er­nor of the state against the move.

There is no doubt that Sikhs will have to go through a round of protest and ag­i­ta­tion, but they will man­age to re­store the glory of the Pun­jabi lan­guage in Jammu and Kash­mir.

Un­doubt­edly, the Sikhs, have been on the fore­front in pre­serv­ing their lan­guage, notwith­stand­ing the chil­dren of the ur­ban class which willy-nilly ac­cepts Bol­ly­wood’s Hindi.

The hash­tag #In­cludePun­jabi­A­sOff­i­caLan­guageIn­Jam­muand­Kash­mir­Lan­guage­Bil­l2020, is do­ing the rounds in Jammu and Kash­mir. There is no doubt that Sikhs will have to go through a round of protest and ag­i­ta­tion, but they will man­age to re­store the glory of the Pun­jabi lan­guage in Jammu and Kash­mir. Man­ish Tewari has pro­vided a sliver cling­ing to the dark clouds sur­round­ing the Sikhs and every­thing dear to them.

Once again, Thank you Man­ish Tewari.