Pakistan: * Experts say ethnic languages not ready to take on challenges of contemporary journalism

[Harold Schiffman]

* Experts say ethnic languages not ready to take on challenges of
contemporary journalism

By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: Regional-language newspapers are struggling to succeed in
Balochistan despite it being a multie-thnic province. Balochistan is
home to native speakers of Balochi, Pashto, Brahvi and Sindhi and has
been a centre of ethnic politics, but only two newspapers in Pashto
and one each in Balochi, Sindhi and Brahvi are published from Quetta,
the provincial capital. Located in a congested cabin with only two
outdated computers, Pashto daily Naweyzawand (New Life) is the largest
ethnic newspaper published from Quetta. According to Zakaryia Khan,
who publishes the newspaper with a team of four, Naweyzawand strives
to preserve Pashtun identity, the need for which he says was felt in
the 1980s after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The newspaper
could not develop a considerable readership in Quetta, but Khan says
the response by readers living abroad, particularly in Canada, was
"encouraging". The newspaper features contributors living abroad and
write-ups full of nostalgia and resentment against the occupation of
Pashtun lands. The management says the most difficult task for them
has been to maintain a neutral policy despite the polarisation within
the Pashtun society.

"We do not touch sensitive issues such as Talibanisation. But we
regularly oppose foreign interference in Afghanistan and Pashtun
tribal areas," Khan said.

He said the government had blocked his newspaper's website several
times and stopped government advertisements for the newspaper.

Quetta's only Balochi newspaper has an even lower circulation. "The
students of religious schools and the leaders of political parties
still communicate with each other in Pashto. It is these people who
mainly fuel Pashtun newspapers," Khan said.

He said the regional-language newspapers would not survive if they
weren't part of larger groups of publications. Naweyzawand is a sister
publication of local English newspaper, The Independent. The other
Pashto newspaper, Qudrat, is also published by a local Urdu newspaper
group. Quetta's only Balochi language newspaper, Nawa-e-Watan, claims
it is "doing no business" but carrying out "a mission" amid
difficulties.

Most of the content of the regional-language newspapers is translated
from English and Urdu because none is available in the ethnic
languages. The absence of comments on political affairs is severely
felt on the opinion pages, which are filled with excerpts from
literature.

Abdul Saboor Baloch, chairman of the Balochi Department at the
University of Balochistan, says he is concerned about the deplorable
state of the vernacular press in the province.

"Okay, there are a few newspapers published in the local languages.
But they have not created a market yet. No one takes them seriously,
market-wise or journalistically. They are merely fulfilling a
formality," he said. He accused the government of not patronising
regional-language journalism.

"You can't promote a language merely by launching a newspaper in that
language," he said. "These languages should be taught from class one."

He said students who had a Masters degree in Balochi literature did
not get jobs. "Even the posts of translators in many federal
departments have been abolished. So how do you expect a language to be
promoted?"

Professor Dr Seemi Naghama Tahir, chairwoman of the Mass Communication
Department at the University of Balochistan, said an ethnic press was
essential for the preservation and promotion of regional languages,
culture and history.

"Balochistan could not exploit its multi-ethnic dynamics in favour of
a thriving vernacular press due to widespread illiteracy and mass
poverty," she said.

Dr Seemi said Balochistan had a history of nationalistic struggle
where the politicians-cum-journalists used newspapers as their source
of propaganda.

"We have a long history of magazines being launched in regional
languages in the past. But soon their editors converted them into Urdu
because they realised that they could not reach their goals in an
isolated language," she said.

Saboor Baloch said Balochi and Pashto languages were not ready to meet
the contemporary journalistic challenges. "It is the time we earnestly
thought out it," he said.

Sindhi newspapers coming from Karachi and Hyderabad have higher
circulations. Educated Sindhi parents have taught their children to
read and write their mother language,

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C03%5C12%5Cstory_12-3-2008_pg7_34

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