Speakers on Wednesday called for giving Sindhi language the status of national language and making it compulsory at school level across Sindh instead of providing basic education in English.
They said that Sindh needed scientific society instead of that of Sufism and the expired traditions from Sindhi culture including honour killing, wedding with Quran (a girl who is stopped to marry any man), neo-natal marriage (newly born kid given as a penalty for marriage), ransom match marriages, bride money, pre-birth marriages and child marriages were the curse and most affecting social ills which must be brought to an end for a developed and progressive Sindhi society.
They were speaking at a seminar on "Can extremism be brought to an end with literature?" organized by the Mirza Kaleech Baig chair of the University of Sindh Jamshoro at the Arts Faculty Building. Speaker Abbas Korejo said, "Those people or groups who are against the personal freedom in society and want to impose their ideology forcibly are called extremists." He said, "It is contrary to the social norms & traditions that a few people try to impose their ideology on the majority as the Taliban have been doing in Pakistan and extremist Hindu in India."
He suggested that more work on Sindhi literature should be done so that the extremism may be rooted out from the province. He added that Sindh needed now scientific society instead of mere Sufism because it could only develop and progress with modern education and literature.
Marvi Shaikh on the occasion said that English language has been imposed in sub-continent in a bid to control upon the minds of the people so that they might lead their lives in constant slavery adding that it was also some kind of extremism. She said that the language policy was introduced in 1835 by the British that needed to be changed. Mumtaz Ali Rind said neo-natal marriages (newly born kids given as a penalty for marriages), foetal marriages (foetal given as a penalty for marriages), SANG CHATI (Girl given as a penalty for marriages to the family of the accuser), ransom match marriages, bride money, still weddings (pre-birth marriages) and child marriages were the curse in Sindhi culture which also comes in the circle of extremism. Professor Dr Muhammad Khan Sangi, Director of English Institute, said that imposing ones opinion on others was the act of extremism which could only be brought to an end with the help of producing literature including prose, poetry, tales and short stories.
He said that if Sindh language was not given the status of national languages it will die down in no time. Ex Vice Chancellor of SU Mazharul Haq Siddiqui said that the importance of English could not be ruled out because according to him English is the language of economic, business, commerce and trade across world. He said that much Sindhi literature was available in Sindh especially that of magazine literature but still he said there was needed to produce more literature.
Vice Chancellor SU Professor Dr Imdad Ali Ismaili in his concluding remarks said that everyone was bound to work for the development of his mother tongue so as Sindhi intellectuals and poets. He said, "It is responsibility of students and teachers of the varsity to work on Sindhi language as according to him he did in 2003 by preparing Sindhi Computing Software. "Those nations developed and progressed in the world, who did not forget their mother languages", he added.