Call for using local languages at primary level

Three-day mother languages festival concludes with pledge to protect Pakistan’s true diverse face

ISLAMABAD:

A three-day ‘Pakistan Mother Languages Literature Festival’, which has become one of the important elements of the federal capital’s cultural and literary scene for the last eight years, concluded on Sunday.

Indus Cultural Forum, a volunteer organisation comprising literary and cultural enthusiasts arranged the festival in collaboration with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA), said a news release.

The festival was supported by the National Heritage and Culture Division of the federal government, culture departments of governments of Sindh and Balochistan provinces, Friedrich Nauman Foundation (FNF), Forum for Language Initiatives, Idara Brae Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT), Sindhi Language Authority, ECO Science Foundation, Society for Alternative Media and Research.

Speaking at the concluding ceremony, Indus Cultural Forum Chairman Dr Manzoor Hussain Soomro said that the eight-year journey of the festival voluntarily and with limited resources is a testimony that with hard work, enthusiasm, and dedication, we can do a lot to promote and protect Pakistan’s true diverse face.

He called for greater collaboration between the government and other institutions to sustain such initiatives.

ICF General Secretary Ashfaq Hussain Chandio said that the festival is a great source of bringing people from all language communities together.

He said the exchanges of ideas and creative works between writers, artists, poets, and activists during these three days are further cultivated across the year and these three days become the source of years-long bonding and collaborations between them.

A senior member of ICF, Munawar Hassan, said linguistic diversity is the greatest strength of the country, which should be a cause to bring people together and not divide them.

Director General PNCA, Muhammad Ayub Jamali in his remarks said that institutions like PNCA were open to collaboration with civil society organisations.

It is part of the mandate of the PNCA to promote the linguistic, artistic, and cultural diversity of the country.

Earlier in the day, the speakers called for an education policy that centred around the cognitive abilities of children to learn effectively in their mother language at the primary level and gradually move to other languages.

Zubair Torwali, Aftab Ahmed, Ameer Haider, Inamullah Shaikh, Shahid Rahman, and others called for revisiting current education policies and practices to pave the way for learning in the mother language.

In another session, books on alternative history were launched.

Speakers of this session included prominent writers who have recently published new books on the alternative history of Pakistan.

Speaking in this session Naseer Memon, Panah Baloch, Aasma Shirazi, Muddassir Bashir, Aamir Mugheri and Molana Khanzeb Khan said that the true history of the country was distorted in the textbooks and younger generations were deprived of their right to know objective realities of the world around them.

They said the history books should consider different and diverse accounts of languages, cultures, and regions of the country and find common threads which unite Pakistan in a natural and organic way.

A session was dedicated to “River Indus: A Confluence of Economy, Language and Culture” with a screening of a documentary by Friedrich Nauman Foundation titled "Expedition Indus 2022”.

Country Director of FNF Pakistan Birgit Lamm introduced the documentary. The speakers who included Aazaz Syed, ABM Faisal, Dr Hassan Abbas, Saad Hayat Tamman, and Dr Manzoor Soomro said: “When a river dies, the whole civilisation dies with it, and if we don’t take measures to preserve and protect the Indus so that it doesn’t react in the ways in which it reacted during the 2022 floods in all four provinces.”

On the first day of the festival, nine prominent writers of different languages were bestowed with lifetime achievement awards for their lifelong dedication and contribution to the literature, languages and culture of Pakistan.

They included Amar Jalil (Sindhi), Fatima Hassan (Urdu), Salma Shaheen (Pushto), Sharif Shad (Pothohari), Dr Fazl Khaliq Baloch (Balochi), Sarwat Muhiudin (Punjabi), Dr Muhammad Saghir Khan (Pahari), Dr Abdul Rahman Brahui (Brahui) and Muhammad Irfan Irfan (Khowar).

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2023.