Prof. Shyam Narayan Lal
Over the last few years, the University of Jammu has gradually assumed a deeper role-not merely as an academic institution devoted to teaching and research, but as an important platform for engaging with the cultural life of the region. In an environment where universities are often viewed primarily as centres of instruction and professional training, the University of Jammu has increasingly recognized its wider responsibility toward the society and the region it serves. This recognition stems from a clear understanding: that the rich cultural life of Jammu cannot remain confined to memory, sentiment, or informal transmission alone. Rather, it requires careful examination, thoughtful articulation, and meaningful placement within structured academic and public discourse so that its traditions, expressions, and lived experiences receive sustained recognition, interpretation, and continuity.
It is in this spirit that the University of Jammu is undertaking yet another important initiative to articulate the cultural identity of the region through the organization of “Jammuiyat: Sahitya-Sanskriti Samagam”, to be held from 13-14 March. Conceived not merely as a cultural gathering but as an intellectual intervention, the Samagam seeks to bring diverse stakeholders together within a shared space of reflection, creativity, and dialogue. It aims to encourage deeper engagement with the question of how the Jammu region understands, expresses, and represents its own cultural self. At its core lies a simple but profound conviction: identity requires articulation, memory demands documentation, and heritage needs platforms that sustain it beyond nostalgia.
The idea of foregrounding the cultural spectrum of Jammu did not emerge suddenly. Its roots lie in a gradual institutional process that began nearly four years ago, when the University campus started consciously organising cultural initiatives specific to the region. The formation and strengthening of student clubs and cultural societies became an important milestone in this journey. These clubs were envisioned not merely as extracurricular bodies but as living laboratories of culture-spaces where young minds engage with inherited traditions while simultaneously reinterpreting them in contemporary ways. Within these forums, students rediscover their linguistic, artistic, and historical roots with curiosity and renewed ownership.
Through these initiatives, the campus has slowly evolved into a vibrant cultural ecosystem. Conversations about heritage now extend beyond classrooms into rehearsals, exhibitions, recitals, theatre workshops, and student-led projects. The energy of youth revitalises traditions that might otherwise have remained confined to archives. What once seemed distant becomes immediate; what appeared static becomes experiential. In this environment, students do not merely inherit identity-they actively participate in shaping and transmitting it. These clubs therefore represent more than an administrative innovation; they signal the emergence of a quiet cultural renaissance within the University.
The forthcoming “Jammuiyat: Sahitya-Sanskriti Samagam” must therefore be understood not as a stand-alone event, but as the organic culmination of this sustained intellectual and cultural commitment. Envisioned as a comprehensive literary and cultural platform, the Samagam will bring together writers, poets, historians, linguists, artists, theatre practitioners, archivists, scholars, students, and representatives of civil society from across the Jammu division.
Beyond the framework of conventional literary gatherings, the Samagam seeks to operate simultaneously at multiple interconnected levels. Literary discussions will critically engage with regional writing in Dogri, Gojri, Pahari, Bhaderwahi, Kishtwari, Punjabi, and Urdu, bringing issues of translation, manuscript traditions, and contemporary literary expression into scholarly dialogue. Academic panels will explore questions of historiography, oral memory, folklore, and the politics of cultural representation, encouraging young researchers to undertake archival recovery and ethnographic documentation. Poetry recitals and storytelling sessions will revive oral traditions that have long served as repositories of community memory, while book launches and author-student interactions will foster intergenerational dialogue between established scholars and emerging writers.
The Samagam will also extend beyond literary engagement into the broader creative and performative arts. Curated theatre performances based on regional narratives, staged readings of historical texts, documentary screenings on Jammu’s cultural landscapes, and live demonstrations by traditional artisans will form an integral part of the programme. Basohli painters, wood carvers, metal craftsmen, weavers, folk musicians, and storytellers will share their art in an interactive setting, allowing audiences to experience culture as a living practice rather than as a static exhibition. Dedicated sessions on culinary heritage will highlight the region’s food traditions as repositories of ecological wisdom and community memory. Craft exhibitions and showcases of local produce will further underline the intimate relationship between culture and livelihood, emphasising dignity of labour and sustainable local economies.
Equally significant is the Samagam’s emphasis on documentation and knowledge creation. The festival will not conclude with performances alone; it will invest in long-term preservation and scholarship. Proceedings will be systematically recorded, archived, and potentially published in the form of edited volumes, digital repositories, and audio-visual collections. Student volunteers and research scholars will be trained in oral history documentation, digital archiving, and heritage mapping, enabling them to record local traditions, dialects, folk narratives, and artistic practices that are at risk of fading from collective memory. In this way, the Samagam seeks to transform itself into a dynamic laboratory of cultural documentation and public scholarship.
Importantly, the Samagam is not conceived as an inward-looking celebration confined within the University campus. It represents an open invitation to the wider civil society of Jammu. Cultural identity cannot be sustained by institutions alone; it lives equally in the practices of writers, theatre groups, artisans, teachers, journalists, historians, publishers, and ordinary citizens who carry forward memory through everyday life. The festival therefore calls upon society to move beyond appreciation toward active participation-to contribute personal archives, curate performances, mentor emerging artists, publish regional voices, and document traditions that might otherwise fade with time. In a culturally diverse region like Jammu, such shared stewardship becomes not merely desirable but essential.
Such recognition carries a deep emotional resonance. It restores dignity to dialects spoken within homes, to songs rising from fields and courtyards, to crafts patiently shaped by hand, and to stories gently carried across generations. It reminds the region that what may once have appeared peripheral to dominant narratives is, in fact, foundational to its civilizational strength. In this realisation emerges a renewed sense of self-belief-measured, inclusive, and grounded. It affirms that the cultural voice of Jammu is neither marginal nor fragmented, but layered, resilient, and worthy of sustained engagement.
The deeper promise of the Jammuiyat: Sahitya-Sanskriti Samagam lies in this collective coming together. When institutions and communities stand side by side, culture ceases to be an object of nostalgia and becomes a shared commitment. Within that commitment resides not only pride in inheritance but confidence in continuity. It opens a hopeful horizon-one in which future generations inherit not uncertainty about who they are, but clarity, continuity, and a living sense of belonging.
(The author is Chairperson, Anadam , the Centre for Happiness IIM Jammu)
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