Heritage survives when communities choose to sustain it, speakers say at Pakistan Mother Languages Literature Festival

ISLAMABAD: On the second day of the Pakistan Mother Languages Literature Festival 2026 at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) on Saturday, while mother languages were celebrated, the conversations also moved to the sobering reflection that endangered languages may fade, and with them, entire musical worlds are at risk of falling silent.

The second day unfolded across two major sessions, one honouring literary legends of mother languages, the other examining endangered arts and musical instruments, yet both were threaded by a shared concern about cultural survival.

The opening session, ‘Celebrating the Legends of the Languages’, brought together writers representing Brahui, Seraiki, Punjabi, Urdu, Balochi, Sindhi and Potohari. Yet, behind the tributes lay a pressing question of inheriting these languages.

The concern was echoed by panellists representing Gojri, Pahari, Hindko and Gawarbati languages as well, who stressed that recognition without institutional backing risks reducing linguistic heritage.

Brahui language poet Tahira Ehsaas Jattak, widely recognised as one of the first prominent female poets in the language, recalled her own struggle for education in Khuzdar.

“I was the only girl in my school at that time,” she said. “The first to pass matric and intermediate. Today, I see more girls studying, but I still ask in which language they are dreaming, in English?”

She stressed that children in many parts of Balochistan and elsewhere are not being taught in their mother tongues. Though initiatives were launched in recent years to introduce local languages into curricula, the lack of trained teachers and institutional support has stalled meaningful progress.

Balochi scholar Abdul Saboor Baloch traced his lifelong journey from a magazine-reading schoolboy to chairing the Department of Balochi at the University of Balochistan and later leading academic projects internationally.

With over 18 books and numerous research publications, he remains cautiously optimistic.

“There is more material to read now, more students enrolling in Balochi studies,” he said. “But preservation cannot depend on passion alone; it needs policy,” Saboor said.

The second session, ‘Endangered Arts, Crafts and Instruments of Pakistan’, opened with a Unesco documentary on the boreendo, an ancient clay wind instrument from Sindh, setting the tone for a discussion on vanishing sonic traditions.

Filmmaker Jawad Sharif, whose documentary Indus Blues explores endangered instruments, shared examples of generational shifts. In Peshawar, he noted, a sarinda player’s son now prefers the saxophone.

Salman Tahir of Citizens Archive Pakistan argued that archiving must go beyond documentation.

“When we look at a craft, we must look at the technical knowledge behind it, the muscle memory, the migration history, the politics of the artist’s life,” he said. “If we remove these from context, we distort the heritage itself.”

He stressed economic sustainability as the real battleground for cultural survival. “We can talk about preservation in air-conditioned halls but if an artist sleeps hungry, what kind of preservation is that?” he asked.

Author Gulzar Gichki spoke passionately about the soroz, a bowed instrument central to Balochi classical storytelling traditions. His book Suroz documents its history not merely as a musical tool but as a vessel of epic poetry and even traditional healing.

“This instrument is not only for music, but it also carries our stories, our memories. In the past, it was even used for treatment. It is part of who we are,” he expressed.

Yet, like many indigenous instruments, the soroz faces dwindling practitioners.

Youth activist Raaziq Faheem described efforts in Balochistan to train young men and women in folk instruments through structured programmes. Preservation, he argued, must extend beyond museum display.

“You can preserve an instrument in glass,” he said, “but can you root it in contemporary life? Can it add value to the lives of young people?”

Across both sessions, a shared understanding emerged that mother languages and musical traditions are not vanishing quietly; they are negotiating space within a rapidly modernising society.

Speakers agreed that innovation and adaptation are essential.

Universities, archives, filmmakers and cultural organisations were recognised not merely as observers but as active custodians.

The festival ultimately felt less like a warning bell and more like a chorus, voices from every language, asserting that heritage survives when communities choose to sustain it.

As speakers put it, preservation is not about resisting change. It is about ensuring that when change comes, it carries the language and the music along with it.

Header image: Singer Rubaya Pirzada performs at the Pakistan Mother Languages Literature Festival at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts in Islamabad on February 14. — Tanveer Shahzad/White Star