APROPOS the letter on Dr N.A. Baloch Chair at University of Sindh (April 15). The objections raised against the present director are misguided and biased. There is no law or policy to appoint a PhD only as its director. The mammoth research work in the past in many universities had been supervised by such non-PhDs of the academia as Maulvi Abdul Haq, Pir Hussamuddin Rashdi and Mushafiq Khwaja and Ghulam Mustafa Qasmi. Even Prof. Noam Chomsky of M.I.T. is a non-PhD.

The present director is not just a scholar and a retired director of Radio Pakistan but a well-known Sindhi language poet, intellectual, folklorist par excellence, and an expert on the poetic heritage of Sindhi classical poets Shah Abdul Latif, Sachal Sarmast, Bedil, Bekas, Shah Lutfullah Qadri, Misri Shah and others.

Scholarly books comprising Dr Sahib’s research articles under the foundation named after him. Inayat Baloch who had a long intellectual association with Dr Baloch in his project of Folk literature running into 42 volumes, and 10 volumes of oral history entitled ‘Rehan Heeran Khan’ (the gem mine of rural traditions).

Dr Ali Akbar Dhakan

Chairman, Sindh Development Foundation

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2018