PUNJAB: A decade has passed since 48-year-old Punditrao Dharenavar – an assistant professor in Chandigarh – has been running a campaign to promote ‘Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat’ over a vigorous battle against gun culture in the state. The Punjab government finally banned songs promoting gun culture last week. The Karnataka native has also translated religious and social literature between Kannada and Punjabi – including the Vachana of 12th-century Kannada saints into Punjabi. From Punjabi into Kannada, he has translated Jap Ji Saheb and Sukhmani Saheb.
In 2003, Dharenavar began his career as an assistant professor in the city. He presently works as assistant professor of Sociology at the Postgraduate Government College.
Hailing from the small village of Shirashyad in Karnataka’s Bijapur district, Dharenavar experienced a major cultural change when he got posted here. He learned Punjabi in 2005 to teach students in their mother tongue. “I fell in love with the Punjabi language, and within six months I learned it and started teaching in Punjabi. This is when I noticed that several students had Punjabi as their first language and were unable to communicate or comprehend English in my classes,’’ he explained.
“After learning and teaching Punjabi, my love for the language ran so deep that I started campaigning for it in Chandigarh (Union Territory) because all the signboards in the city were only in English. Being the capital of Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh should have signboards in both Punjabi and Hindi besides English. As a result, I approached the UT administration about having signboards in three languages; a decision was finally made in 2014,” he said.
The Chandigarh administration has not adopted Punjabi as an official language even today, Dharenavar cited. It was this which necessitated his campaign to promote ‘Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat’, he said.
“Now the time has come as PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat’ initiative encourages the use of language as a major factor to unite diverse communities of the country. The new National Education Policy also talks about promoting local languages. Therefore, the administration will have to adopt Punjabi and Hindi as their official languages. If they do not, then I will approach the court because the official language act also suggests adopting local languages,” Dharenavar said.
CLAMPDOWN ON GUN CULTURE
In 2016, Dharenavar watched a video of 21-year-old Kulwinder Kaur, a dancer, who was shot dead in Maur Mandi of Bhatinda. “This was a shock for me as Kaur was three months pregnant and she was dragged down from the stage. It was right then that I decided to fight against songs, which promoted gun culture, vulgarity and alcohol and were played during occasions like marriages besides other events,” he said.