‘Gap between people and literature has caused intolerance’

Literature is a key to understanding people, society, culture and life. The phenomenon of tolerance is widely associated with the promotion of literature in society.

Prominent scholar and poet Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui expressed these views while delivering a lecture titled ‘Meeting with Legends’ at Prof Salimuzzaman Siddiqui Auditorium, International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), Karachi University.

He pointed out tolerant societies have strong ties with literature, but Pakistan has lost its virtue of tolerance as the gap between people and literature has widened in the past three or four decades and it has caused intolerance in society. Prof Siddiqui urged young scholars to come forward to protect their social and cultural values as the western civilisation was on the verge of overcoming the civilisation of the subcontinent, he maintained.

In the past, our society had versatile scholars and intellectuals, but now the society was passing through a critical era. Education was the only solution to the country’s problems, he said.