Artists castigate Sangeet Natak Akademi, boycott festival

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.

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