Daily Times

Community development largely depends upon the role of community members and effective communication is the key to mobilize them. Community is precipitated on the fact that frequent interaction of citizens is essential for collective action and effective communication serves to stimulate the direct interaction of citizens. Therefore language is a mediating factor which facilitates and contributes to a collective change process.

In context of Pakistan, it is one of the countries having amazing linguistic diversity. And the most spoken language is Punjabi because Punjab is the largest province by population. So Punjabi is widely spoken; according to estimates around 38.78% Pakistani population speak Punjabi but the point of concern is that over the period of time it has been reduced as in 2008 it was 44.15%.

One of the many reasons for downward trend of Punjabi Culture especially language is that there is no universal script for Punjabi as it is an Indo-Aryan language written in Gurmukhi, Shahmukhi and Devangari scripts. The choice of script is usually determined by the user’s writing system. Moreover, limited newspapers and magazines are published in Punjabi language despite the fact it is the language of the nationally acclaimed Sufi poets. These Sufi poets are the ones who played vital role in the promotion of Punjabi language through their work in the field of literature. Their work of literature could be found in the language of the soil where they stayed. Sufi poets were not only adept at Punjabi language, but they knew Persian, Arabic and other classic languages. Moreover, there are very few platforms where the Punjabi Culture can be displayed for further influence.

In recent years institutional bias towards English and Urdu has made the Punjabi language, its associated culture and art a marker of the working class. Punjabi has been shunned by the middle and the elite class. The lack of cognizance that language and culture plays an important role in social change has badly impacted the Punjabi culture. The local language, art and culture tendency is quite unhelpful to take them for granted and make it irrelevant to social-economic processes. Thus, people tend to ignore the role of local literature, art, culture and languages in carrying information, communicating values, attitudes, feelings, ideologies and expressions.

The local language, art and culture tendency is quite unhelpful to take them for granted and make it irrelevant to social-economic processes. Thus, people tend to ignore the role of local literature, art, culture and languages in carrying information, communicating values, attitudes, feelings, ideologies and expressions

Various efforts have been taken by the government for the promotion and development of Punjabi language and culture and for this purpose they have established Punjab Institute of Language, Art & Culture (PILAC) in September 2004. This institution aims for patronage, promotion and development of Punjabi language. PILAC also focuses on conservation, protection, promotion and enhancement of the art and cultural richness of Punjab. PILAC is a corporate body focusing not only on sustaining and promoting language, art and culture of Punjab, but also on all matters connected therewith. It is also responsible for collection, preservation and arrangements of classical and modern Punjabi literature.

To bridge the gap between government institutions and civil society organizations like CHANGE envisages to act as a catalyst in promoting Punjabi language, art and culture with PILAC. In this connection they have successfully organized Punjab Diversity Festival promoting mother language, art and culture through various initiatives. These efforts are the baby steps towards the bigger cause of promoting the Punjabi culture amongst the educated youth form various universities and inculcating cultural values.

This festival encompassed various cultural activities highlighting the rich culture through puppets, theatre, panel discussions, poetry sessions and folk music. It is the need of the hour that we should concentrate on our major issue which is related to our ideas. Our ideas can only flourish if we have knowledge of our mother language. By acquiring knowledge of our language we come close to learning the teachings of our Sufi poets who focus on spreading tolerance, brotherhood and love amongst the society. Moreover, we get connected to our soil by adopting our mother language and thus become good citizens because we come close to nature and nature is always true and pure in its form and action. Events, seminars, folk music, conferences, discussions related to cultural activities promote the language, art and culture of the Punjab, and hence in a way help in creating a society of tolerance by giving awareness to people about the teachings of the Sufi poets which is based on the ideology of humanity, tolerance, love and brotherhood.

The writer is a freelancer