Mother Tongues Matter: London's Desi Community Fights to Put South Asian Languages in UK Schools
For London's vast South Asian diaspora, language is identity — and two overlapping campaigns are now pushing the UK government to treat Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali and seven other mother tongues with the same respect as French or German.
📜 A Memorandum for the Mother Tongue
The Punjabi Bhasha Chetna Board UK has submitted a formal memorandum to the Minister of State for Schools and the Secretary of State for Education, requesting that ten South Asian languages — including Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Nepalese, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Marathi — be added to the national school curriculum. The submission was timed to coincide with International Mother Language Day, with a special event held under the aegis of the Indian High Commission in London. Both the Indian High Commissioner and the Bangladeshi High Commissioner attended alongside community leaders, many dressed in traditional attire. The board's director explained that lobbying began with Punjabi alone, but the Equality Act made it necessary to request all ten languages together so they could receive the same standing as European languages currently in the curriculum. [1]
🏫 Diaspora Voices Unite Behind Ten-Language Push
The campaign to introduce ten Indian and South Asian languages into UK schools has drawn broad support from the British Desi community, reflecting how deeply questions of linguistic recognition resonate across generations. Community members argue that as the demographics of the UK continue to shift, schools should reflect the languages spoken in millions of British homes. Advocates see official curriculum inclusion as a matter of equality, giving South Asian languages the same institutional status enjoyed by European languages. The momentum behind this push illustrates a wider desire among Desis in Britain to ensure their children can access their heritage languages within the formal education system. [2]
Sources: [1] The Indian Express · [2] The Times of India