KARACHI: On the last day of the four-day “18th International Urdu Conference 2025 flagged “Celebration of Pakistan” - organized by the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi - the audience and the intellectuals from many countries approved several resolutions for the development and promotion of Urdu.
These resolutions are addressed to our federal and provincial governments, and all those individuals and institutions that are responsible for the promotion of knowledge, literature, education and culture according to the Constitution of Pakistan.
President of the Arts Council, Muhammad Ahmed Shah, read out the resolutions, which were approved by show of hands. The following are the resolutions:
(1) Peace is an indispensable need of human society and is the biggest problem of the world today. We, the writers and intellectuals, believe that wars, terrorism and arms race are all obstacles to the development of the human society. So we speak of establishing peace and raise our voices in its favor.
(2) The conference strongly condemns the genocide of innocent people in Palestine and fully support their right to self-determination and appeal to the international community to stop the atrocities on the Palestinians and play its role for their rights.
(3) All the writers of Pakistan fully support the right of self-determination of the oppressed Kashmiris against India’s occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. They also demanded a solution to this long-standing issue by the international community. “We consider the crushing of India’s expansionist arrogance by the Pakistani army as a great achievement, on which the entire nation is proud.”
(4) For promoting harmony, the interaction of writers and poets of different mother tongues should be increased, delegations should be organized between the provinces. The government, realizing its responsibilities, should establish a translation office so that translations of literature into national and foreign languages can be arranged.
(5) All resources should be utilized in the field of translations of Urdu literature into foreign languages so that our literature and writers can be given effective opportunities for recognition at the global level.
(6) The conference insists on promoting contacts with writers, poets, intellectuals and artists from all over the world. For strengthening these contacts, problems of immigration between different countries should be resolved and obtaining visas should be made easy.
(7) The conference raises voice for the publication, distribution and promotion of books, magazines and newspapers in Pakistan. The conference demands the introduction of special concessional schemes on expensive paper, printing and other printing processes to make them easy and less expensive.
(8) We demand that the media, especially electronic media and social media, should play a responsible role to ensure use of correct language and cultural values.
(9) The conference believes that every Pakistani child has the right to go to school, but unfortunately over ten million children are deprived of basic education.
Keeping in mind the requirements of the present era in the country, the current curriculum, especially scientific subjects, should be reorganized on an urgent basis so that our students can prove their abilities all over the world.
(10) As per decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, important steps should be taken to popularize Urdu as the official language, which has also been announced by the Prime Minister. The people, particularly the literary class, have been demanding necessary and serious steps to implement this decision for many years, today this World Urdu Conference repeats the demand once again.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025