Crowds thronged the 12th All-India Urdu Kitab Mela at the Jamia Millia Islamia,being held for the fourth time in Capital. The nine-day book fair,organised by the National Council for Promotion Of Urdu Language (NCPUL),was inaugurated by noted Hindi film lyricist and Rajya Sabha MP Javed Akhtar and actor Shabana Azmi on Saturday.

“For centuries,Urdu has been propagating the ideas of secularism even before the word ‘secularism’ was invented in the West,” said Akhtar. “ It is unfortunate that today in our country,where languages are associated with regions,Urdu is the only language which has been tied to a particular religion.”

“Those who try to dump Urdu forget that it is very deeply connected to Indian culture,and if we forsake Urdu it will be a great loss to our culture. Beware of throwing the baby with the bathwater,” he said.

Referring to the recent rendition of Urdu shers by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of Oppostion Sushma Swaraj while debating in Parliament,Shabana Azmi said: “Only shayari cannot help a language survive,for the language should be that of communication and for daily usage. We must also take into account the economic aspect of the issue,” she said.

The mela,which usually has around 100 stalls of publishers from Hyderabad,Aurangabad,Bhopal,Srinagar and Bangalore,has roped in around 45 stalls this year,mostly from Delhi. Among the prominent stalls are NCUPL,Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu Hind,Jamia Maktaba,and the Ghalib Institute.

The NCUPL stall showcases books on as many as 1,500 subjects. The stall of Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu Hind presents a large section on books from Pakistan,which is an opportunity for Indian authors and readers to get acquainted with recent developments in the Urdu literary circle of Pakistan,according to the stall manager.

Organising such a fair exclusively for Urdu has its own importance,said Professor Shahryar. “This will prove wrong the rumours that Urdu is dying. With so many stall exclusively selling Urdu books and young people who are eager to buy them,the future of Urdu is glorious,” he said.

Some visitors,however,pointed out the predominance of religious books over those on fiction and poetry. Subhan Ali,a resident of Ghaziabad,said: “I was hoping to find some rare books. Barring a few exceptions,the stalls are filled with religious books,which one can easily get elsewhere. It would have been better if the stalls had focussed on poetry and secular literature,” he said.

Jnanpith Award-winning Urdu poet Professor Shahryar and Group Editor of the Rashtriya Sahara Roznama Aziz Burney were other eminent personalities at the inauguration.

The reporter is a student of the Express Institute of Media Studies

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Delhi / by  Atikh Rashid, New Delhi / March 28th, 2011