During the last 66 years, Bengalis, Sindhis, Pakhtuns and Baloch have been declared traitors turn by turn but Punjabis — never
Bitter truth about the composition and character of the Pakistani state where Punjab is dominant and others are dominated.
Since more than a decade, Pakistan has been in the grip of religious extremism, which has now assumed the proportions of more than just a crisis. Pakistani society as a whole is occupied by chaotic conditions while the Pakistani state is facing the severest challenge to its authority, so much so that for the first time in 66 years, the guardians of Pakistan (read the military) have changed their security doctrine, replacing the external threat with an internal one as the number one challenge.
This scourge of religious extremism, threatening both the state and society, is nowadays the most dominant issue in the Pakistani media, discussed and explored from different angles and aspects. One such aspect, which is increasingly acquiring more importance and space, is the position in/of different provinces regarding religious extremism and terrorism.
Sindhi is a major world language and one of the great literary languages of Indus civilization, with more than 19 million speakers in Pakistan, more than a million in India and growing numbers in communities throughout the world. Yet this language of poetic masterpieces like the Risalo of the great sufi poet, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, remains little known and neglected even among scholars of the Subcontinent. Addleton and Brown’s work for the first time offers linguists, students of religion, anthropologists, and second generation Sindhis in the West a practical and systematic introduction to the vocabulary and grammar of spoken and written Sindhi. First developed for English speakers living and working in southern Pakistan, Addleton and Brown’s work has recently been revised and updated, and is now the best available pedagogical introduction to Sindhi for English speakers. Sindhi: An Introductory Course for English Speakers will be of interest not only to linguists and scholars, but to anyone interested in the culture, language and heritage of the Sindhi people.
Indus Asia Online Journal (iaoj) 