One language, two scripts

Punjabi's different scripts constituted one of the issues dominating the debate in the three-day World Punjabi Congress which concluded in Chandigarh last Sunday.

"Gurmukhi is Greek to us," most of the Pakistani delegates were heard telling their hosts, who, on their part, had no idea as to how they should comprehend literature in Shahmukhi which was distributed during the conference by some of their guests.

Shahmukhi is the script used on Pakistani side of the border. Baba Farid used it to write his verses which later became a part of Granth Sahib. Gurmukhi is sacred script in East Punjab. However, generations growing up after partition on either side of the border do not know the altogether different scripts.

Speakers agreed that both the scripts were tied to religion -- Shamukhi to Quran and Gurmukhi to Sikhism -- and hence could not be given up. They suggested different ways to overcome the problem and promote the two scripts.

Delegates were told on the last day of the moot that a US-based firm, with the help of academicians from the two countries, would soon work on a project to develop software that would help translate the two scripts.

The software, to be named Farid, may provide an answer to the problem. The teachers of the Punjabi University, Patiala, were also working on a similar project, it was announced.

CONGRESS: The Chandigarh moot was World Punjab Congress' 10th show since its birth in 1984. It plans to hold another two -- one each at Lahore and Europe -- in the near future with the aim to promote Punjabi and pressure the two governments into easing restrictions on visa and trade.

"Will such conferences help achieve the goals," almost every Indian journalist put this question to Pakistani delegates who could do nothing but express optimism. Although WPC's Pakistani officer-bearers were upbeat, the change of government in New Delhi might have dampened the spirits of the Indian chapter.

The Chandigarh moot reception committee did include the names of nine ministers, but only two turned up. The Indian press carried reports suggesting that several universities, professors and literati engaged in the promotion of the language had been ignored by the Indian chapter of the World Punjabi Congress.

Similarly, editors of known Punjabi publications in Lahore were missing from the Pakistani delegation. Carried away by the talk of brotherhood and love between people of the two Punjabs, some of the Indian speakers referred to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prof SR Bajwa of the Guru Nanak University, Amritsar, called for Punjab unity.

Such statements did not go well with some of the guests. WPC chairman Fakhar Zaman made it clear that the boundaries were there to stay: "We are here to strengthen peace between the two countries and promote our mother tongue."