By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The former governor of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Pir Syed Karam Ali Shah has said that people of Chitral and GB are upholding fast the resemblance of their ways of living, customs and civilization as well as the language and literature despite the fact that they were living in two non-contiguous regions which remained cut off from each other for four months of winter.
In an exclusive interview with a Chitral-based online newspapers, here on Friday during his private visit to Chitral, he expressed his deep apprehension over the process of corrosion that is set to plague their traditional base, culture and may change them beyond recognition.
He said that the undergoing changes were too elusive to be checked as social change was too inevitable as with the advent of modern time and improvement of road infrastructures , both the areas were opened to the outsiders who came here for trade, service and tourism.
“The people of Chitral and GB are gullible in nature who easily and readily trusted on aliens and they are accommodative to other cultures which made them lose their cultural entities and social mores to others.
The Khowar language being spoken in the district of Chitral and the two districts Ghizar and Gilgit of GB is on the hit list of the change which is invariably losing its basic identity by absorbing the characteristics of the non-local languages.
There were eight languages being spoken in GB out of which Khowar had a significant position and similarly in Chitral too, there were twelve different languages spoken in its different valleys segregated from each other out of many have extinct and although Khowar is not facing the same fate of extinction but it does faces transformation to mixtures of alien languages of Pushto, Punjabi, Urdu and English.
Such a situation is quite looming large over Khowar in both the regions where youth folk have almost no interest of their language as they are easily influenced by Urdu, Pushto and Punjabi languages”, he said.
Mr. Shah said that the dress code has underwent among the youth folk to an irreversible level and during the course of time both the regions have consigned to oblivion a number of their costumes which were of customary nature.
He said that the GB youth’s is affected by Punjab and that of Chitral by Pakhtun due to their vivid interaction with them due to proximity of their respective regions while the educated youth of the regions have almost switched over to the English code of dress which they also take as a source of their elevation on social level.
“The terrifying and fear-provoking effects and results of the changes have started in the social level in both the regions where the traditional and usual cordial relations between the old and the young generations based on respect and reverence is seldom in practice.
The youth folk of Chitral and GB were known for their docility and submissiveness to their elders and they dared not to talk in loud voice in front of them but the situation has changed altogether which is driving a wedge between the two generations”, he said.
Mr. Shah said that the situation can still be controlled from going to the worst if the intelligentsia on both the sides come out with a conceptual device aimed at creating mass awareness in the society to discern between the obnoxious and convivial changes.