KLF: an enduring legacy

They say time has wings and it certainly does when we consider events like the Karachi Literature Festival. It seems but yesterday that we had the first festival eight years ago, in 2010. Most recently we had the eighth one. What is most remarkable is the way its popularity grew over a mere eight years. While at the first one we had a mere 5,000 visitors, we had over 200,000 of them at the one held just a fortnight ago (February 10-12 at the Beach Luxury Hotel).

This is testament to the ever-growing popularity of the event. More than that, it is testament to the way the citizenry yearn for intellectual pursuits.

This is amply borne out by the way people from all segments of society streamed into the venue all three days of the event, from the most affluent, trendy and educated, from the swank localities of the city to the simplest folk from the conservative localities, and even from the urban backwaters. In a class-riddled, polarised society like ours where one class is suspicious of the other or looks upon the other in a condescending way, one would naturally expect unpleasant scenes to crop up, given the latent hostility among the various classes, but no. All through the three days of the festival and through the eight years of the event, no snide remarks were heard or fights or altercations witnessed. It was so heartening to see people of all social shades walking into the venue in the most disciplined manner, not at all mistrustful of -- or antagonistic to —each other.  

The three days turned out o be the most refreshing exercise intellectually. Apart from the highly informative speeches, there were eighty sessions on almost all subjects under the sun as wide-embracing as climate change at one end and films at the other, to books by Pakistani authors both here and those settled overseas.

The best spin-off of this was that it showcased the talent of our educated diaspora and how they had brought honour to the country and to a great extent erased the bad press the country had got, what with all those suicide attacks and destruction.

There was not a field from which luminaries were not invited from all over the country to speak -- and from overseas too. Perhaps the biggest achievement of the event is the way people have come to speak out on issues otherwise considered taboo by a society rapidly slipping into conservatism of the most extreme kind. People really gave vent to their views and feelings with the freedom they otherwise could never dream of. It provided a forum for all to vent their views without compunction or fear. This is a mighty achievement given the fact that freedom of thought or speech in our society is becoming a forbidden commodity and so many have had to pay with their lives for speaking out what they deemed the truth.

At none of the sessions did one witness fiery or acrimonious exchanges on issues. Things were debated most amiably. Most of all, the event turned out to be a fountain of information. So many things that none of us had ever read in our textbooks or our curricula were imparted to us through these sessions or speeches.

Billed the literature festival, it was much more than just literature and encompassed things like international affairs, sociology, politics, history, imparted to the visitors in the most erudite of manner. As for literature, it included literature of all the ethnic and cultural groups inhabiting Pakistan and was a very informative event in that respect too. The main reason it is billed the literature festival is because it showcases writings by literary talent, both in Pakistan and within the Pakistani diaspora.

Another respect wherein the festival was an improvement over the first one was the venue. While the first one in 2010 was held at a venue so far removed from the centre of the city and too far for people inhabiting the remote corners of town, with crammed capacity, this one was held in the expansive lawns of the Beach Luxury, just by the seaside on sunny spring mornings with the balmy atmosphere that goes with it.

Mrs Ameena Saiyid, managing director, Oxford University Press (Pakistan), and Dr Asif Aslam Farrukhi, the co-founder of the festival, deserve all the laurels for having given the citizenry such food for intellectual thought and pursuits, as do the Oxford University Press and the British Council as the two were the pioneers of the event. All thanks and praise to all of them. It was following the lead provided by the British Council that other foreign missions and cultural organisations became associated with the festival, like the consulates-general of Germany, Italy, France, the US, and foreign cultural organisations in a big way and began to institute prizes at the festival.

It is on account of the innovative efforts of Mrs Saiyid and Dr Farrukhi that the festival has come to top the calendar of social and cultural events in town, the most eagerly awaited one.