The Karachi Literary Festival - transgressive?

The Karachi Literary Festival is a treat for the city's avidly reading population.  Hundreds flocked to see and hear from authors such as Anatol Lieven, Ayesha Jalal, and William Darymple.  It was a literary heaven, bumping into Mohammed Hanif, watching Raza Rumi materialize out of his twitter picture, seeing Kamila Shamsie hassled by a most polite groupie, and witnessing Shoba De on the steps with a giddy Tapu. 

What was missing -- was the Mumbai resistance.  Just like the World Social Forum in India, in its representation of oppression and struggle, was challenged by the Mumbai resistance, the KLF too needed a subaltern voice.  

The morning picked up slowly with Ayesha Jalal on the retrieval of selective memories to tell the tale of partition, an exercise that has become prevalent and popular amongst historians.  I wanted to hear more about this with examples from Manto.  But what followed next was a fond recollection of Manto's relationships with Ismat Chugtai, Krishen Chander, Shyam and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi.  Jalal while warming hearts seemed to be asserting her own Pakistaniat.  She was older now since the mid nineties when I heard her speak in Boston, and remember her haughty intelligence; she was accompanied by the compensating, smiling Sugata Bose in the first row.

Hanif Kureshi spoke of characters that had to be "monstrous and transgressive" to be interesting.  He spoke of identity, as not monolithic, but multiplicative - deepening and changing as we have new experiences.  His attitude to Karachi seemed standoffish and blunt.  When he started, he seemed falsely self deprecating thanking people to come hear him read from a book so early in the morning. It was well past 11 am.  


He said Karachi seemed more "run-down" since his last visit in the mid eighties. Someone had remarked to him, it was a war zone.  The liberal elite in the audience seemed anxious to emphasize the good news.  I suppose one could brag about the perverse development, the numerous billboards and air conditioned shopping malls, the Tedx conference, Hardees burgers, and the ubiquitous Pakistani hospitality.  Wasn't KLF itself evidence that Karachi was not run down, asked a chagrined audience member. No, stupid.  I doubt Kureshi was taken through Rehri Goth.  But what he saw are the effects  of a neo liberal economy where weakening institutions and movements, unable to push for equitable wealth distribution, have resulted in a show of destitution. We are shabbier.  

Kureshi was happy to absorb the juices, albeit briefly, of the strange country that produces bright literature and film.   He doesn't have to concern himself with issues and causes of the poor.  We pay him for literature which is anarchic, but despite his on stage irritability, not without compassion.

The Carlton Hotel grounds, with manicured lawns and ballrooms named the Maharajah, where the KLF was held, was once an area the fisherfolk of Karachi freely traversed.  I asked Zubaida Birwani, a mahigir activist, why was they did not protest when the Golf Club, the Carlton Hotel, the Marina Club, and the Creek Club were built on a strip of land by a body of water that was strategic to them.  They missed the boat on that, and what was more important, she said, were the present struggles for Bundal and Buddu islands, the destruction of mangroves, and the illicit power structures. 

lets talk about books..at the carlton

There are issues that the KLF, as a whole, is unable to tackle at an institutional level, and problems it is complicit in - its corporate and consulate sponsorship notwithstanding.  There are daily disappearances in Baluchistan.  Seven parties protested against these and demanded accountability from agencies and the military at the Karachi Press Club just today.  Drone attacks are prima facie illegal.  The government no longer does rigorous inspections of safe working conditions in industries exposing workers to daily peril.  However issues of workers living in poverty and working without social safety nets, the Baluch, victims of drones (arguably political emergencies of a sort) have not permeated our consciousness, and therefore do not make their way into the discussion of and around literature and writing.  

Protest at the Karachi Press Club (not in Phase 8)

KLF's message was positive, yet politically indistinct, and lacking a sense of dissidence.  In the hallways, there were no red banners professing a cause.  No large pictures of political prisoners and demands for their freedom.  No Amina Janjua camp.  No bloodied protesters, only earnest British Council volunteers, awkward but helpful.  Bookstalls selling their wares, and stands offering bad biryani.  The Labor Party, and other working class groups were conspicuous in their absence.  The lawyers from the judiciary struggle were amiss.  Part of the problem is language, and in these spaces it would be edifying to hear from a labor activist who could tell the story of unions, or of the Multan Bar's strategies in repressive times.  I know a few who have written but lack a good editor and tools to legitimize it, or English language publishing know-how, and therefore can not speak the same language that was dominant at the KLF.

This is not to say individual authors do not (or did not) bring important issues to the table.  There were a fair number of people present who come out for various issues including against extremism and for womens's rights (of-course also the more accepted forms of political intellectual discourse rather than the plight of Baluchis, drone victims, and the working poor.)  


Ayesha Siddiqua questioned Anatol Lieven for his admiration of the Pakistani Military in light of its recent losses at Mehran.  However, she allowed the discussion to stray into irrelevances and become depoliticized. What the moment necessitated was a sharp criticism of the military and its violations in a few crisp, Chomsky like sentences.  And who better to do that but Siddiqua with her research  into military usurpation of land, water, and wealth.  The other moderator, Mohsin Hamid seemed suitably apolitical.   Surely, an anti-war and anti privatization activist could have offered some analysis, but we had to settle for wordy blandness.  In another conference room, there was Arif Hasan the architect and biographer of Karachi gentrification and katchi abaadification.  The host was HM Naqvi.  Perhaps an urban non NGO activist who understood Karachi's concrete jungle construction history would be more suitable.  Perhaps what would have been even better is not knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but a federation of local community organizations working in uprooted communities and slums backing up the talk, showing muscle.

I am not saying the KLF should turn into a literary version of the World Social Forum.  Just this -- that in times like these it would be good to see some protesters, some unified fighting for justice, some discussion on class and privilege.  The Resistance from the parking lot could be -- not the bloggers, the twitterati and those who did not make it to the podium, but truly the non elite, a good cross class representation. 

Literature and its festivalizing would be nicer, more real and effective, if it were connected to broader political struggles that affect the 99%, and struggles to literature -- and KLF a space where struggles transform, democratize, and radicalize and class rifts eliminated through dialogue and interaction.