PESHAWAR: Speakers on the concluding day of the three-day Peshawar Literature Festival (PLF) vowed to keep up advocating the culture of dialogue among communities for formation of a cohesive society.

They said that the main objective of the festival was to bring under discussion social, literary, political and regional economic issues in the light of the rapidly emerging global perspective.

The concluding session of the festival was held at Institute of Research and Education (IER), University of Peshawar, on Thursday where heads of the organising bodies including Community Service Programme (CSP), Dosti Welfare Organisation (DWO) and department of history UoP were in the chair.

The pro vice-chancellor of UoP, Dr Zahid Anwar, was chief guest on the occasion. IER director Prof Mohammad Rauf, history department’s Dr Altaf Qadir and DWO representative Irfan Khan spoke on the occasion.

Three-day literature festival concludes at University of Peshawar

More than 70 volunteers belonging to different departments of the university were given commendation certificates. Students, faculty members, research scholars, right activists and language experts attended the event in a large number.

The students were seen taking keen interest in all the sessions and conversation with noted authors. The participants of the event put questions to panelists regarding women’s role, significance of dialogue and developing cultural and social discourse to build peace economy and a tolerant society.

The panelists through 12 sessions shed light on resistance in Pashto and Urdu fiction, tradition of Persian language in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, women’s role in deradicalising society and tourism as an economic and social resource. Activism and reformative practices, girls’ education and marginalisation and change in South Asia were also among the features of the concluding day of the event.

Noted academic Dr Nida Kirmani spoke at a ‘zoom session’ which was moderated by Dr Aamer Raza of political science department. Prof Munir Ahmad, Prof Syed Zubair Shah, Prof Aslam Mir, Prof Mohammad Sohail, Prof Samiuddin Arman, Syedul Amin Ahsan, Dr Faizuallah Jan, Dr Anoosh Khan and Prof Sohail Ahmad explored different shades of their respective subjects and earned appreciation of the engaging audience.

The sessions on the concluding day explored the engagement with Persian language in KP, religious harmony, portrayal of Pashtuns in media, themes of resistance in Pashto poetry, Islamism and post-Islamism and women contribution to Pashto literature.

The speakers said that incident of 9/11 registered huge impact on the world’s politics and cast far-reaching effects on history, literature, feminism, gender equality, socio-economic and several other aspects of the lives of people.

They said that the culture of dialogue was must as the modern society, languages, traditions and economies had posed tough challenges in the wake of climate change, political upheavals and economic problems, causing human tragedies in different parts of the world.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2022