*Basheera in Trouble to Punjabi in Trouble…*
*Prof Waqar Hussain*
Safir Rammah is a veteran protagonist of the Punjabi language and
literature. For decades he has championed its cause with quiet
determination. Through his APNA website and its online library, he has
preserved and made accessible thousands of rare Punjabi books. He
remains an active presence at Punjabi festivals, literary conferences,
corner meetings, and intimate gatherings of fellow enthusiasts. His
deep concern, born of long observation and personal agony over the
systematic neglect of Punjabi, lends unmistakable weight to his words.
No one who knows his record can dismiss the present alarm as mere
sentiment.
In his letter published in Dawn on 11 June 2026, Safir Rammah draws
attention to the dire condition of the Institute of Punjabi and
Cultural Studies at Oriental College, University of the Punjab. The
caption he chose — “Punjabi in Trouble” — immediately evokes the old
Punjabi film Basheera in Trouble. That movie satirised the senseless
violence typical of much commercial Punjabi cinema while hilariously
exposing the absurdity of village characters struggling to speak
broken English. The echo is telling. By invoking Basheera in Trouble,
Safir Rammah subtly deepens the article’s concern: the crisis is not
merely administrative but cultural, almost cinematic in its tragic
irony.
The facts he presents are stark. The institute, which should be a
beacon of Punjabi scholarship, functions with only three permanent
teachers. One is simultaneously serving as Principal of Oriental
College, another is on leave abroad, and the lone remaining faculty
member shoulders both teaching and administrative duties. Seven
sanctioned teaching posts have reportedly remained vacant for years
and have not even been advertised. PhD admissions in Punjabi have been
suspended. Senior students are apparently pressed into service to keep
classes afloat. Such arrangements may offer temporary relief, but they
cannot sustain serious academic work or nurture future scholars.
This scarcity of staff is a vivid and painful announcement of our
collective priorities. It is ironic that while other provinces of
Pakistan take open pride in their mother tongues, the people of
western Punjab often hesitate to do the same. Across the border, East
Punjab has proudly produced poets of the stature of Shiv Kumar Batalvi
and Surjit Patar, and its Punjabi cinema circulates wherever Punjabi,
Urdu, or Hindi audiences exist. Here, by contrast, the language that
is the mother tongue of nearly 120 million Pakistanis is marginalised
in education, public life, and official discourse.
Why is Punjabi in such trouble in Pakistan? When the nursery has no
gardener, what healthy growth can one expect? The neglect runs deeper
than language and literature; it has seeped into the very fabric of
society. Wearing a dhoti, drinking lassi, driving a bullock cart, or
sitting at the village chaupal are all too often treated as markers of
the “paindo” — the rustic, the uncouth, the backward. In this
atmosphere, Punjabi itself becomes something to be ashamed of rather
than celebrated. Thus, Basheera remains in trouble because Punjabi
remains in trouble.
We seem to have forgotten the vastness and astonishing depth of our
own linguistic heritage. One needs only to turn to Waris Shah’s Heer.
In that single epic, the poet employs nearly a hundred different names
and epithets for women, each carrying nuance, affection, or cultural
resonance. How many such names could any of us readily recall from our
“favourite” language today? The question itself is humbling. It brings
to mind the wise words of Mian Muhammad Bakhsh:
Khasan di gal aaman agay, nahi munasib karni
Mitthi kheer paka Muhammad, kuttian agay dharni
A nod is enough for the wise.
The relevant authorities must act without delay. The future of a
language is determined not only by the millions who speak it at home,
but by the seriousness with which it is taught, studied, and honoured
in institutions of learning. If we allow this institute to wither, the
loss will reverberate far beyond one university department and will
ultimately impoverish the entire cultural landscape of Pakistan.
