It did not take us long to trace the roots of this conflict way back to over thirty years ago, at the time when perhaps not even one Hindi daily paper existed in the East Punjab, when suddenly a vast majority of Punjabi Hindus influenced by Arya Samaj, Jan Sangh and local R.SS, falsely claimed to be Hindi speaking almost overnight.
Thus they acted against strong advice from R.S.S. national leader Golwalker who pleaded to Punjabi Hindus to acknowledge Punjabi language as their mother tongue. The census results made the Sikh population in the state the sole custodian of Punjabi language, this resulting in the declaration of Punjab as a bi-lingual state, in which Sikhs retained their Punjabi language and Hindus alienated themselves from the Sikhs by adopting the Hindi language of which the majority then had little knowledge, if any. This unfortunate development saw the beginning of friction between the two communities. Thus Punjabi Hindus became responsible for creating a bilingual Punjab state by disowning Punjabi as their language and yet forcefully and unjustifiably resisted the formation of Punjabi-suba on linguistic basis causing the delay of 10 years; this resulted in avoidable frustration and numerous agitations among the Sikh population of Punjab. Thus the language tussle of Hindi and Punjabi apparently took the shape of religious rivalry between the Hindus and the Sikhs. One Akali leader questioned: Why was the linguistic Punjab the very last state to be formed? Was it not due to discrimination against the Sikhs? Or, was it because our Suba agitation was too peaceful compared to the violent linguistic demonstrations elsewhere in the country?
