The preservation of the rich cultural heritage of Peshawar is a collective responsibility and the NWFP cultural department will make all-out efforts to do the needful.
This was stated by NWFP Cultural Secretary Amjad Nazeer while presiding over the launching ceremony of the Hindko-language monthly magazine by the Gandhara Hindko Board - Hindkowan - here at the City University Hall on Sunday.
Responding to the demand from the participants of the function for the government steps to preserve the cultural monuments of the Peshawar City, including Gor Gathri, City Wall and the gates of Peshawar, Amjad said the cultural department had initiated different projects for saving the cultural sites in city.
Of the complaint against the digging of the sixth tube well within the historic Gor Gathri, he said his department had taken up the issue with the Town One administration of Nazim Haroon Bilour.
The cultural secretary deplored the rising Cultural Philistinism and blamed it on the materialistic approach of the people. "If the Qehwa Khanas are vanishing from the Qissa Khawani Bazaar, none else but we are responsible for that. We will have to be culturally-conscious and move for protecting our cultural values ourselves", said Amjad.
He lauded the Gandhara Hindko Board for making efforts for preservation and promotion of the Hindko language and hailed the launching of the monthly Hindkowan.
Speaking as a chief guest, the Peshawar TV General Manager Mujahid Bin Syed Gillani, called for encouraging children to converse in Hindko with parents. He called for setting up of a Hindko academy for conducting research and developing the Hindko language.
He said the Hindkowan children were hesitant to speak Hindko because they saw that their language was not being taught at the school, college and university level.
He said the introduction of Hindko as a subject at the educational institutions would shed the inferiority complex of our children and youths.
Mujahid lamented the dying cultural life of the Peshawar city, but hastened to add that the print and electronic media and the active literary and cultural organisations could fill the gap.
He praised the Gandhara Hindko Board for its literary and cultural activities and vowed to improve the standards of the Hindko telecasts of the Peshawar TV.
Gandhara Hindko Board Chairman Professor Dr Zahoor Ahmed Awan (Tamgha-i-Imtiaz) urged the Hindkowan politicians to own Hindko and raise their voice in the elected assemblies for the cause of their mother language.
Terming the launching of the Hindkowan a milestone, he said the monthly Hindko magazine would be the voice of all the Hindkowans living in Peshawar, Kohat, Hazara, Pothwar, Kashmir and even in the foreign countries.
The Board's Senior Vice-Chairman Ismail Awan said in 1960s, there were a myriad of Hindko writers, but had no platform to get their works published.
He recalled that in 1962, an Urdu daily Anjaam set aside half page of the paper for Hindko. "Raza Hamdani, Farigh Bokhari, Khatir Ghaznavi and Mukhtar Ali Nayyer used to feed the Hindko pages.
This provided some space to the Hindko writers of the time to bring forward their writings. Had their been official patronage to the language then, the situation of Hindko would have been totally different now", believed the Hindko writer.
He called for revival of the flags festival that used to be a big cultural event of the Peshawar way back in 1950s.He ended his speech on a beautiful Hindko couplet that called for revival of the culturally-rich Peshawar.
Gandhara Hindko Board Vice-Chairman Assistant Professor Dr Adnan Gul said those nations always progressed who endeared their mother languages.
He admitted that the Hindkowans had made mistakes in the past by neglecting their language, but now they were realising the same and toiling to revive the lost glory of Hindko.
He said there was no official patronage for Hindko, adding the Gandhara Hindko Board and other literary-cum-cultural bodies were carrying forward the Hindko promotion work on the self-help basis.
He asked the Hindkowans to strengthen the hands of those who were preserving and promoting Hindko.
Gandhara Hindko Board General Secretary Mohammad Ziauddin talked of the activities and achievements of the board since its functioning in 1993. He said the board had held literary gatherings, published 11 books and had now launched its monthly magazine, Hindkowan.
"A Hindko TV channel, Hindko newspaper and the construction of a Hindko Cultural Complex formed the next plans of the board", announced the vibrant struggler for Hindko.
Earlier, the function started with recitation from the Holy Quran by Abdul Wadud. Muhammad Shehzad recited a Hindko Na'at. Zaffar Naveed Jani and Sadiq Saba read out poetry to mark the launching of the Hindkowan.
A Hindko/English poet, Malik Arshad, conducted the programme that was attended by people from different sections of the society.