This reflection began with a public question from journalist Mariana Baabar. She asked why so many state names for operations, missiles and programmes appear in Arabic and whether Pakistani languages are being overlooked. The question goes to the core of our compact. Urdu was adopted to hold a federation together. The federation will feel whole only if Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Seraiki and other tongues are given real space in public life.
The constitutional position is plain. Article 251 declares Urdu the national language and instructs the state to decide on its official use. The same article allows provinces to promote and teach their own languages by law. In 2015 the Supreme Court directed the federation and the provinces to implement Article 251 and issued guidance for the official use of Urdu without erasing provincial space. These are duties, not ornaments.
Demography explains the need for balance. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reports that Punjabi is the first language of about 38.8 per cent of citizens, Pashto 18.2, Sindhi 14.6, Seraiki 12.2, Urdu 7.1, with others making up the remainder. Urdu functions as a national link language far beyond its mother-tongue share but public policy that ignores these ratios will never feel legitimate.
History still speaks. In Dhaka in March 1948, Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued for Urdu as the state language. The choice became part of state-building but also seeded grievance in the east. That does not oblige us to relitigate the past. It obliges us to remember that language choices carry political consequences for decades.
Naming sits where this debate began. Operation Buyan ul Marsoos, Operation Zarb e Azb, Operation Radd ul Fasaad and a long list of strategic systems carry names that draw on Arabic or on medieval rulers. Each carries a story the state wishes to project. The problem is not with any single name. It is with the aggregate effect when almost the entire canon draws from one pool. A federation that wants to be felt in every home should be careful about the words it puts on its public face.
The Annual Status of Education Report shows persistent weaknesses in foundational literacy and numeracy, especially for poorer children who face a double burden of language and poverty
Education is where symbolism must give way to substance. A large body of evidence shows that children learn to read, count and reason faster when their early years of schooling are in a language they already speak, with Urdu and English built carefully and taught well. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring work has repeated this point for years. The World Bank’s policy paper on the language of instruction makes the operational case for teaching in the language students and teachers know best, with planned transitions. This is not identity politics. It is pedagogy that protects dignity and improves learning.
Our data underline the gap between promise and practice. The Annual Status of Education Report shows persistent weaknesses in foundational literacy and numeracy, especially for poorer children who face a double burden of language and poverty. A realistic fix is within reach and within the Constitution. Teach early grades in mother tongue where viable. Teach Urdu well as the national link language. Teach English effectively as a practical tool for science and international exchange. Train teachers and finance the transition properly.
Policy instruments already exist. Provinces can legislate to promote and use their languages in classrooms and in citizen-facing services under Article 251 and Article 28 on preservation of language, script and culture. Sindh’s recent early learning policy explicitly recognises Urdu as national, Sindhi as provincial and allows the medium of instruction in Sindhi through early grades. Punjab’s Urdu Language Act shows how provinces legislate for language use. These steps can sit alongside a federal standard that supports textbooks, teacher training and assessment without forcing one template on every district.
Media is the next lever. Public broadcasting should set clear targets for original reporting and current affairs in Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and Seraiki at decent hours, with Urdu subtitles so programmes travel nationally. The regulator can encourage private channels to do the same through transparent incentives. Archive these programmes with searchable transcripts. A federation learns to listen to itself when voices meet across languages rather than in separate echo chambers. Where policy needs a starting point, the 2017 National Education Policy and the English curriculum documents offer a scaffolding for language skill-building that can be aligned with newsroom practice for subtitles and translation.
Mocking a citizen’s mother tongue and forcing them to navigate school, hospitals or courts in a language they do not use at home are both forms of contempt that erode the federation’s foundations
Nomenclature is the visible surface. Institutions can adopt rotation rules that honour the country’s major languages over a fixed period. Each new name should carry a short gloss in Urdu and English so that the meaning travels. Where a programme operates mainly in a province, the local language should appear alongside Urdu in unit names and public communication. None of this erases the religious or historic vocabulary that many citizens value. It widens the national palette so that more citizens can see themselves in it. The point is balance, not erasure.
It helps to be precise about what Urdu is and is not. Urdu is Indo-Aryan in its structure, enriched by Persian and Arabic traditions, touched by Turkish in its history and widened by English in its modern vocabulary. Its public function today is to connect citizens across provincial lines. That function is strongest when it does not behave like a monopoly. The scholarship on language politics in Pakistan, notably Tariq Rahman’s work, traces how attempts to privilege one language while squeezing others have produced friction rather than cohesion.
Five steps can be taken now.
First, adopt a language-in-education plan through the Council of Common Interests. Commit provinces to mother-tongue instruction in early grades where there is a viable language base, with Urdu taught well as the national link language and English taught well as a working skill. Tie federal financing to teacher training, graded readers and transition scripts that set out when and how additional languages enter the classroom. This aligns practice with UNESCO and World Bank guidance.
Second, legislate at provincial level for the use of provincial languages in schools and in citizen services at district level, with Urdu templates and English translations where required. This sits within Article 251 and Article 28 and does not need any further constitutional change.
Third, set measurable targets for public broadcasting in regional languages at sensible hours, subtitled in Urdu. Encourage private broadcasters through time-bound incentives for translation and for commissioning investigative work outside the largest cities. Use existing curriculum standards to normalise captioning and translation practice.
Fourth, publish transparent naming protocols. Services headquarters and major civil agencies should rotate languages for programme and operation names. Invite the public to submit names through provincial language academies and universities. Publish short notes that explain meanings in plain Urdu and English. Citizens will learn each other’s words if the state makes it easy. Where the security sector continues to use the familiar register for some names, balance it over time with names from the languages citizens live in.
Fifth, make language access a default setting in digital services. Government portals should offer services in Urdu and in provincial languages relevant to the user’s location. Forms, help pages and complaints should be available in those languages with Urdu and English mirrors, with human checks on legal text. This is how a multilingual state treats citizens with respect.
None of this diminishes Urdu. It protects it. A national link language is strongest when it does not crowd out the languages that people dream in. Our literature and journalism already show how Urdu grows through contact. The classroom and the newsroom can do the same. Even the habit of naming can help. It can move from a single register to a national palette that reflects the country as it is.
Mocking a citizen’s mother tongue and forcing them to navigate school, hospitals or courts in a language they do not use at home are both forms of contempt that erode the federation’s foundations. The federation cannot be held by sentiment alone. It must be held by design. A set of quiet administrative choices can make the constitutional promise feel less abstract. Use Urdu well. Teach it well. Use English well. Teach it well. And give Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Seraiki and the others the space that citizens already give them in their homes, markets and songs. That is not a concession. It is the only honest foundation for unity.