widely circulated critique of the Punjabi elites in Pakistan claims that they have willingly abandoned their mother tongue and cultural identity to consolidate power in an exploitative post-colonial system—at the expense of smaller ethnic groups. While this view taps into real grievances about state centralisation and linguistic marginalisation, it oversimplifies a far more complex phenomenon. In fact, examples from other post-colonial nations suggest that the abandonment of indigenous languages by dominant ethnic groups is often a symptom of elite assimilation into colonial power structures than a deliberate strategy to suppress minority identities.

This isn’t to deny that power is unequally distributed in Pakistan, or that Punjabis—due to sheer numbers and historical positioning—hold significant influence in the country’s bureaucracy, civil and military. However, the assertion that the Punjabi identity was sacrificed as a calculated move to usurp others’ rights collapses multiple layers of elite behaviour, colonial legacy and modern state formation into a single, misleading narrative.

Let’s begin with the core assumption: that majority groups abandon their language to dominate minorities. If this were a consistent pattern, we would expect similar dynamics globally. The reality is more nuanced.

In post-independence India, for instance, upper-caste elites from the Hindi-speaking belt quickly gravitated toward English in education, administration and business. This came at the cost of their own languages and dialects—Bhojpuri, Maithili and Awadhi among others—that came to be dismissed as backward or rustic. Far from asserting dominance through their native languages, these elites internalised colonial hierarchies that linked English with power and progress. Their goal was not to suppress others but to integrate into a system that rewarded fluency in English and a Westernised education.

What happened in the Punjab mirrors this: urban Punjabi elites, especially in Lahore and Islamabad, began speaking Urdu and later English in their homes—not to subjugate Sindhis, Baloch or Pashtuns—but to access the benefits of post-colonial modernity. The linguistic detachment wasn’t an act of calculated ethnic hegemony; it was a form of cultural self-erasure driven by upward mobility.

Consider the Irish experience. Under centuries of British colonial rule, Gaelic was steadily replaced by English. After independence, even as efforts were made to revive Gaelic, most Irish people continued using English in daily life. This wasn’t because they sought to oppress others, but because generations had been conditioned to see Gaelic as irrelevant to success in the modern world. Even as a majority, the Irish were alienated from their linguistic roots.

In both Ireland and the Punjab, majority populations lost their languages not as a demonstration of superiority, but as an unintended consequence of colonial and post-colonial conditioning. The elites who led this transition did so to remain relevant in national and global frameworks shaped by the colonisers.

Post-apartheid South Africa has recognised 11 official languages. In practice, however, English dominates governance and business. Xhosa and Zulu—spoken by large majorities—have lost ground despite being native languages of the Black majority. This suggests that systemic privilege is tied more to colonial language retention than majority ethnicity.

Rather than framing the issue as a zero-sum contest between Punjabi privilege and minority suffering, a more constructive approach would be to question the state’s continued reliance on colonial linguistic hierarchies.

In Turkey, Atatürk’s republican reforms aimed to create a homogenous national identity centered around the Turkish language. Just as Kurdish and Armenian languages were aggressively suppressed, so too were regional Turkish dialects. The goal wasn’t to elevate one ethnicity over another but to enforce nation-state unity at the expense of pluralism. Here, too, the language erasure—whether of majority or minority— originated in the imperative of nation-state building, not ethnic rivalry.

The distinction is important. The Punjabi elite, like many post-colonial elites, didn’t set out to marginalise others by giving up their identity. They simply embraced the language of the state—Urdu, and increasingly English—because that was where the power was. In doing so, they also marginalised Punjabi, turning their backs on a centuries-old literary and cultural tradition.

Ironically, the Punjabi language has been one of the biggest casualties of Pakistan’s centralised state structure. Despite being spoken by 37 percent of the population by official accounts (2023 Census, which regards Seraiki and Hindku as separate languages), it has no official status in schools, courts or government offices in the Punjab. Generations of middle-class Punjabi children have grown up fluent in Urdu and English but unable to read or write their native language. The loss is not just linguistic—it’s also cultural, intellectual and spiritual.

If anything, this trajectory aligns the Punjabi middle class more with marginalised communities than with the ruling elites. It raises the question: when a majority group loses its language, who benefits from the development? Certainly not the Punjabis whose voices are excluded from policy making, or the cultural buffs who watch their heritage fade into obsolescence.

The crux of the matter is that criticism must differentiate between ethnic majorities and the elites who claim to represent them. Not all Punjabis are powerful. Not all powerful people are Punjabis. The bureaucracy may draw heavily from the Punjab, but this doesn’t translate into uniform prosperity or cultural dominance for the average Punjabi citizen. In fact, Punjabi itself has been systematically devalued in formal education and media—hardly a sign of hegemonic strength.

Meanwhile, languages like Pashto and Sindhi have fared better in some respects, maintaining a stronger presence in education and regional media. This complicates any narrative that portrays Punjabi language abandonment as a strategy of ethnic oppression.

Rather than framing the issue as a zero-sum contest between Punjabi privilege and minority suffering, a more constructive approach would be to question the state’s continued reliance on colonial linguistic hierarchies. The real task is not to demonise the Punjabi elite for abandoning their language, but to demand a broader revaluation of indigenous languages—Punjabi included.

This would mean challenging the supremacy of English and Urdu in public policy, empowering regional cultures to thrive and making space for linguistic plurality within the national identity. Such a shift would benefit not just ethnic minorities, but the Punjabi majority too—especially the millions of young people who deserve access to their cultural roots.

Linguistic justice in Pakistan will not be achieved by blaming one group for the state’s failures and centralisation tendencies. It will come from dismantling the colonial frameworks that continue to determine which voices are heard and which are silenced.

The writer is a youth and social development consultant. He can be reached at iqbutt@yahoo.com