The endangered Chitrali culture

Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. But in Chitral, the culture has limited meaning that is music and at maximum includes polo. Under big banner titled “Chitral cultural show “music programmes are arranged. If we keep the definition of culture in mind, that types of shows could be called “Chitrali music show” as it is one part of the culture. We have totally ignored rest of cultural activities, like in wedding, death, food, numerous other activities, are endangered to extinction. The dowry which is not part of our culture is now common and flourishing in Chitral which is at first un-Islamic and is not part of our culture. We rather have Islamic culture that is daughters must be given share in father’s property. We never discuss the culture of wedding, like “koli bar”, “ghachi nisik”, and many other activities before, during, and after weddings. Nobody talks about the traditional foods of Chitral, after Sh. Hisam Ul Mulk of Drosh who used to write about Chitrali foods. What happened to culture-cum-Islamic practice of sending food to Masajid till one year after death of someone in the family? It is noticed that people hardly get together to burry when a poor man in community dies. In deaths the culture of helping each other, sending food to the in affected family by the neighbors, are getting weaker with the passage of time. People in community used to help each other in building new home through yardoyee, is no more seen. Similarly, the tradition of phindik, salgharayek, pathak are not celebrated in and eager and full zeal, that needs encouragement. A forum of “Khowar Saqafat” encircling many aspects of our culture has been initiated in the area of Chapali and Kargin in upper Chitral through the efforts of respected Mohammad Ghazi, Murad Akbar and others. Supporting such activities is responsibility of everyone who loves Chitral. Through this write-up I will request Sh.Tanveer and other new panel of “Anjuman” to think about these issues, and be considerate and differentiate between Cultural programme and music programme. I hope the new panel will try to organize cultural programme portraying not only music rather other cultural activities as well. Kalash and their culture is integral part of Chitrali culture, in past decade a lot of changes have occurred in Kalash culture, and we must think of taking care of Kalash culture as well, I will request the new cabinet to include a representative from Kalash community in the panel. We must keep in mind that our cultural values are very fragile, ordinary people are adopting Pathan or Punjabi even Indian cultures, and educated ones trying their best to look like English gentleman.]]>