Books and readers

How many of those rioting, killing, burning had ever read a word of the book they were protesting against, I wonder?

In the last year, Bahawalpur has got itself a decent bookshop. There have always been bookshops here of course, but they tended to cater to the vast education industry hereabouts rather than the general reader. You got a choice of a smattering of bestsellers or the hot textbook of your choice. But not anymore. Hardback copies of internationally popular, and not so popular, titles are now on display. Cheap they are not but they are originals not photocopied bootleg editions.

I have been buying there regularly and went in to see if they had the Malala Yousufzai book. They did not, and looked somewhat beady-eyed at my inquiry. It was bought at one of the bigger bookshops in Islamabad after some digging around as several places had sold out, one of my regular haunts having sold over 100 in three days and awaiting an order.



Back in Bahawalpur and a conversation with a friend who had borrowed my copy of I am Malala, and it was he that told me that the book was now on sale in Bahawalpur at the very shop I had made inquiries at and was selling like hotcakes.

Then there was the TV debate in which one of Pakistan’s leading scientists and intellectuals was considerably insulted by a couple of hoary old warhorse journos while debating the book, and now we have the manufactured ‘controversy’ around the banning of the book from the curriculum of private schools in Punjab.

To the best of my — quite considerable — knowledge there was never any proposal for the inclusion of the book in any school curriculum, public or private. Nor can I see any reason for it to be, any more than I can see a reason to include the book written by gang-rape survivor Mukhtaran Mai or the latest magnum opus by our past ambassador to Washington that analyses the dysfunctionality of the Pakistan-US relationship.

Although the three books I mention above are all very different, they do have a common link. They were all published initially outside of Pakistan and their three authors have been on the receiving end of considerable plaudits internationally but vilified, abused and almost demonised in large sections of the chatterati in their home countries.

Given that a majority of the population is illiterate and living in grinding poverty, they will have never read, seen or possibly even heard of any of these books. Their readership is confined to what amounts to an elite, people rich enough to afford them and with access to the media in all its platforms and formats to subsequently talk themselves into lexical knots dissecting them.

At best, there are going to be a few tens of thousands of people in Pakistan, who collectively will buy and more importantly read, all three. In terms of actual readership as a percentage of the total population, the numbers are almost at sub-atomic levels in terms of size. The reaction to them appears disproportional to their readership, as was the reaction to another book by a well-known author that sparked death and destruction, and had the author living in fear of his life and under police protection ever since. How many of those rioting and killing and burning had ever read a word of the book they were protesting against, I wonder?

The power of books can extend far beyond those who hold them in their hands and read them. They can inspire, terrify and in some cases, bring about profound social change. But every book has to be written, and without writing, there are no books and with no books, there is no learning and where do we learn — at school. A little knowledge is a proverbially dangerous thing, but equally proverbially, the pen is mightier than the sword. Pakistan needs books now perhaps more than it ever has. Buy them if you can, but borrow if you cannot.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2013.

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