Lahore is home to multiple big litfests, including the Lahore Literary Festival, the Faiz Festival and the Afkaar-i-Taza ThinkFest. All three of them cater to a different set of readers and literary enthusiasts and the difference is obvious from the distinct audiences that frequent these fests that share the venue — the Alhamra Art Centre on the historical Mall Road.

The LLF, which was held last week, attracts readers who mostly like to read English language books and look forward to hearing international authors, especially those coming from the West. The Faiz Festival draws those who are into Urdu literature, while the Afkaar-i-Taza is more focused on academia and topics of serious nature. Festivals related to the Punjabi language, especially the Punjabi conferences, have also started gaining a wider audience in recent years and a completely different set of attendees are observed there.

These litfests, if one can put them under this blanket term, also expose, for discerning eyes, the widening chasms and deep distances between various classes living in Lahore — including the elite and upper classes, the Urdu medium and university-going middle classes and the working classes.

Most of these festivals are held in winter and sometimes they are squeezed together, just as it happened this time due to the early arrival of the month of Ramazan. There was not much the organisers could do this time around.

The 13th Lahore Literary Festival, which took place February 21-23, had some intriguing sessions of discussions focusing on the intersections of history and literature but seemed to lack the spark of previous editions

In her keynote speech to kickstart the LLF, historian Ayesha Jalal launched her new book, Muslim Enlightened Thought in South Asia, published from the UK. The address was more focused on a summary of the book. She introduced her book, calling it an investigation into enlightened thinking among the Muslims during British colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th century and its aftermath.

“In a sense, ‘Roshan Khayali’ [enlightened thought] is my primary protagonist, challenging the view that portrays Muslim thinkers as exemplars of an apologetic modernity,” she said, and added that she challenged the presumptions of historians of liberalism that excluded Muslims from the domain of modern liberal thought.

Jalal painted a picture of Allama Dr Muhammad Iqbal and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as enlightened people, while explaining the concepts of enlightenment of Muslims of South Asia, especially Iqbal. In the same breath, she explained the ‘unscientific’ views of the Allama who differed with Einstein’s and Newton’s notions of time, considering it as a distinctly psychological experience. One wonders if such ideas would do any good in a society like Pakistan’s that’s already deeply anti-science and conservative.

An attendee of the session called the keynote address as well as the book as something that was in line with the meta-narratives of Pakistan and its establishment, centring around historical personalities such as Allama Iqbal and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. However, it’s the same sharing of ideas, even the ones that shake one out of one’s comfort zone, that a litfest should do, if nothing else.

LLF CEO Razi Ahmed said this edition of the litfest was focused on the intersection of literature and history and how enlightenment could replace bigotry. While one could look askance at the latter part, the sessions definitely were diverse, with a greater focus on history. Even the sessions on Urdu literature had that element, as two sessions were on Mustafa Zaidi, one on his collected poetry, having critic Nasir Abbas Nayyar as a discussant among others, and the other on his death, which somehow received more attention than his poetry.

Most of these festivals are held in winter and sometimes they are squeezed together, just as it happened this time due to the early arrival of the month of Ramazan. There was not much the organisers could do this time around.

There was a session between British historian Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History, and Prof Hasan Karar that appeared more like a dialogue. Frankopan discussed the shift in economic conditions in Europe, its rising unemployment and changing attitudes toward immigrants in recent years and the Global South. He juxtaposed Trump’s America with Putin’s Russia and Modi’s India but added that Trump’s policies might not have much impact as had happened in his previous term. However, he also expressed fears about the stress on American institutions, especially the military.

Wimbledon BookFest Festival Director Fiona Razvi found an opportunity to reconnect with Lahore — the city of her late father — when she got an invite to attend the LLF. The festival provided her with an opportunity to connect with the city where her father had roots. She shared with the audience how there was a disconnect between her and the country of her father’s origin and how she had reconnected with the land and the extended family of her father. She shared her feelings in a session titled ‘Viewing Home From Afar’ on the final day of the festival.

Another session had women panellists from Pakistan, Britain and France who shared their experiences, telling the audience about how they navigate the tough paths in their societies, including in the countries of the West, showing that it’s not plain sailing for women across the world. French journalist Lucie Azema said that every society was the same when it came to women’s safety, as statistics showed and that the most dangerous place for them was their home, where they were often tortured, beaten and even killed.

This author has been attending the LLF since its establishment in 2013 but it was the first time since its inception that the halls were not full during the evening sessions. In the earlier editions, queues could be seen outside the halls of Alhamra, but something looked amiss this time around.

Waqar Ahmed, one of the ‘usual suspects’ of the litfests in Lahore, thinks that people were less interested in this edition because the LLF could not bring any big new thing from the world of literature, such as Nobel laureates Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk or Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, or writers such as Amitav Ghosh, Fareed Zakaria or Reza Aslan. “People read such famous men of letters here and don’t want to miss an opportunity if such a writer is visiting their city,” he says.

He has a valid point; people would come from as far as Peshawar and other parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the earlier editions of the litfest for the writers of their choice, as it would often be a lifetime opportunity to see or even meet their favourite authors in the flesh. This year, the authors, especially those from other countries of the world, were not that famous in Pakistan. They had no readership here in the country, even if they are popular in their own countries. This year’s LLF looked more like a result of collaborations of the organisers with the embassies of various countries focused on cultural exchanges. Their objective should be more than just a Western gaze at Lahore, showing that “this too is Pakistan” and presenting the clichéd soft image of the country before the world.

Waqar also pointed out the missing cultural performances that used to be a prominent feature of past editions of the LLF. Most of the performances used to be scheduled in the evenings, drawing the biggest crowds outside the two bigger halls of the arts centre. This year, not a single such performance was a part of the festival.

However, there were other people who still found the festival interesting. Tooba Malik, a lecturer in philosophy at Government College University, found the last day of the LLF interesting as she could attend some sessions of her liking and she enjoyed the talks.

There is a growing complaint among the literati of Lahore that local writers are repeated so much that audiences don’t expect anything new from them during the panel discussions. The organisers need to change the panels if they want to keep people interested. But after this edition of the LLF, one is bound to ask whether arguably the biggest litfest of Lahore is running or has run out of steam.

The writer is a member of staff.

X: @IrfaanAslam

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 2nd, 2025