Multani Punjabis of India

The word "Seraiki" is completely unknown to the Mutlani people who migrated to India during the partition - predominantly the Hindus. These people better know their language and identity as "Punjabis" rather than Seraiki. They call themselves Punjabi, and when asked about their language, will call themselves Punjabi-speakers. Multan is the main city of the Multani dialect speaking region, and its dialect can be considered to be Multani. Other dialects are spoken in the regions around Multan such as Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and so on. The word Seraiki is recognized only by the academia and not by the Multani diaspora in India, who call themselves Multanis. Groups have recently emerged on social networking sites such as Facebook whereby the Indian diaspora continue to refer to themselves as Multani Punjabis. According to the Indian census of 2001, Multani is spoken in urban areas throughout northwest and north central India by a total of about 70,000 people, mainly by the descendants of migrants from western Punjab after the partition of India in 1947. Some of these speakers are settled in Andhra Pradesh who went and settled there before the partition because of their pastoral and nomadic way of life, and these are Muslims. Out of these total speakers of the language, 56,096 persons report their dialect as Multani and by 11,873 individuals report their dialect as Bahawalpuri. One dialects of Punjabi that is spoken by Indian Multanis is Derawali, spoken by Derawals in Derawal Nagar, Delhi who migrated to India during the partition. Multani Punjabi is spoken in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Palwal, Rewari, Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Panipat, Ganganagar, Hanumangarh and Bikaner. It is spoken at low scale in Utrakhand and U.P. It is impossible that only 70,000 people in India speak Multani when over 40% of the population of the Multani dialect speaking region was Hindu at the time of the partition and almost all the Hindu Multanis migrated to India. The number of Multani speakers in India should most certainly be several hundred thousand if not over a million. There is a group on Facebook Hindu Multani. Kindly read the mission statement of the Group: A group for the dying breed that is the Hindu Multani. If you're Hindu, and your parents (both or one!) are from Multan this group is for you. After partition in 1947, Hindu Multani people settled primarily in Haryana, Delhi and Punjab, however the pockets are well established everywhere including Mumbai. Despite the hardship of being refugees in India, Multani people worked hard to gain dignity, education and economic prosperity. Today they surpass any local community in terms of social and economic status. Most of the younger generation of Multani living in India or around the world do not speak or understand this beautiful language, but they can still connect with it remembering from their grandparents and parents. Multani people in India often call themselves either Punjabi or Khatri or Punjabi Khatri or Arora or Hindu by default when it comes to arrange marriages. Some of the common

last names of Multanis are Kapoor, Mehta, Batra, Khanna, Arora, Chaudhary, Juneja, Chawla, Asija, Mal, Goswami, Grover, Narang, Khunger, Malhotra, Sardana, Munjal, Ahuja, Luthra, Taneja, Khurana, and most of the Punjabi last names which end with a sound 'aah'.

Be proud of your roots.