LAHORE: The government should announce the revival of Basant immediately. Also, there should be no condition of getting an NOC for holding cultural events and the festivals suspended by the government in the name of security or any other reason should also be revived.

These demands came under discussion at a meeting at the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (Pilac) on Friday. The meeting was held to take input from writers, artistes and intellectuals on a culture policy being formulated by the Punjab government.

The meeting was presided over by Pilac Director General Dr Sughra Sadaf and attended by Naeem Tahir, Saleema Hashmi, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Shahid Mehmood Nadeem, Dr Mehdi Hassan, Dr Omar Adil and Qamar Abbas.

The participants praised the Punjab government for consulting different segments of society over the policy, saying that the results of such meetings should also be seen. They said many cultural activities had been suspended due to security concerns and cumbersome official methods to get an NOC.

Mr Syed said a hassle-free working was needed to conduct cultural activities. Mr Tahir said the practice of formulating a policy was not a new one as such policies had been made in the past without any visible changes.

Ms Hashmi underlined the need to save heritage and abolish NOC condition for events. Dr Hassan regretted the absence of a national philosophy while Dr Adil said debate on the policy had raised questions which show that “we have to define cultural goals”.

Published in Dawn December 31st, 2016