National Conference president and MP Farooq Abdullah on Sunday said that mother tongue is an underlying component of one’s culture and identity, and every effort should be made to protect the linguistic diversity of Jammu and Kashmir.
In his message on International Mother Tongue Day, Abdullah said the mother tongue must be the medium of instruction in schools, especially at formative stages. “It lays a strong foundation for the expression of creativity and personality development. It also fosters creativity at the formative stages.
As far as the Kashmiri language is concerned, it is richly endowed with classical as well as folk literature watered over thousands of years by various poets, sages, rhetoricians and linguists,” he said. The NC president said having a large number of speakers, Kashmiri enjoys the privilege of being one of the 22 languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule, yet that does not put the language out of risk of getting extinct.
“Therefore, the need of the hour calls for taking radical steps to protect it and propagate it. Urdu, no doubt glues all the people of Jammu and Kashmir together, but languages like Kashmiri, Dogri, Pahari, Gojri, Punjabi should not be relegated to obscurity,” he said.
Calling for a comprehensive strategy to help keep Kashmiri, Dogri, Punjabi and other languages in Jammu and Kashmir alive, the NC MP from Srinagar called for prioritising it in the education sector, especially during formative years of learning.
In addition, he emphasised having special grants for scholars pursuing research programmes in vernacular languages. Abdullah urged parents to use their mother tongue as a medium of communication at home.
“Communicating in one’s mother tongue should be a matter of pride for all of us in Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.
