PAL’s regional offices proposed merger opposed

PESHAWAR: Literary and cultural organisations have opposed the proposed merger of regional offices of Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) and termed the move of federal government against national unity and linguistic diversity.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, office-bearers of various literary and cultural organisations said that PAL for decades had been unifying national thought through conferences, symposia, workshops and exchange visits both national and international levels but was being merged.

They added that PAL was the lone institution that stood out for promoting the cause of national unity through linguistic diversity to carry on the legacy of national narrative. “KP is home to more than a dozen languages and PAL regional office is the only institution connecting poets and writers their preserving linguistic heritage,” Prof Abaseen Yousafzai, a noted poet and research scholar said while expressing his concerns over the PAL merger.

He said that merger or limiting scope of functional framework of the regional offices of the academy would be a serious blow to national identity.He said that the PAL regional offices across the country were unifying threads for strengthening the network of mentors of Pakistan national identity and served as an excellent liaison among literati, intellectuals and scholars countrywide.

Muhammad Zaman Sagar, executive director Gawari community remarked he had been working on 30 languages being spoken in KP and GB.He said that PAL and a few other national institutes were serving the cause of connecting writers and linguistics communities, any move to merge or defunct them would lead to harming national identity.

“I think PAL is playing a significant role in brining literati, researchers at one platform to create space for all languages on equal footings, it should be strengthened and its scope be widened,” he suggested.

Bushra Farrukh, a noted Urdu and Hindko writer said the move of federal government to merge or limit working space of PAL was deemed as sheer injustice to writers’ community of the entire country across the board.She said that any plan to squeeze space for literati would prove detrimental to national heritage.