Iqbal anniversary: Audience unimpressed by speakers’ line-up

73rd death anniversary seminar offers little insight into national poet.


Saleha Rauf April 22, 2011

LAHORE:


The Markazia Majlis-i-Iqbal organised a seminar at Aiwan-i-Iqbal to mark the 73rd death anniversary of national poet Allama Iqbal on Thursday, but the audience was disappointed by a perceived lack of expertise on the panel.


The main speaker at the event was Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan, who spoke about politics. He claimed that Balochistan alone had mineral deposits worth $260 billion, enough to pay off the national debt of $62 billion and still leave the country rich.

Khan said it was a leader’s duty to inspire people with his vision of a better tomorrow, not tell them that their dreams were impossible. He said Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the only Pakistani leader who had invested his money within the country.

After Khan’s speech, most of the audience left. The other speakers included critic Prof Akram Ikram, who said Iqbal had stressed that Muslims must unite as one nation and he believed that this was not possible without equal rights.

“Iqbal wanted the nation to become self sufficient and not depend on any other country. Unfortunately we have not been able to achieve this target yet,” he said.

Adem Akzedg, a Turkish critic, did a critical analysis of the poetry of Iqbal inspired by the Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi.

Dr Raheeq Abbasi of Tehreek-i-Minhajul Quran criticised politicians, saying they often misquoted Iqbal when citing the poet’s verses. The other speakers were Nusrat Mirza, Sajjad Mir, Ataul Haq Qasmi and Abid Ghauri of Sunni Tehreek. Mian Afzal Hayat presided over the seminar.

Faryal Asghar, a Punjab University student in the audience, said he was disappointed by the seminar, “I came with high hopes. I expected an intellectual debate but apart from some people, they were giving their own meaning to Iqbal’s work,” he said. Critic Ahmad Hammad described the event as a “total disappointment”. He said: “I’m a big fan of Iqbal and a student of philosophy. It hurts when you see the works of a real thinker being misinterpreted at prestigious places like this.”

He said Pakistanis were guilty in general of ignoring Iqbal’s legacy. He complained that Hazoori Bagh, where Iqbal and other scholars used to gather and discuss literature and poetry, was now a place to pick up drugs and prostitutes.

Thursday was also the last and busiest day of a book fair at Aiwan-i-Iqbal. One of the visitors was a student who said that he had come for the seminar, but went to the book fair instead when he saw there would be no scholars speaking at the seminar.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22nd, 2011.

COMMENTS (1)

Yunus kirmani | 12 years ago | Reply Good reporting of seminar
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ