Young people should be exposed to good literature: federal education minister

Sixth ILF ends on an enthusiastic note; discussions held on various topics

ISLAMABAD: The sixth Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF) concluded on Sunday-an event that brought joy to booklovers, literati and cultural enthusiasts.

The young people of Pakistan should be exposed to good and wholesome literature to develop healthy minds and healthy life, said Federal Minister for Education, Professional Training, National History and Literary Heritage Shafqat Mehmood.

Speaking at the conclusion of ILF he said although the government was striving to bring education system in line with technological advancements around the world, it was fully cognisant of the need, especially of our young population, to quench their thirst for knowledge through the reading habit.

“The ILF has become a regular event in this city that we all look forward to with great excitement. I must congratulate OUP Managing Director Hussain and his entire team for organising the festival and bringing together so many men and women of letters as well as renowned exponents of Pakistani culture and the arts. They have given to the people a sense of pride in Pakistan’s literary and cultural traditions which are second to none.

“As the federal minister responsible for education and literary heritage besides my other portfolios, I am really grateful to the OUP for having chosen Islamabad as a venue for an annual literature festival. In this way, they have rendered a great service to the nation. They have brought people closer to their roots. This is also one of the prime agendas of our national education policy."

People must have found out after attending the ILF that there is so much quality work being done in their own country. When they come to events like the ILF, they discover the inherent richness of our culture and our literary traditions. I commend the OUP for its great endeavours.

As a part of the closing ceremony, keynote speeches were made by Dr Ishrat Husain and Anwar Maqsood.

A Ghazal Night featuring the semi-classical music maestro Ustad Hamid Ali Khan was organised with support from the Tehzeeb Foundation.

The sixth ILF was a very informative and insightful event. It underlined the need for more such events to be held in other cities of Pakistan. Karachi and Lahore already have their own annual literature festivals but other parts of the country must also receive such rich exposure. Literature Festivals infuse new life into the intellectual well-being of a people and provide an opportunity for exchange of constructive thoughts and ideas across all social and economic boundaries.

The day started with a discussion on ‘Pakistan's Foreign Policy Challenges’ with Talat Masood, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and Abdul Basit as speakers and Salma Malik as the moderator. This was followed by a panel discussion on the subject, ‘Depicting Women in Literature and Drama.’ The participants were Haseena Moin, Asghar Nadeem Syed and Shahnaz Sheikh. The moderator was Maheen Usmani.

Another popular session on the last day turned out to be ‘Shanul Haq Haqqee ki Yaad Mein’ featuring Anwar Maqsood, Fateh Muhammad Malik, Haseena Moin, and Shayan Haqqee. The panel discussion on Ishrat Husain’s book ‘Pakistan: The Economy of an Elitist State’ drew a lot of interest. Along with the author, Asad Umar, Waqar Masood Khan and Melinda Good discussed the important subject of the publication. The moderator was Sakib Sherani. In the panel discussion on ‘Pakistani Cinema: The Rise, The Fall…and the Rise again?’, a large audience turned up to eagerly hear the participants Humayun Saeed, Usman Mukhtar, Khalid Saeed Butt, Naghma Begum, Areeba Alvi and Nadeem Baig. Raju Jamil was the moderator of the session.

A great number of art enthusiasts turned up at the launch of the book ‘Radioactive Decade: An Informal Cultural History of the 1970s’. The editors of the volume Amin Gulgee and Niilofur Farrukh spoke about the book along with the art critics Aasim Akhtar, Nadia Batool and Salman Asif. Omar Shahid Hamid’s latest novel ‘The Fix’ was launched on the occasion. The session was moderated by Nadeem Farooq Paracha.

Another important session was ‘Contemporary Pakistani English Fiction’ in which Soniah Kamal, Haroon Khalid Akhtar, Taha Kehar and Sana Munir were the speakers while Ilona Yusuf was the moderator.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2019.