KARACHI, June 26: Speakers at a peace conference urged both India and Pakistan to de-escalate tension along the borders so that war clouds, at present hovering over the horizon menacingly, could disperse.

The peace conference, held at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday, was a memorial conference of national poet Habib Jalib.

Historian Dr Mubarak Ali spoke about the ideological somersaults intellectuals underwent to curry favour with rulers.

“An intellectual has to decide if he wants to be independent or sycophant. Throughout history there has been a constant tussle between the forces of tradition and the forces of change. Jalib, who never associated himself with the state, advocated wholesome change so that a society could make progress.”

He said that most histiography was actually flattering of the rulers. “A new trend could be witnessed in Pakistan in which retired bureaucrats write their memoirs to cover their sins, faults and shortcomings. Sadly, nobody contradicts them. But Jalib’s poetry is an alternative history of Pakistan.”

Dr Mubarak Ali said he did not support poetry a lot. “The kind of poetry that is written here is better uncomposed. But we must realize that prose is effective in educated societies. In less educated societies, poetry plays a significant role.”

Zahida Hina read out a paper titled “If Jalib had been alive...”. She said: “All his life Jalib fought against the forces of oppression. Be that as it may, the forces of oppression have become stronger. Jalib always said that peace could not exist in a society where there was no justice.”

She said that Jalib would have been perturbed to find that in Pakistan the president had raised his salary four times while he had dismissed a lot of people in the name of downsizing. Jalib would have asked that in a country where more than 40 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line, where illiteracy abound and where health-care facilities had been non-existent, why the expenditure on the defence sector was increased.

Journalist Hamid Mir recalled that in June 1988 Jalib had insulted the then press secretary of the president, Brig Siddiq Salik, in Bagh-i-Jinnah because the latter had asked him to write a poem on the alleged corruption of the late Mohammad Khan Junejo who had been recently dismissed by Ziaul Haq on corruption.

Film actor Mustafa Qureishi recalled that once former prime minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif had asked to go abroad for treatment. “But Jalib declined. When I asked him afterwards why he had turned down the offer of the prime minister, he replied that they had been trying to tarnish his image by asking him to go abroad for treatment on government expense.”

Among others who spoke on the occasion included Shaukat Siddiqui, Fatehyab Ali Khan, Khalid Alig, Dr Hanif Fauq and Pervez Ali Shah.