Institutions such as colleges and universities apart from imparting what is traditionally known as education can play the role of a catalyst in raising literary and cultural awareness. This is especially true in the context of the West Punjab where people’s language under the influence of colonial and post-colonial project has been shamefacedly demonised and consequently kept at bay from the schools, colleges and universities like a contagion.

Muslim majority region in Punjab has been and still is killing fields for its soul because the hatred of indigenous language and culture has been here a part of syllabi for quite some time. It’s perhaps the worst case of Stockholm syndrome in modern history.

Self-loathing is considered a hallmark of culture with the result that what was valuable in the traditions and history has been jettisoned as jetsam and flotsam, the weight that was conceived a hurdle in the way of becoming what the colonists wanted the ‘native’ to be, the “master’s shadow”. And at the end of the day, in the parlance of the world of espionage, the unwitting agent proves to be the best agent. So Punjab is an unwitting agent of self-destruction; in its self- delusion it vandalises its cultural assets in apparent good faith. And this dehumanising process started with the occupation of the sovereign Punjab in 1849. It was in fact schools and colleges started by colonial administration that initiated the process of alienation; they educated and prepared students to disown what was bequeathed by generations of their elders. This act of deculturalisation proved to be much more than mere disowning as it equated the people’s dynamic language and culture with intellectual backwardness and social poverty. So logically it’s going to be schools and colleges that would play a decisive role in reversing the process and they would be the final battle ground in reclaiming that which has been lost through their being used as an instrument of colonisation leading to alien hegemony.

The Government College, Lahore, now Government College University, an emblem of colonial advancement and vanguard of co-opted elite, has been in the limelight for good reasons. Its vice Chancellor Dr. Amir Hassan Shah, an enlightened educationist and scientist, has very wisely expanded the Punjabi department by inducting a sufficient number of experienced and young teachers. The department, it appears, is turning into a happening place by devising and organising a series of literary and cultural activities aimed at raising awareness. One sign of such activities is its newly published research journal “Sulaikh” under the editorship of Dr. Saeed Bhutta, a known writer and research scholar. The contents of the journal touch various aspects of language and literature. They are well-researched and referenced as academic articles should be. They cover a wide range of subjects and are impressive for their sweep.

Punjab’s changing socio-political landscape, a critical appraisal of feminist-spiritualist poet Piro Preman, development of literary genres, traditions of resistance in folk-literature and common vocabulary of Punjabi and Balochi are some of the topics explored by eminent scholars and writers.

The vice chancellor and Punjabi department of Government College University, Lahore, deserve appreciation for bringing out such a research journal that would help enhance the quality of research on language, literature and culture.

Can you believe that the land which produced the first globally celebrated grammarian has no research centre worth the name dedicated to the study of linguistics in the 21st century?

How we forgot Panini, the intellectual colossus of ancient times, and his path-breaking Ashtadhyayi, is a painful story of intellectual dementia, to say the least. Amidst our spiritual squalor and emotional languor we have an elating news of the establishment of Ma Boli Centre [Mother Language Centre] at the Institute of Art and Culture, Lahore, a graduate and post graduate degree issuing educational institution with federal charter.

The dynamic duo of Prof Sajida Haider Vandal and Prof Pervaiz Vandal, the vice chancellor and pro-vice chancellor respectively, have blazed a new trail by making the teaching of mother language for all the students at the Institute compulsory which will help them grow in their career and practical life. The next step in the development logically was the establishment of Ma Boli Centre. About its vision and objectives the centre says: “Pakistan is a nation of 72 living languages. One of the major challenges of Pakistan in the 21st century is likely to be how to address this question: are we going to view our linguistic diversity as an asset or a liability? … Ma Boli Centre aims to study and research the role of language in the culture and art of Pakistan while promoting an appreciation for the linguistic mosaic of diverse languages, especially hitherto marginalised and ignored indigenous languages”.

The centre would support and help sustain the initiative to create multi-lingual campuses through the core or required academic languages of Punjabi, Urdu and English. The centre would invite academics, scholars, writers and activists engaged with languages, especially endangered indigenous languages to teach, research, study and publish at the Institute as well as provide membership to the students.

About off campus activities it says: “Ma Boli Centre will employ non-traditional teaching and learning tools and methodologies that stimulate self-empowerment and creative self-expression in communities across Punjab”. The centre is designed to be a compendium of Pakistani languages, dialects, pidgins and how the failure to address the complex phenomenon of multiplicity of languages has stultified the creative and critical thinking of people especially the younger generations of our country. So the centre augurs well for our linguistic and cultural future as it will elicit hosannas from the young people once they are acquainted with the open secrets and arcane mysteries the world of word is a receptacle of. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2019