By Shafqat Tanvir Mirza

The Dawn: February 11, 2009

THE 17th Amendment is T amended or not the fact is that we as a nation or as an individual best like to behave an all independent dictator and get our job done by bypassing the institutional process and in that way the institutions are getting weaker and weaker day by day. That is perhaps the major rather fatal ill of the governance. It is unfortunate that on official level bureaucrats are given job for which they do not qualify at all. One such example is the appointment of the director-general of the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAC) founded by the previous provincial government which has been handed over to a senior bureaucrat Dr Liaquat Ali Khan Niazi who thinks that Urdu is the language of the common link and mother tongue of the country (Saarey mulk mein mushtrik raabtey ki madari zaban Urdu hey).This he says in his article titled, “Urdu Batoar Zaria-i-Taaleem-Masael aur un ka hal” appeared in the July September (2008) issue of the quarterly, Urdu Nama official organ of the Majli-i-Zaban-i-Daftri, Hakoomat-i-Punjab, Civil Secretariat, Lahore.

According to the population census (1987), Urdu is actually the mother tongue of only seven per cent of the population of the country and it has been accepted right from the beginning as the link language of the country. It should have been the only official language of the country if the constitutional provision about the language had been implemented from 1988. But that has not been done by the successive rulers, including Gen Ziaul Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Gen Pervez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz. Instead, Urdu has been down-graded by failed attempts through which English was to be further encouraged to be taught at the primary level.

For all that project funds from the West poured in because the West thinks that Urdu, Persian and Arabic produce Taliban and only English will equip the new generations with secular qualities and the so-called madressas could be browbeaten. That is the unhealthy mindset of our rulers also who do not know that only the teachings of the Sufi poets like Baba Farid, Bulleh Shah, Shah Husain, Sultan Bahu, Shah Latif Bhittai, Sachal Sarmast, Rahman Baba, Mast Tawakkli, Nooruddin Rishi and Lalla Arifa can defeat the fundamentalism much encouraged in Zia’s regime when the Russians were defeated in Afghanistan under the banner of Islam and Pakistan made the big contribution. Money and arms were provided by the United States and the manpower was supplied by Pakistan. These mercenaries were projected as the great Jihadis (Please refer to the late Brigadier Yousuf’s book on the Afghan war which was widely free distributed in the country).

Mr Niazi is well-versed in Sharia law and nothing to boast on any thing done on Punjabi language, culture and the Sufi poets of the Punjab.

Leaving apart the debates of secularism, fundamentalism, Urdu and English, let us take the issue of the PILAC which was made an autonomous body to be run by a board of governors, the meeting of which has not been held for many years. It should not have been the eye soar for the new chief minister, as was the Chief Minister’s Secretariat in at GOR-I which was to be turned into an information technology university. (The latest news is that the plan has been changed because the university can become a cause of serious disturbance for the top-class bureaucracy’s peaceful colonial residential area).

The PILAC was founded by Pervaiz Elahi for the promotion of Punjabi language and arts. So if the hospital established in Talagang after the name of Pervaiz Elahi is not acceptable and the respective boards with his name have been removed, how his name can be tolerated on the foundation stone of the PILAC?

The latest development is that some of the equipment meant for the Punjab Entertainment Company has been dumped in the PILAC building where all sorts of cultural activities stand still.

Another project for which even budget has been approved is that a Chinese Cultural Centre is to be established in the building for which the library has been vacated and all the books, including some rare books donated by scholars like Sibtul Hasan Zaigham, have been dumped in the upper portion. It is said that the original project for the Chinese centre will be housed in a rented building. But now the library and auditorium are to be given to the centre, and the room where musical classes have been started will also go to the centre. The classes have been closed down.

Apart from library, the work on the project of Punjabi dictionary has been suspended. This project involved about 30 people including seven scholars of the language. On publication side, monthly magazine Trinjan’s publication also stands suspended for last three months. It was regularly published for more than 18 months.The PILAC had also started broadcasting programme on FM-95. It was on the initiative of the previous management and, according to sources, about Rs5 million were earned through commercial publicity. This radio service has also been shut down. The budget for radio was yet to be approved by the Punjab government, therefore, no salary or remuneration for the people working for the radio. It is alleged that the previous government’s publicity was also aired from the radio. That may be an unpardonable “crime” committed by the previous administration.

The PILAC is the first institution the Punjab government has established in the last 62 years for the promotion of Punjabi language, and culture and, somehow, it was expected that the body would be able to do justice to the much-ignored Punjabi language and literature and earn the due status for it in every concerned field. The institution would provide a solid platform for the cultural activities not only for Punjabi but for other languages and cultures. It was open for launching of Urdu books and mushairas also. It would also serve to bring closer the dialects/languages spoken in the province and initiative was taken by the managers of the magazine Trinjan through which writings from Potohari, Seraiki, Pahari and Hindko were being published. The governing body included scholars from almost all other dialects/languages which was a solid attempt to create linguistic harmony and solidarity. But now who knows which way the wind will blow in near future?