Exiled in its own land: Diasporification of Punjabi in Punjab

Abstract

Diasporic studies are about groups of people living as exiles, self-exiles, migrants and immigrants. Suppression of diasporic communities in various forms in their former (but original) homeland and/or adopted homeland has been the major concern of diasporic studies. Issues such as language, culture, identity and religion form core areas of these studies. Recently, the peripheral existence of various minorities within a country/society has led to diasporic studies in which no transborder situation is involved, which shows that the scope of diaspora as a discipline or research field has widened a great deal. However, there is one aspect of diasporic studies which has remained almost unexplored on its own. This is what can be termed as non-people issues facing diasporic fates of their own. Language, culture and religion can be such issues. This paper takes up the status of the Punjabi language in the state of Punjab in Pakistan. It claims that Punjabi language is being exiled from various domains of society by no other agent or institution but the Punjabis themselves. In other words, the Punjabi language is facing ‘dispersion’ at the hands of its own (native) speakers. Adapting a well-known sociolinguistic model called the Ethnolinguistic Vitality Model, the paper seeks to document the diasporic status of Punjabi language in Punjab. The findings of this paper belie the generally made claim that the power of a language is related to the power of its speakers. Despite being the language of the overwhelming majority group of Punjab and Pakistan, Punjabi is alien in its own homeland.