KARACHI: The second day of the 7th International Urdu Conference began with a session on the new trends in fiction.

Ambreen Haseeb Ambar read out a paper in which she suggested that those who had taken upon themselves to write fiction would keep doing so whatever the circumstances may be.

Akhlaq Ahmed spoke on whether contemporary fiction was in sync with the issues faced by society. He drew the attention of the guests to the situation that writers had become cautious; they knew that religious extremism was gnawing at society’s soul but they were reluctant to express it in order to feign neutrality. At the heart of it all lay the fear of persecution, he added.

Indian critic Anees Ashfaq traced the trajectory of the Indian novel from the early 1970s to 2002. He mentioned that the fast-changing sociopolitical situation in Indian society, beginning from the time when emergency was imposed, had an impact on Urdu writers. Their topics ranged from issues related to communalism to regionalism and power struggle. He quoted from quite a few novels a few of which were Dau Gaz Zameen (Abdul Samad), Fire Area (Ilyas Ahmed) and Bisaat (Iqbal Majeed).

Amjad Tufail touched upon the possibilities that new writings entailed.

Mubin Mirza quoted Asad Mohammad Khan who had once suggested that fiction writers needed to create their own idiom to make their presence felt.

Zahida Hina read out a paper on the remarkable women (Abbasi Begum, Rashid Jahan, etc) who in the span of 99 years put pen to paper on subjects which demanded courage and resilience.

Najmul Hasan Rizvi through the character of Baba Afsana lamented that in conferences and seminars people got to listen to poetry but short fiction was left alone to be analysed. The conference had put the critic in the foreground and pushed the creative person in the background, he said.

The second session was on the problems faced by the Urdu language. It generated quite a bit of interest. Critic Nasir Abbas Nayyar said some of the issues confronted by Urdu were caused due to our inadequate understanding of globalisation. Corporate culture had overtaken the whole process and now multinational companies were dictating terms. They wanted a global cultural, economic and linguistic homogenisation. In that regard, English, which was supposed to serve as lingua franca, had proved to be the killer language. If Urdu were to make its mark it should make its own empire; it must turn itself into the language of creativity and knowledge.

Dr Fatima Hasan spoke on the role of private institutions in Urdu’s progress.

Dr Najiba Arif’s paper was on the different attitudes towards the Urdu language and the way it’s treated at educational institutions in Pakistan. She pointed out that Urdu was only taught as a literary language and not as a spoken language.

Dr Inamul Haq Javed said Urdu might exist as a tenant in this country but it had all the ownership rights.

Indian scholar Qazi Afzaal Husain said we didn’t have the confidence for turning Urdu into a language suitable for acquisition of knowledge (ilm ki zaban). He told the attendees that unlike Pakistan, it was compulsory for students at Aligarh University to study Urdu at every entry point.

Eminent broadcaster Raza Ali Abidi said Urdu was nature’s gift. He narrated the story when he visited Laddakh to research for a book on the River Indus. Even there people could converse with him in Urdu.

Writer Intizar Husain presided over the programme. He blamed the leaders of the Pakistan movement for putting Urdu in a difficult position. He argued that while declaring it as the national language they didn’t take into account the linguistic map (lisaani naqsha) of the region — and other languages like Bengali. Even after the Dhaka Fall things didn’t change and the situation wasn’t handled properly. He told the story of Nawab Bugti who once spoke in Balochi in parliament to which some Punjabi parliamentarians responded that he should speak in Urdu. The nawab said he didn’t know Urdu. Mr Husain argued that those who called the shots were yet to tackle the problem and Urdu was treated like the issue of Kalabagh dam.

The third session presided over by Farhad Zaidi was dedicated to those writers and artists who’re no more with us. Ataul Haq Qasmi shared his memories of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Ali Ahmed Khan read Ahfazur Rehman’s paper on Shafi Aqeel. Jazib Qureshi talked about Salim Ahmed. Azhar Abbas Hashmi went down memory lane with Sarshar Siddiqui. Shahid Rassam spoke on Sadequain. And Asif Farrukhi expressed his thoughts on Mahboob Khizan. One of Mr Khizan’s couplets that he quoted was:

Aik muhabbat kaafi hai Baqi umr izaafi hai (One love is enough The rest of life is a bonus)

The last session of the day chaired by Amjad Islam Amjad, Raza Ali Abidi and Iftikhar Arif was on Urdu’s progress in other parts of the world. It was nice to hear Egyptian scholar Ibrahim Mohammad Ibrahim speak passionately about Urdu. He said the language was taught in five universities in his country. Sadly, there’s no way in which Urdu books could reach Egypt. Once he finished his paper a woman in the audience announced that she’d be donating books worth Rs100,000 to Egypt.

Dr Inamul Haq Javed, who heads the National Book Foundation, also extended his services saying the Egyptian scholar and his Turkish counterpart Khalil Toqar only needed to tell him how many books they required and he would make sure through the Foreign Office that they reached their respective countries.

Amjad Islam Amjad stressed the need for translations and for generating the younger generation’s interest in Urdu.

The launch of Indian poet Javed Akhtar’s book did not take place because he couldn’t make it to the conference.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014