Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 24: To protest against the discriminatory attitude of Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) for neglecting important regional languages included Ladakhi, Pahari , Gojri and Punjabi in its much publicised four day Music and Theatre festival commencing here today at Abhinav Theatre – the artists community representing these neglected languages today announced total boycott the festival and sent strong worded letter to Prime Minister and other authorities
They were up in arm against the ‘Sangeet Natak Akademi’ , New Delhi,which is organising ‘Natya Samagama’ from September 24 to September 28 in Jammu for its biased approach towards State’s plural culture. The festival is being organised to showcase States plural ethos which is in complete without participation of all the sects of society, the SNA press note said.
“The artists of neglected languages in a joint statement termed this festival as an attempt to fork the plural and secular culture. The artists alleged that SNA has invited only Kashmiri and Dogri artists and ignored rest of languages spoken in the State.
They stated that we the speakers of Dogri, Kashmiri, Ladakhi, Gojri, Pahari and Punjabi live together as a part of States Culture but SNA wants a divergence amon JK communities and thus they neglected our languages, culture, artists to participate in this event.
The artists said , as per SNA officials around 600 artists from J&K are participating in the event but none from Ladakhi, Gojri , Pahari and Punjabi have been invited or booked to perform during the festival .
The artists said SNA is spending more than one crore rupees on this event but our artists have been pushed to wall in this ill conceived festival. Artists said they will shortly meet higher authorities against these discriminations on part of SNA for non representation of regional languages in the festival.
They jointly castigated the SNA authorities had sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Union Minister for Culture , Governor J&K, Chief Minister and SNA body demanding an inquiry into it.
Those artists who signed the statement and memorandum included Sonam Dolma, Shring Narbo, Farooq Pardesi, Joginderpal Singh Kuka, Razaq Dilnawaz, Deep Kour, Dilawar Khan, Awara Yusuf, Gulnaz Chowdhary, Master Kardar, K H Rather, Sugrand Sindhu, H S Jogi, Zakir Fayazi and others.