KP govt urged to fund Hindko Academy

PESHAWAR: Gandhara Hindko Board, a literary and cultural organization, has urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to provide funds to Gandhara Hindko Academy and set up a Saraiki Academy as well in the province to promote the language and culture.

Muhammad Ziauddin, general secretary of the board, made the appeal after a meeting of the board members, said a press release.Ziauddin, himself a research scholar and author of several books, said as per official statistics, Hindko was the second main language of KP and the sixth widely spoken regional language of the country. “This language remained deprived of official patronage for a long time subsequent to Independence. After 68 years of wait, the KP government set up Gandhara Hindko Academy in 2015 under the public-private partnership,” he said, pointing out that the step was taken when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was in power in KP.

Ziauddin said Hindko Academy in the last nine years had worked not only to promote Hindko but also other languages spoken in KP and other parts of the country. “The Hindko Academy has published books in Pashto, Saraiki, Khowar, Kohistani, Goujri, Brahvi and Pothwari,” said the researcher who is convener of the committee that runs the academy in partnership with the KP government.

Ziauddin said that Hindko Academy and the board had published over 500 books so far while as many as 18 journals in various provincial languages were being brought out.“We have arranged literary and cultural conferences in Peshawar, Abbottabad, Haripur, Manshera, Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat and Chitral to promote Hindko, Saraiki, Indus Kohistani and Khowar languages,” explained the writer.

The literatus said the work of the Hindko Academy had won acknowledgment from the Pakistan Academy of Letters, KP government along with other literary and cultural organizations.

Ziauddin lamented that the KP government did not allocate funds for the Hindko Academy in the recent provincial budget even though all requirements for the purpose were met and necessary documents submitted to the government officials.

He said a delegation of the Gandhara Hindko Board had also met Minister for Higher Education Meena Khan Afridi who had assured to continue funding for the academy but this was not done in the provincial budget which had raised concerns for those who speak this language. Ziauddin requested Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to provide funds to the Hindko Academy and also set up a Saraiki Academy as the language had the unique distinction of being spoken in all the four provinces of the country.