It has always been observed that any particular pinching question which exposes the political party of the minister or the leader, addressing a press conference is either ignored or there comes immediate the end of the press conference or whatever the function may be.

For instance most of the ministers of the PPP particularly from Punjab like Firdous Aashiq Awan, Babar Awan are totally brainwashed about the Punjabi-Seraiki question. They are not aware of the fact that the most rejected Khwaja Farid as a Seraiki poet was actually a Punjabi poet and he himself publicly named his language Punjabi.

The above-mentioned ministers could not differentiate between the dialects of Punjabi etc. Dr Babar Awan belongs to Potohar who the other day posed Potohari as a separate language. The poor former minister does not know that the most popular poet of Potohar Mian Muhammad Bukhsh like Farid declares himself as a poet of Punjabi. Dr Babar should go through the last stanzas of “Saiful Muluk”.

One wonders even the comparatively learned ex-ministers like Qamaruz Zaman Kaira who belongs to the tribe of Mian Muhammad and also the area has not been consulted by Awan.

Apart from the ignorance of the Punjab ministers (central as well as provincial) about the Punjabi language, its history, its dialects, grammar, literature, its standard dialect much close to Lehnda (including Multani, Riasati, Deri, Seraiki) the other points which are avoided by the ministers like Babar Awan are the contradictions in party line or objections usually raised by them.

Babar Awan severely criticized and questioned about the use of the Punjab government helicopter by Nawaz Sharif who has no official status to use the helicopter, Babar Awan was perhaps right but when in a recent press conference he was questioned by a senior reporter that in what capacity he was using the helicopter the reply was immediate end of the conference. Such are the contradictions which have almost destroyed the whole moral fibre of the nation. Better boldly face that you are ignorant about something or you are misusing the office or the party. That is the tragedy started with three days before we got independence.

It was the speech of the Quaid on Aug 11 about the total equality of every citizen of Pakistan which was considered by Liaquat Ali Khan as dangerous and he wanted that it should be censored in the Muslim press. The recent results of the matric examination have revealed two facts -- first is that in the Lahore Board 28 per cent of the total students appeared in Punjabi language of which 15 per cent were regular while others were private students. The point to be mentioned is that all these students learned Punjabi on their own because the Punjab government has not provided teaching staff of Punjabi to any of the government schools in the province which means that about 8,000 masters in Punjabi and many thousands in service could have been employed as Punjabi teachers but the anti-Punjabi attitude of the Punjab government is the biggest hurdle in teaching of Punjabi at all levels.

The second surprise is about the Multan Board which covers the so-called area of Seraiki and Seraiki is also a subject from 6th to 10th class. But this year no student appeared in Seraiki in the matric exam. There are no Seraiki teachers as is the case with Punjabi.

The surprise is that 17,648 students appeared in the Punjabi without being taught by the school teaching staff because no Punjabi teaching staff has been appointed by the Punjab government in the Multan region.

Total students appeared in the examination are 50,888 which clearly means that the ratio of the Punjabi students was more than 33 per cent. Among them 6,090 were regular while 11,558 were private. One wonders why the teachers, protagonists of Seraiki, activists of Seraiki, the political parties and leaders including the elected MNAs and MPAs and the so-called ticket holders, lawyers, intellectuals and the right NGOs have not taken note of that fact. Honestly demanded that false claim about the language of the area should have been publicly contradicted because that has created hate-wave hitting the mutual relations of the local population and the population of settlers and refugees of 1947. This Independence Day (2011) is quite disturbing for the south region of the province. One wonders what president Zardari has done for Sindh and what performance has been given on behalf of Punjab by Yousuf Raza Gilani?

Dr Nazir Qaisar, well-known educationist and author, has claimed that Punjab had contributed a major share to the Pakistan and independence movements and this struggle started from 1857.

He was talking to a new Punjabi monthly Chanan issued on Aug 12 from Lahore. This monthly has been brought out by a senior journalist and poet Asar Chohan who intends to include English writings also in the magazine the first issue of which includes the writings of Dr Dilshad Tiwana, Muhammad Junaid Akram, editor monthly Punjabi, Nizo Ali Firtash, Beera Ji, Abid Kamalvi, Prof Aashiq Raheel, Saleem Shahzad, Asghar Ali Kausar Warraich and Prof Saeed Ahmad whose article in English is about the poetry of Sultan Bahu (1629-1690).

It is the month of Ramazan and what Bahu says about that has been quoted by Saeed:

(I am neither a scholar, nor a learned person, neither a Mufti nor a Qazi. The question of paradise and hell is also irrelevant. Neither I keep fast of thirty days nor I am a virtuous worshiper in the mosque. Without a union with God, O Bahu, the whole world is false game)

The paper carries an exhaustive interview with educationist and editor of a daily Lokaai and monthly Saver International, Prof Jameel Ahmad Pal who discloses that 10 years after the publication of monthly Saver it has come to breakeven point while ‘we have struggled hard to get the daily survival which could secure only 200 CM advertisement monthly from the Punjab government.

Jameel Pal further said that Punjabi top officers were not sincere to their mother tongue. In their assessment Punjabi is not a civilized language.

Editor Asar Chohan has in his critical essays referred to the statement of Jamaat leader Mian Tufail Muhammad who during the Zia regime had said that Punjabi was the language of invectives and abuses.

Aashiq Raheel in his article claims that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was from the family of Rajputs from Sahiwal area. The monthly Chanan is a good edition to Punjabi journalism. It appears on auspicious occasion of Independence Day.