Julien Columeau is a French author and academic. He has written extensively in Urdu, including Derrida Haramda Aur Doosri Kahaniyan [published in English as Derrida in Lahore], which received the Susannah Hunnewell Prize from the Paris Review.

His fictional works are mostly in Urdu. Linguistic Resistance in Pakistan — Punjabi Language Movements After Independence is his first English non-fiction title. It focuses on movements that took root in Punjab in response to the Pakistani government’s imposition of Urdu as the national language shortly after the country’s creation.

The book examines three distinct language movements that were formed between 1947 and 1960 and Columeau divides his historical analysis, charting the trajectories of three specific groups: the Marxist Punjabi Movement (1947-1959), the Conservative Punjabi Movement (1950-1960) and the Punjabi Modernist Movement (1957-1959). He examines the dynamics of these resistance movements and their converging interests and conflicting approaches towards promoting and protecting Punjabi.

Using an interdisciplinary method, he presents a rare look into the dynamics of post-Partition Punjab, its literary culture of resistance, and the intense political fault lines that influenced each movement.

Columeau begins his book by outlining the pre-existing antagonism between Punjabi and Urdu writers. He explains, “The diglossic situation that prevailed before Punjab’s annexation, with Persian being considered high and Punjabi low, was transformed by the British into an English/Urdu/Punjabi triglossia, which survives today in Pakistani Punjab.” Columeau presents evidence in detail about Punjabi’s status during the colonial period, where it faced formidable opponents in the shape of English civil servants and the Muslim ruling class who had not only absorbed the prejudices of British officials but also deemed to differentiate their community from that of the Sikhs, a direct result of growing communal polarisation.

A work of linguistic and intellectual history shines a light on the marginalisation of Punjab’s language in newly independent Pakistan and addresses the effects of polarisation........

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