PESHAWAR: The World Pashto Jirga has demanded that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government take immediate steps to promote Pashto and other local languages and cultures instead of allocating millions of rupees to certain individuals for the promotion of Chinese, Central Asian, and other foreign languages.
The demand was made during a meeting of the jirga held on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Prof. Aseer Mangal. Among others, Patron-in-Chief Zubair Khan and Deputy Secretary Dr. Alam Khan Yousafzai attended the meeting.
The participants expressed concern over what they described as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s policy of neglecting Pashto, Hindko, Saraiki, Khowar and other native languages, cultures, and arts.
They said that for the last several years, the provincial government had failed to formulate any policy for the promotion of local languages, culture, traditions, music and the arts. On the other hand, they alleged, the government, at the behest of certain individuals, was allocating substantial funds, residential plots and other incentives for the promotion of languages and cultures of foreign countries, including China and the Central Asian Republics.
The participants also expressed concern over what they termed the government’s continued indifferent attitude toward poets, writers, actors, singers and intellectuals associated with Pashto and other regional languages.
The meeting noted that, unlike previous governments, the present administration had neither launched nor implemented any significant programme for the promotion of local languages, culture and fine arts.
The participants stated that writers, poets, actors, musicians and singers representing all languages and cultures of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were facing serious financial hardships. Many of them had spent their life savings on writing columns, books, poetry collections and other literary works, but were now struggling to publish them.
The meeting called for immediate financial assistance for such individuals and urged the government to establish a commission for this purpose. It further demanded that the proposed commission include prominent intellectuals representing Pashto as well as other regional languages, particularly Hindko, Saraiki, Khowar (Chitrali) and Gojri.
The jirga also expressed concern over the recent decision of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to allocate substantial funds and land for the promotion of the culture of a friendly foreign country in Peshawar while, according to the participants, demands for a Writers’ House had been ignored for the past two decades.
Members of the jirga reiterated their demand for the establishment of a central Writers’ House in Peshawar as well as district-level Writers’ Houses across all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The participants also criticized the government’s failure to provide permanent stipends to financially struggling poets, writers, singers, musicians and other artists despite repeated demands by the World Pashto Jirga.
In a resolution adopted during the meeting, the office-bearers and members of the jirga urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to prioritize the promotion of local languages and cultures rather than spending heavily on Chinese, Central Asian and other foreign languages and cultural initiatives.
The meeting concluded with a decision that the jirga’s office-bearers and members would soon meet Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, the culture minister, Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah and other senior officials to seek implementation of these demands.
