Very simple reason for this. Urdu and English are the two official languages of Pakistan for the logical reason that neither is a "native" language.
If any of the native languages had been chosen as the official language, the others would have objected violently. Urdu and English, being equally foreign to all native Pakistanis, didn't offend anybody by favoring one native language over the others. My understanding is that just about everybody in Pakistan speaks or understands at least some Urdu today, even though it's probably not their birth language.
Sherman,
Urdu was imposed because the populace (most the East Bangladesh) would not tolerate Persian or even Arabic as the official language.
It has NOTHING to do with not choosing a local language and everything to do with the raison d’etre of Pakistan
Pakistan is a fake state with nothing holding it together. Not culture, not language, not values.. nothing.
Their only “bind” was Islam but the problem was that there were 50 other islamic states so the people of West Panjab, East Bengal, Baluchistan, NWFP and Sindh said, why shouldn’t all of us be independent too.
Pakistan will surely collapse into its constituent four “countries” within the next decade. The Baluchi movement has picked up and the Sindhis and Pashtos as burbling again.
The long suppresed West Panjabi identity (suppressed by way of giving them all the leadership roles in Pakistan) will bubble up again too.
Incidentally the biggest target of the Urdu campaign was to kill Panjabi in West Panjab. Sindhi is STILL the official language of the Sindh province, Pashto is an official langauge of NWFP, Baluchi is the official language of Baluchistan but West Panjab with over 100 million native Panjabi speakers only has Urdu
Read about the Bangladesh war and how Urdu was imposed on Bangladesh. It was effectively a dying language that was revived riding the horse of Pakistani nationalism
Once pakistan dies, Urdu will die with it. Sindhi will flourish in Sindh and West Panjab will return to Panjabi/Saraiki/Hindko
Urdu is pretty much already dead in India. Despite Muslims making up 15% of India and despite Urdu being a NATIONAL language of India, less than 2% of India now considers it their native language..
...and this is despite goverment support including an asinine Doordarshan Urdu... a goverment channel