Maj Gen SK Sharma
shiv_k_sharma@yahoo.co.in
Members of around 15 Dogra organizations met in Jammu some time back to discuss the reasons for lack of pride among Dogras, specially those who are residing in Jammu city or around. The main two categories in focus were the Dogra bureaucrats/officer community as well as the owners of the private schools in Jammu province.
Dogra Bureaucrats and Officers
There are hundreds of Dogra bureaucrats working in various govt. Departments. They are the ones who control the govt. and run the complete administration of the UT. An effort was made to establish contact with them by Senior Citizens SS Club, Chowadi. It was noticed that many of them converse with their Dogra colleagues either in Hindi/Urdu or English. Within their own departments, they speak to their junior staff in Hindi/Urdu.
It appears that they do not take pride in speaking to another Dogra colleague in their common mother tongue which is Dogri. When a Dogra Head Assistant was asked as to why he does not speak to the class IV employee in Dogri, his prompt reply was “Sir, if I speak to him in Dogri then I myself will look like a class IV employee”. He meant that by speaking in English/Hindi/Urdu, one appears to be more advanced and respected by society? This leads to many questions in mind as:
* Is Dogri, the maa-boli of Dogras, only for the lowest class in the society and to be spoken by the class IV employees (MTS), the labour class, the hawkers and illiterate people only?
* Do we feel that Dogri is the inferior-most language in the world?
* Do we consider our parents and grand parents who converse in Dogri as the rejected citizens in the society?
If answer to all the questions above is ‘No’, then who is stopping us from speaking in Dogri with our Dogra colleagues? It gives an impression that Dogra Atma Swabhiman is somewhere lacking.
When I travel abroad, I find many foreigners take pride in speaking in their own mother tongue, may be, French, German, Russian or Magyar and also, do not speak English. Even within our own country, citizens take pride in speaking in their mother tongue like Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali or Oriya etc.
Dogra Owners of Schools
In the last three years or so, senior citizens have interacted with over one hundred schools and found that the owners of most of the schools are Dogras and a large number of them speak Dogri. But when it comes to the question of employing Dogra teachers in their schools to teach Dogri language as a subject in the classes, they adopt a different attitude. Some of them feel that by teaching English and other languages, the image of their schools goes high, more students take admission in their school and thus they get good business.
National Education Policy, NEP-2020 clearly states that 3-language formula is to be adopted in all the schools in the country under which two languages have to be native to that region. The public wants to know the following from the school owners who are not teaching Dogri in their schools:
* Are the private schools not to follow National Education Policy-2020?
* Isn’t Dogri the native language of Jammu region?
* Isn’t Dogri the official language of JK UT?
* Hasn’t Dogri got the national importance being one of the 22 languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution?
If answers to all the questions above is ‘no’, then the public requests the owners of the schools to introduce Dogri in their schools and employ Dogri teachers.
A few facts for the information of all the school owners are brought below:
a. CBSE schools in J&K have introduced the subject of Dogri from the session 2026-27.
b. As per JK BOSE, Dogri is one of the optional subjects in J&K.
c. Dogri subject is being taught in govt. schools in Jammu province and Dogri books are given free to almost 100% students in classes 1 and 2.
d. To meet the shortage of Dogri teachers, JK SCERT is conducting ‘Orientation courses in Dogri’ for teachers of govt. schools of Jammu province. Last time, they conducted a 3-day orientation course in Dogri for teachers of 40 schools in which I was also invited for a lecture.
e. In some of the lower courts, the Dogra advocates have started presenting their cases in Dogri and it has been permitted by Supreme Court of India.
f. Children in schools which are teaching Dogri as a subject, are loving the songs like Jammu di chidi, As Dogre aan aakhne aan shane kanne, Bhala Siphaiya Dogriya etc. They show so much of enthusiasm in enacting on these songs too.
Importance of Dogri
Dogri is the official language of the J&K Union Territory. Even the Govt. of India has accorded it due importance and included in the Constitution of India as one of the 22 scheduled languages. From 11 Feb 2025 onward, even the Interpretation services have been made available in the Indian Parliament allowing Dogra MPs to take oath in Dogri and put up all their issues in Dogri.
Everyone knows that, though English and Hindi are important from the job perspective, the third language Dogri is even more important as it unites a child with its parents, brothers, sisters, friends and the Dogra land.
Even outside J&K, when two Dogras meet and converse in Dogri, we find that the intimacy and energy level between them becomes more stronger. They consider themselves like brothers. That’s why so many dogra groups have also come up in foreign countries too. To name a few these are Dogras in Uganda, Dogras in Singapore, Dogras in USA, Dogras in UAE, Voice of Dogras in UK etc. Even within our country, there are Dogra organizations in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh etc.
Expectations of Dogra Public
There are over 30 lakh Dogras in the UT of J&K now. Their inner conscience will die in case they are forced to shun their maa-boli dogri because their senior officers, bureaucrats and others discourage them to speak in Dogri. Also their children are also forced to learn all other subjects and not the Dogri. Following are the concrete expectations of the society:
* Dogra officers including bureaucrats should speak in Dogri with their Dogra juniors as well seniors.
* Officers should try to get the Recruitment Rules changed by the General Administration Department to include the knowledge of Dogri compulsory at least up to class 10 for recruitment in Jammu province especially for the Class 3 and 4 posts.
* Private school owners must ensure that Dogri is taught in schools preferably till class 10th if not up to class 12th.
* Sufficient number of dogri-subject teachers be recruited in their schools.
* Those parents who still feel that by learning dogri, their children will be hated in the society must be motivated and given the true picture.
(The author is President, Senior Citizens SS Club, Chowadi)
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