LITERARY festivals in Lahore and Karachi have become merely rituals — an occasion and a platform for socialising with like-minded people. It seems that these festivals are being organised only as platforms for book launches, and to improve the image of the chosen few.

The participants in these festivals talk about art, history, even economics and migration, but there is no talk on the de-generation of Urdu language, particularly in the electronic media, including television dramas. There is hardly any serious dis-cussion on the corruption and degeneration the national language has suffered in the last couple of decades.

Just to make my point, I will mention a few usages borrowed from Hindi dramas that are now routinely being used in Pakistani dramas. For example, “woh uski beemari ko laker bohut pareshan hai”. This is grammatically wrong in Urdu. Then there are dialogues like, “yeh kaam acchay say karna”, or “usko phone lagao”. These are linguistic atrocities. Even the pronunciation of certain Urdu alphabets is more like Hindi-speaking individuals. This is as irritating as it is tragic.

There are a number of excellent Urdu writers and poets in the country, but nobody points out such flaws in Urdu dramas on a consistent basis. Even the organisations set up to protect and promote the National Language have not made any effort to correct or stop this linguistic degeneration.

Abid Mahmud Ansari
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2026