Mudassir,

I know that Pakistani Punjabis tend to speak Punjabi at home but they seem to feel that Punjabi is somehow inferior to Urdu. Some of them refer to Punjabi as a mere dialect of Urdu. This always makes me laugh since Punjabi is a language with rich history and literature. There is a belief that people who speak Urdu are educated and the people who speak Punjabi are uneducated.

In most schools in Indian Punjab, Punjabi is taught from the first grade much before Hindi is taught. But can you say that about Punjabi in Pakistan? I read somewhere that there is not one Punjabi based school in Pakistan yet there are hundreds of Sindhi based schools in Pakistan. I can understand about Islamabad but why is it that Punjabi isn`t even allowed in Pakistan Punjab government meetings? Even educated Sikh Punjabis proudly say that they are Punjabi but many Pakistani Punjabi become "Urdu speaking" when they get educated. How do you explain this difference? Is there truth to any of these things?