Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday said that the disappearance of a language means the loss of a distinctive way of understanding the world, as he inaugurated the Kashmir chapter of the University of Jammu’s Centre for Regional Studies at Rakhe Aarath in Bemina, Budgam.
Speaking at the event, Sinha stressed the need to preserve linguistic and cultural identities at a time of rapid globalisation. A region, he said, cannot be understood only through its geographical boundaries, maps and statistics. Its folk traditions, languages, art forms, religious heritage and the lived experiences of its people are equally essential to any real understanding of a place.
The Lieutenant Governor outlined the purpose of the new centre, which will focus on cultural heritage, language preservation, manuscript conservation, digital archiving, linguistic mapping and interdisciplinary research. For Kashmir, whose languages and written traditions have survived through centuries of change, a dedicated academic body for documenting and studying that inheritance carries particular significance, since many manuscripts and oral traditions remain vulnerable to neglect and loss.
Turning to artificial intelligence, Sinha said technological capability and emotional intelligence are complementary, and that emotional intelligence can make technology more useful, responsible and humane. He urged students to use modern technology to expand their capabilities while preserving independent thinking, ethical awareness, imagination and human identity.
“The future will belong to those capable of connecting different disciplines and facilitating dialogue between technology professionals, researchers and traditional artisans,” he said. The remark placed craft traditions and digital tools on the same stage, suggesting that the future of heritage lies in collaboration between the two rather than competition.
Sinha also emphasised cooperation among experts in linguistics, anthropology, ecology, economics, psychology and the arts. Such collaboration, he said, is needed to address challenges including climate change, migration and tourism-related issues, all of which bear directly on how communities live and how cultures endure. A linguist documenting a dialect, for example, may learn much from an ecologist who understands the landscape from which its vocabulary emerged.
He expressed confidence that the centre could emerge as a model for interdisciplinary research and draw scholars from other institutions.
The inauguration adds an academic dimension to the ongoing effort to safeguard the cultural identity of Jammu and Kashmir. If the centre delivers on its mandate, its linguistic maps, digital archives and conserved manuscripts could become lasting resources for students and researchers, and a reminder that preserving a language means preserving the knowledge, memory and imagination carried within it.
