LIKE the Aligarians, the Ravians, too, appear to be very nostalgic about their past. How fondly they talk of the good old days at the Government College, Lahore. They are easily carried away by the sweet memories of those days, which now stand transformed into a golden age in their imagination.
It appears that this institution is now struggling hard to regain that glory, which, as the Ravians say, it had lost in the riot-torn years of partition. The new publications I have recently received are very expressive of this sentiment. Last month, the Ravians — old and the new — gathered together and solemnly remembered their first principal, Dr Leitner, the great scholar, who is regarded as the real architect of their institution. The occasion also saw the launching of a book, a volume of Dr Leitner’s selected writings compiled by Ikram Chaghatai and published by the research and publications society of the college with the cooperation of Sang-i-Meel Publications, Lahore.
But it was not Government College alone, which benefited from Leitner’s services and turned into an institution which was much more than a college. As Ikram Chaghatai tells us in his introduction to the book, the city of Lahore is indebted to him for all its educational activities. It was he who saw to it that the Punjab should have its own university. It was because of his strenuous efforts that the Punjab University came into being.
But Dr Leitner was not among those educationists who faithfully followed the line given by Lord Macaulay and insisted solely on English education. Himself a scholar of oriental languages and allied cultures, he was aware of the value of these languages and of their need in education. So after his success in the campaign for the Punjab University, he came out with the proposal of an educational institution devoted to the study of oriental languages. Though the anglicists bitterly opposed him, he stuck to his proposal and succeeded in founding an institution which is now known as the Oriental College, Lahore.
But Lahore is not indebted to this great man for its educational institutions alone. As is well known, soon after the fall of Delhi and Lucknow in 1857, Lahore emerged as a centre of literary activities, encouraging new trends, whose chief advocates were Hali and Azad. For that, too, Lahore owes much to Dr Leitner. The Anjuman-i-Punjab, which played a great part in promoting these trends and which revitalized the institution of the mushaira was, in fact, Dr Leitner’s brainchild.
Apart from being an educationist with innovative ideas, Dr Leitner was a great scholar, who had studied Islam and the languages related to it, Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Along with it, he was deeply involved in the research and study of local languages and cultures in this part of the world. A number of articles, which bring before us his research about the northern areas of Pakistan, have been included in this volume. His studies in the fables, folk tales and folk songs of Chitral and his research on tribal religion and customs provide precious information to us.
Even after his return to England, his interest in the cultures and languages of this part of the world did not wane. There he made efforts and succeeded in founding a school of oriental studies. And keeping in view the religious requirements of the students from India, he thought of building a mosque, a temple and a gurdwara in London. The mosque he built there is known as the Voking Masjid.
Let me now say a few words about another publication of the Government College, which also speaks of its earnest desire to revive its academic and literary traditions. The Ravians had often been seen talking nostalgically about the Sondhi Translation Society which, in the good old days, was actively engaged in translating from European literature into local languages. After lying dormant for long years it has once again been revived. Here is its fresh publication under the title, Takhleeq-i-Mukarrar - 2001.
An attempt has been made here to introduce to us in Urdu those distinguished writers who have won the Nobel Prize during the last ten years. A short introduction about the writer is followed by an Urdu version of the lecture he delivered on the occasion of the prize distribution ceremony.
This in a way is an introduction to twentieth century literature, an attempt to have an access to what has been acknowledged as the best during the past decades.
Such an attempt on the part of the students is expressive of the courage to know and to understand. The attempt is laudable and deserves our appreciation.
LIKE the Aligarians, the Ravians, too, appear to be very nostalgic about their past. How fondly they talk of the good old days at the Government College, Lahore. They are easily carried away by the sweet memories of those days, which now stand transformed into a golden age in their imagination.
