The Baloch community on Wednesday celebrated its cultural festival in educational institutions, parks and public points.
Different awareness ceremonies were held in Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab. In these ceremonies, experts, Baloch intellectuals, professors, lecturers, and political figures discussed the significance of preserving Baloch culture.
Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC) had directed all its zones to conduct ceremonies on the occasion. The organisational zones conducted awareness ceremonies in Dera Ghazi Khan, Quetta, Karachi, Turbat and Hyderabad. People participated in big numbers in the ceremonies.
In a statement, a central spokesperson for BSAC said that every nation had a separate national identity and culture. If a nation departed from its culture, he added, preserving its national identity would be impossible for the particular nation. “It is mandatory for living nations to observe their culture which is directly connected with the national identity,” the spokesperson maintained.
The Turbat zone of BSAC held the ceremony in Atta Shad Degree College, where a healthy number of students, literary figures, Baloch singers and other people participated. The programme included Baloch cultural musical instruments, speeches, the Baloch cultural dance (Do chapi), poetries and so forth.
The Baloch national anthem was sung by Baloch singers Muslim Hammal, Asumi Baloch, Zahid Baloch and Arif Kareem. Students shared poems in the Balochi language resembling the ancient Baloch societal set up, norms and traditions.
Ghani Parwaz was the chief guest of the ceremony. Addressing the gathering, he congratulated the Baloch nation who was conscious about their culture and its importance. He said that culture was an important factor for nations. “The most important thing to preserve a nation’s identity is keeping its culture safe from extinction,” Parwaz said. He added that writing and reading in “your own language” ought to be given priority so that it was successfully transferred to the coming generation.
Nadeem Akram, a Baloch poet and lecturer at Atta Shad College, said that the Baloch nation was lucky that it belonged to a nation with a beautiful and codified culture. The lecturer discussed various aspects of the Baloch cultural marriages. He further said that culture was not only the name of keeping beards or physical appearance, “but we need to be practical in our actions and traditions by becoming bold, brave and must not fear as our forefathers”.
In the Quetta zone of the BSAC, lecturers belonging to the cultural departments addressed the gathering where they spoke about the significance of culture. They discussed different aspects of culture and compared Baloch culture with the other cultures of the world.
Beebagr Baloch, a victim of an attack on a cultural ceremony in Khuzdar back in 2010, spoke to the gathering about the purpose of choosing March 2 as Baloch Culture Day, saying that it was the toughest task for them whether or not to celebrate the day.
“We had to celebrate it so that we could secure our culture from extinction,” he said. He was a member of the Baloch Students Organisation in Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology Khuzdar (BUETK). He said that when they were celebrating the day, hand grenades were hurled at them which resulted in the martyrdom of two of their fellow members. “My backbone was injured which paralyzed my entire body,” Beebagr said.
