HYDERABAD: The Sindhi boli, qaumi boli conference has called for declaring Sindhi as one of country’s national languages and urged the Sindh government to make it binding on private schools to teach Sindhi.

The conference organised by the Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party at STP House on Saturday as part of the party’s silver jubilee celebrations passed a number of resolutions, recommending changes in Sindhi script to make it easy to learn through computer and ensure its survival on the internet.

The resolutions demanded the government should introduce easy Sindhi language courses and make it compulsory for those coming to Sindh from other provinces for livelihood to learn Sindhi. Illegal immigrants should be expelled from Sindh to keep Sindhis majority intact, said the conference.

STP chairman Dr Qadir Magsi said that NGOs and media houses had enslaved Sindh’s intellect by offering perks and privileges. Thus it had kept talented individuals away from pursuing national goals, he said.

He said the language was a serious issue for Sindh as it involved national identity. The Sindh chief minister and education minister had announced introducing Sindhi in private schools but they had not so far taken any action against any school on that account, he said.

He accused rulers of destroying Sindh’s civilisation, traditions, the folk literature and katcheries that had kept the language alive for centuries.

The conference discussed a number of academic aspects of the language which dealt with the question of Sindhi’s survival in future.

Dr Magsi said that regretfully, politicians had no realisation of Sindh’s issues while NGOs and media had enslaved Sindh’s educated class. Unfortunately, the PPP government was busy hobnobbing with the establishment and had no time for people’s real issues, he said.

Fayaz Buriro claimed that Arab countries spent $3.6 million on their language while the Sindh government spent nothing. Literacy ratio in Ethiopia improve its literacy rate while the Sindh government was bent upon destroying education in a self-destructive manner, he said.

He called for bringing about necessary ‘corrections’ in Sindhi script considering fast pace of development of electronic and software applications and warned if serious efforts were not made to make the language compatible the future generation would opt for English.

He said that Sindhi people must preserve their history, the history of their martyrs and the history of their struggle on the internet because today people tended to access everything through the internet. By 2040 everything would be dependent on computer education, he said.

Linguist Dr Aftab Abro asked why institutions meant for language promotion were working on Sindhi grammar which was introduced by Mirza Qaleech Baig and was based on Arabic characters.

He said the Arabic had 28 alphabets while Sindhi had 64 and called for establishment of Indus script cell. Atta Mohammad Bhambhro had worked on Indus script but no one was ready to speak on it, he said, adding that a quality Sindhi dictionary was not available and unfortunately history was not correctly written.

Dr Ishaque Samejo, head of the chair of Mirza Qaleech Baig at Sindh university, said the Sindh government did not offer any help on the issue of preservation of language and concerned Sindhi intellectuals were making efforts to save the language at an individual level.

He urged the government to take serious steps to reopen the primary schools which were formed as a frontline for Sindhi language. Retired and blue-eyed persons of rulers were destroying institutions of language while media itself was primarily responsible for the destruction of the language, he said.

He said the Sindhi Language Authority should pay serious attention to the issue.

Dr Rajab Ali Memon, Dr Abdul Hameed Memon, Ali Akash and others also spoke at the conference.

An evening with leftist writer

Leftist story writer and theatre director Irfan Malik said at an evening dedicated to him at a local cafe on Saturday night that he was basically a story writer who started his political career from the Communist Party.

He recalled difficulties in Gen Zia’s government for writing and raising his voice against dictatorship. When the atrocities became unbearable he preferred to go into exile, he said.

He said that Punjabi language was confined to homes in Punjab so he started writing stories and poetry in Punjabi but 30 years down the road he realised that Punjabi books were read but there was no trend to purchase books.

He said that his contemporary Sukh Veer Singh also produced Punjabi poetry which was liked by many.

Journalist Sohail Sangi said that literary movement had not transformed into politics in Punjab like Sindh. Imdad Chandio, Hoori Noorani, Arfana Mallah and Amar Sindhu also spoke at the gathering.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2016