For a society that is so conspicuously barren in the cultural and intellectual domain, Pakistan has surprisingly yielded such a rich harvest of literary festivals. And the tenth edition of the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) this weekend has coincided with a fresh India-Pakistan military standoff, marked by some dramatic developments during the week.
This juxtaposition has particularly been underlined by the inability of a number of prominent writers and scholars to reach Karachi to participate in the event. The timing of the temporary closure of Pakistan’s airspace has deprived the KLF of its entire cast of invitees from abroad. For some outstation domestic guests, the situation was expected to improve after partial restoration of flights since Friday evening.
We thus have, in this situation, some incentives for literary imagination. Endemic hostility between India and Pakistan has its human dimension, affecting the lives of countless individuals. In a constantly changing world, often at a revolutionary pace, these two countries have, in a sense, refused to grow up. That is how we have to contend with what is happening at this time.
Against this backdrop, the fact that the KLF was actually launched on Friday is in itself remarkable. I know of some other events that were called off because of the security situation and a massive disruption in air transportation. In a larger context, the disarray must have touched innumerable families, with passengers stranded in distant locations.
Talking about literature festivals, it was the KLF that planted the seed ten years ago. Then there was the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF), the seventh edition of which was held last weekend. Happy or not, all these festivals are alike, though the LLF may have been more elitist in its design. There have been other festivals in other Pakistani cities, held on a relatively small scale.
In circumstances that are quite unsavoury, the KLF has also created its reincarnation. Hence, the first three-day Adab Pakistan Festival was staged at the Sindh Governor’s House with the advent of February. It was the outcome of the separation of KLF founders Ameena Saiyid and Asif Farrukhi from the Oxford University Press that, in a sense, owns the brand. In any case, the Adab Festival too was a success.
Last weekend in Karachi, we had a three-day Sindh Literature Festival with its Urdu stream. This was in addition to a similar event that is held in Hyderabad. This fever is really contagious. They are having one in Gwadar next week. In November, I had the opportunity of attending the Faisalabad Literature Festival; it was the fifth edition of the festival and very impressive in its content as well as presentation.
Meanwhile, we also have this Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest, a more literary and academic version of literature festival. It originated in Lahore and its second edition in Karachi is expected in November this year. Another variation on the theme that I find interesting is the annual Lahooti Melo held at Hyderabad and I was happy to attend its fourth edition last month. This two-day event essentially celebrates music and that is the attraction for youth. But it also includes discussion on various issues and the stated idea is to inspire social change. This year, the theme was: “An ode to a liberated woman”.
That this year the Melo was held on the premises of the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, is truly encouraging. Usually, our public universities do not allow such cultural activities, particularly when the message being conveyed is liberal and progressive.
Now, it may be worthwhile to explore the contribution that these festivals are making in terms of raising awareness and promoting art, literature and other creative pursuits. One observation is that the same people – the literati, so to say – get together to talk about the same issues. On the face of it, there has not been any noticeable increase in the publication and sale of books. But the festivals are great as social events.
At the same time, a literature festival usually offers a rich feast with discussions on a range of topics that are relevant and of wide interest. One measure of this is that one festival would normally assemble around 200 speakers and panellists, including from abroad, with scores of sessions. This is how this weekend’s KLF was planned.
Because of the emergency, the two keynote speakers billed for the inaugural session on Friday – Deborah Baker and I A Rehman – could not make it. However, we had distinguished stand-ins in the persons of Zehra Nigah and Muneeza Shamsie. Both of them referred to the India-Pakistan crisis and Zehra Nigah lauded the latest development of the release of the captured Indian pilot.
Though she must have drafted it in a frightful hurry, Muneeza Shamsie’s paper raised the pertinent issue of censorship and the confusion that is created by disinformation injected by digital technology. In this perspective, she commended the opportunity that is provided by a literature festival “for informed, stimulating discussions in an atmosphere which is open and free and is not hampered by fears of censorship”.
She invoked her own experience of writing and researching her literary history titled ‘Hybrid Tapestries: the Development of Pakistani Literature in English’ and said that “the repetitive thread that kept jumping out at me was censorship”. For her, “it would seem that the greatest threat to all of us are words – the spoken word and the written word”.
Muneeza Shamsie said: “But what really bothers me is how deeply entrenched the idea of censorship has become in our society, regardless of the truth. In a sense we are all to blame because a free press and freedom of creative expression is not really something that ordinary citizens stand up for – and sadly we have come to such a pass that we can no longer differentiate between free speech and free propaganda”.
One important point she made was that if there had been a free press and a regard for an open discourse and blunt questions “we may have had more of a clue about senseless violence in our midst”.
Take this as just one example of thoughts that a literature festival can agitate in the minds of a discerning audience. Unfortunately, the scope for such interaction remains very restricted. Ideally, these issues should also be raised in the popular media. In addition, all crucial issues of national significance have to be regularly explored on the campuses of our universities.
I have noted how this the KLF is being held under the shadow of highly inflammable tensions between India and Pakistan. And this is something we have to think deeply about.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com
