Srinagar/ Jammu: National Conference (NC) President Farooq Abdullah Sunday said that every effort should be made to protect the linguistic diversity of J&K.
A statement of NC issued here said that in his message on the International Mother Tongue Day, Abdullah said that the mother tongue should be the medium of instruction in schools, especially at the formative stages.
“Mother tongue lays a strong foundation for the expression of creativity and personality development. It also fosters creativity at the formative stages. As far as the Kashmiri language is concerned, it is richly endowed with classical as well as folk literature watered over thousands of years by various poets, sages, rhetoricians, and linguists. Having a large number of speakers, Kashmiri enjoys the privilege of being one of 22 languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule, yet that does not put the language at risk of getting extinct. Radical steps need to be taken to protect and propagate it. Urdu, no doubt glues all the people of J&K together, but languages like Kashmiri, Dogri, Gojri, Pahari, and Punjabi should not be relegated to obscurity.”
In a separate statement, the former chief minister called for a larger role of women in policy and decision-making.