KARACHI: Conversations with two writers stood out on the last day of the Karachi Literature Festival on Sunday. First, when Noman Naqvi sat down with Indian author Ashis Nandy and the second Aliya Iqbal Nagvi`s chitchat with novelist Mohammed Hanif.

Mr Nandy called himself an intellectual street-fighter, someone who liked to break certitudes. `I deal in continuation, I don`t deal in disjunctions. The contemporary world loves disjunctions,` he said arguing that there`s another language spoken by the people outside our domain. If someone praised Michelangelo as a great artist, it would have surprised him because he lived in a time whenhe thought he was the person through which art was created, he articulated.

He said we must be careful in choosing our enemy because that would begin to define us. In that regard, he gave the example of Israel which came into existence as an oppressed state and later on became the oppressor. Colonialism was a joint venture; when South Asian countries became independent states, they replicated the colonial model. `I don`t want India to be a superpower. I want it to be a compassionate, emphatic state. This region has potentialities waiting to be unleashed,` he remarked. He disagreed with the moderator that those potentialities had been blunted. The Taliban and the riot experts in India were not the last word. Hereasoned that Pakistan brought down four military regimes through nonviolent means, as did Nepal got rid of its monarchy. He termed Indian mediaeval ages as its golden age.

Mr Nandy said studying the partition of the subcontinent changed him. He told the audience that Tagore had used 15 Bengali words for the word patriotism but just one for nationalism, and that too in English. There was a qualitative difference between nationalism and patriotism. Even cats and dogs could be patriotic, he opined and pointed out that the Mughal Empire was better because it did not say to its subjects that you`re Mughal first and then anything else. He said he didn`t wish to go back to the past but wanted to pick up elements of the pastand use them in contemporary context. With reference to the drive against corruption and the mergence of the Aam Admi Party in India, he said he didn`t want India to be a zero corruption country because there was a segment of society which needed corruption to survive.

Aliya Iqbal Nagvi`s chitchat with Mohammed Hanif drew a large number of book lovers. Hanif peppered his answers with humour and switched from English to Urdu and an occasional shift to Punjabi.

Naqvi, with reference to multiple genres of expression asked him a question about an article in which he talked about Nawaz Sharif promising airports to his constituencies.

Hanif said it wasn`t a figment of his imagination, Nawaz Sharif had actually promised them the same while addressing a pre-election gathering at Kamalia. Hanif had only reporte d it.

Hanif said writing a novel was to convince the reader that what he`s writing about actually happened; it`s like lying with a straight face. He conceded he didn`t know whether his book `Our Lady of Alice Bhatti` had a metaphor; if he`d known what he was saying he wouldn`t have written it. Naqvi spoke about a couplet that`s used in the book. Hanif said it was a couplet by his friend Hasan Dars, who died while he was writing the book. He was in grief so he thought some of Dars should be part of his book. Naqvi then brought up the writer`s monograph on Balochistan. Hanif said it was published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

He told the audience that the agencies were kidnapping young men in Balochistan and even today their loved ones were marching towards Islamabad to get some kind of justice. The media had acted dumb on the issue. Fourteen thousand people had gone missing, but the government said there were a few hundreds while the agencies claimed none was abducted. He said the numbers didn`t matter; it`s our own state, own agencies which were doing that.

When Naqvi called Hanif a public intellectual he refuted it by saying he wasn`t an activist. He said he was a journalist. Naqvi then requested him to read his Urdu speech that he had read out at the convocation of an educational institution. Hanif obliged. It was a fine, fine piece of sensitive writing tinged with satire. Using the figure of a bhains or water buffalo (as he called it), he raised five questions: is Pakistan the fortress of Islam; is our nation God`s gift; are all of us brothers; is cigarette smoking injurious to health; how would an artist survive if he failed to sell his work or lost passion for his work.

Hanif said he`s trying to write a novel in English. He reasoned that the use of language hinged on the subject one was writing on. For example, he found it right to write a novel in English but would always swear or abuse in Punjabi. When a member of the audience said he dis-agreed with Ms Nagvi`s assertion that `Our Lady of Alice Bhatti` wasn`t a satirical book, he agreed with him but added that had Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid been sitting in place of Ms Naqvi, he would have found it hard to disagree with him.

Responding to the question whether he received any threats for supporting the Baloch cause, he said there were ways to muffle someone`s voice. One of which was to restrict his presence in the media, that is, control his access to the media. He said the media reflected society.

There came a touchy moment in the session when Hanif read out a poem titled Karanchi by his friend Musadiq Sanwal, who died last month. Answering a question about the talks with the Taliban, he said they were more of khudkalami (soliloquy) than dialogue.

The session with Indian scholars Mushirul Hasan and Zoya Hasan moderated by Ghazi Salahuddin had a different tone but the same serious message.

Speaking on extremism, Mushirul Hasan said it was a global trend which manifested itself in various forms in Muslim countries. Fundamentalist ideology travelled fast because of the increase of modes of communication.

The United States had a role in the whole scenario because of its effort to contain it. However, it manifested differently in regions where it existed (Algeria, Turkey, Egypt etc). In some countries it was ignored and was not nipped in the bud.

Therefore if we allowed it to develop or take root, it would affect us. How could one fight those who didn`t believe in democracy through democratic ways, he said.

Zoya Hasan said democracy was faced with both internal and external factors.

There was a time when the Left had a visible presence in the Muslim world, but in countries such as Algeria, Egypt and Indonesia it was undermined. Referring to the Arab Spring, she remarked that the situation in Egypt couldn`t be generalised.

Mushirul Hasan said Muslims all over the world had a victim mentality. There was a need for self-reflection and introspection and look at the mistakes that they had committed along the way.

There was no `idea` in the Muslim world which could unite them.