I wish to add more to give a fair chance to all the respected doctors Dr. Farman, Dr. Aftab and Dr.Jamiluddin Aali for a rebuttal.
Coming out of an Urdu speaking family I have nothing but respect for these great scholars but I have to say what I think is just and needs to be said.
The CSS exams in Pakistan are still conducted in English.
The top scorers in those exams have to have great proficiency in English to pass CSS exams.
The aptitude tests at all the centers of excellence in Pakistan are conducted in English e.g Agha Khan University, IBA, LUMS etc. to name a few.
I am a proud graduate of one of those centers of excellence. I ended up getting a prestigious American scholarship in an open competition based on TOFL scores. Again it proves the importance of English. If I did not have that high proficiency in English I would not get that scholarship.
The interviews at all the private and government institutions for Officer level recruitment are conducted in English.
The medium of instructions at all the professional institutions in Pakistan is English , NED, LUMS, Agha Khan Medical University, Dow Medical College to name a few.
If you watch independent private Urdu language channels from Pakistan you see so much English being mixed with Urdu it amazes me. Looks like English is taking over Urdu vocabulary . If is a going phenomenon then why not make it 100 % English to end everybody's misery.
You have to have great proficiency in English to rise on the corporate ladder in Pakistan. Even for government officers they cannot get at higher levels if they are weak in English.
So my take is if English is still so important and has penetrated so much in our lives why not end the misery of those once for all who advocate that Urdu as a national language of Pakistan.
Pakistan has been an independent state for 60 years at least three generations have turned into adults. It is high time that advocates of Urdu as a national language give up and recognize that Urdu can never replace English fully in Pakistan as a national language. Sixty years is a long period for a language to replace English and take it over but it never happened and will never happen with the changing world.
There are now modes of mass communication in the world, Internet , satellite, fiber optics. English has taken over these media already. Urdu can never achieve this kind of status on these mass media tools. Advocates of Urdu can at best work to make sure that Urdu is recognized at the national level as one of the regional languages , that too because most of the people who's mother tongue is Urdu live in certain parts of Sind in high concentration. I happen to come from one such family from Karachi.