HYDERABAD: Speakers at a seminar held here on Wednesday stressed the need for producing more literature to bring about a positive change in society and help eradicate extremism.

They said Sindh needed a society based on scientific ideas rather than mere Sufism and called for making Sindhi a compulsory subject and a medium of instruction in schools across the province.

They were speaking at the seminar on “Can extremism be brought to an end with [the help of] literature?” organised by the Mirza Kaleech Baig chair of the University of Sindh at the Jamshoro campus.

Prof Dr Mohammad Khan Sangi, director of the Institute of English Language and Literature of Sindh University, said that imposing ones’ opinions on others was an act of extremism which could be discouraged only with the help of producing more literature including prose, poetry, tales and short stories.

He said that if the Sindhi language was not given the status of the national language it would die sooner than later. Sindhi intellectuals and poets had to do more work on literature, he added.

Former vice chancellor of SU Mazharul Haq Siddiqui said that the importance of English could not be overemphasised because it was a language of economics, business, commerce and trade across the world. Even though much literature was available, especially that of magazines, still there was the need to produce more, he said.

Acting SU vice-chancellor Prof Dr Imdad Ali Ismaili said that every member of society was bound to work for the development of their mother tongue. “It is the responsibility of students and teachers to work on Sindhi as I did in 2003 by preparing Sindhi Computing Software,” he said.

“Those nations progressed in the world who did not forget their languages. Those people or groups who are against personal freedom in society and want to impose their ideology forcibly are called extremists,” said Abbas Korejo, a final-year student of the Sindhi department.

He said that it was against social norms and traditions that a handful of people tried to impose their ideology on a majority as the Taliban had been doing in Pakistan and extremist Hindus in India.

He suggested that more work on Sindhi literature be done so that extremism could be rooted out. Sindh needed now a society based on scientific ideas instead of mere Sufism because it could make progress only with modern education and literature, he said.

Marvi Shaikh, a final-year student of the Institute of English Language and Literature, said that the English language had been imposed by colonial rulers on the subcontinent in a bid to control people’s minds and continue to hold them in slavery, which was also a kind of extremism.

She said the language policy was introduced in 1835 by the British that needed to be changed. “We must receive our basic education in Sindhi and we demand that the government give Sindhi the status of the national language,” she said.

Mumtaz Ali Rind, a third-year student of the department of anthropology and archaeology, said that neo-natal marriages (newborns given in marriage by jirgas or tribal courts as a penalty for some perceived wrongdoing), bride money, still marriages (babies given in marriage even before their birth), child marriages and other such black customs were curses of Sindhi culture, which were also a kind of extremism.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2014