An Intiative worth appreciated off the PCB and PSL

This is really a shame, and a sham that National language is supposed to be a driving force behind national unity, yet in spite of having constitutional status there is no plan to promote the use of Urdu in Pakistan.  English is becoming the symbol of the elite. But this thing is going to be turn upside down in current edition of the HBL PSL Season Five.

What is a national language and what is its significance for the pride of the nation?

Indeed, national language is a clear indicator that represents the national identity of a country. Language is a sensitive issue. It’s also part of a nation and a person’s heritage. To understand and penetrate deep into a community, one must be able to speak and understand the language of the community.  Fluency in the national language will surely enable the person to fully understand that community’s particular nuances and cultural aspects.

But unfortunately the case is the opposite with Pakistan compared to most of the other Asian countries like India and Bangladesh.  The 1973 constitution of Pakistan promulgated Urdu to be the national language of Pakistan and set out the required arrangements to be made so that Urdu would be used for official and other purposes within 15 years of its commencement. Nevertheless, after the gap of more than 60 years, no specific arrangements have been made and no clear plan or policy has been devised to attain this constitutional goal. Parliament has not passed any law or formulated any policy to date to ensure the replacement of English by Urdu for official purposes.

Because of the Government’s lack of serious effort, the current generations are far from their national language. We can clearly observe a gradual increase in the number of elite youth whose command over all the required four skills for the Urdu language seems to be on a downward trend.  Instead, English is becoming the symbol of the upper class elite and an inaccurate benchmark by which one’s literacy is judged. The competitive examinations in Pakistan through which the bureaucracy of the country is filtered have a strong bottle neck because they use English to judge candidates’ competitiveness.

Personally

It made me astonished and dismayed while listening a lecture to learn that there is no nation in five thousand years that disrespected its own national language, and yet has excelled in economy and development with the help of some language other than its own. I am not against bilingualism, but we should be excellent in our national language. We witness many nations like Germany, China and Iran which love their language and literature and still are more developed and stronger than those which do not do so.

Urdu Language and The PSL initiative

This is something I would appreciate the team behind all this because this has been something other countries have taken great pride of, whether we look into our neighbours who even broadcast their games in their own language, and take pride in their coverage, similarly the same thing lies with Bangladesh as well, who even take pride in their pronunciation and the way they speak, therefore this is an initiative which Pakistan also required on the whole, but I would had definitely liked the same when instead of being the following one, they would had been on the driving seat who'd have been followed.

The first five overs being in the national language

This is single drop of rain but the fact is they should have had taken great note where they would definitely had taken two different coverage, one in Urdu and one for the international audience, because we have great Urdu Language commentators like Chishti Mujahid etc. So this is high time PCB not only go for gaining international audience but to show pride in what Pakistan really is and what great way is to present themselves in national language.