The Official launching of the above mentioned association was held at the Theatre of the Municipal Council of Port-Louis, on Saturday the 25th Nov. 2006, at 14 00 hrs.
The Vice President of the Republic of Mauritius, Mr. Raouf Bundhun and the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Infrastructure, Dr. Rashid Beebeejaun, the Minister of land and Housing, Mr. Asraff Dulull, The High Commissioner of Pakistan Syed Hassan Javed and other distinguished personalities were present for this function.
The President of the society, Mr. Farouq Rujul, during his speech: “Amidst the multi dimensional transformation the world is at present experiencing, we, all are beckoned to determine the identity, interest of the beautiful language Urdu and role it has to play within our Republic of Mauritius and within a broader environment.
The obstacles that have been central to the propagation of the language in the past have to be critically reviewed and reassessed and the spectrum of the present and future challenges have to be embraced with realistic optimism and confidence. The process whereby this can be realized has to be meticulously crafted and implemented in order to enhance and optimize the role of Urdu in our present day society.
In this regard, some sincere Urdu Lovers have been deliberating for several years to determine and design the best approach to initiate the process of promoting the Urdu Language. To this end, was launched the ’Society of the Promotion of Urdu’ (SPU).”
On that auspicious occasion, the book ‘Rehbaran’ was also launched jointly by the Vice President of the Republic of Mauritius and the Deputy Prime Minister. The book is a collection of biographies of the ‘lives and achievements’ of eleven of those pioneers of Urdu in Mauritius, who have left no stone unturned to preserve the cultural heritage of the wonderful language of Urdu, viz Yusuf HEERAH, Munshi Abdul Hai AHMADI, Hosman Amode MOHUNG, A. Wahab FOONDUN, Nookman BHATOO, Ayoob PEERALLY, Elias NOORMAMODE, Rahim PARAOUTY, Shaukat Ali EMAMDEEN, Syed Ghulam Mohammad RAHMATULLAH and Amode HANZAREE. Furthermore, a ‘Lifetime achievement shield’ was awarded posthumously to the family of those pioneers.
The Deputy Prime Minister has put emphasis on the importance of preserving one’s culture and added that the present government is doing its maximum to help all socio-cultural societies equally; but unluckily there are many gossips that are going on outside making people to believe that the government is doing favour to a particular community, after the government has taken back the plots of land in the Ebene area from socio cultural groups. In fact, he added, the construction in these areas would cost a lot and the government is attempting every endeavour to find other suitable places for same.
Click HERE to view the URDU version.
