Adil Najam
I have often wondered - and seriously - if Pakistanis read?
No, not whether they can read. Illiteracy being what it is in Pakistan, there are many - too many - who obviously cannot. But this question does not pertain to them. This is about those who could read if
they chose to do so. But who often do not. The question, of course, is “why not?”
I realize that I risk sounding either arrogant or uncouth by having phrased the question as I have. Of course, there are many many Pakistanis who do read and read voraciously. Some of them actually write and comment on this very blog. And, quite certainly, there are many many more individuals who not only read but are amazingly - even spell-bindingly - well-read. I can say in all honesty that some of the very best-read and the most widely-read individuals I have ever encountered anywhere in the world have been Pakistanis. People who always amaze me not only by the breadth of their interests but also by the depth of their intellect.
I am sure there are such amazingly well-read individuals in all societies. But the point I wish to make is not about individuals. It is about society. The question is whether we as a society place importance on the joys of reading? Whether we place premium on the intellect of the well-read? Whether we honor and cherish those who are well-read?
My own sense is that, as a society, we do not. And that is a pity.
We can joke that in our language (Urdu) we do no “read” the newspaper; we “see” the newspaper. Akhbaar daikha, as opposed to Akhbaar paRha! But the problem is much more than just a joke. It amazes me no end how many of my “learned” friends will actually provide expert commentary on books they have not read. They will give you elaborate critiques based simply on the title or something they overheard someone saying on TV. Indeed, many will start their critique by telling you that they have not read the book and then go on to pontificate on exactly what it is saying and why that is right or wrong (see, for example, some of the comments here or here).
Note, for example, how our conversations (and comments on this blog and elsewhere) are always made with great airs of authority - for example, we don’t say “many people like this movie” we say “99 per cent people like this movie.” No one will ever ask how you came to know that it was, in fact, 99 per cent and not 98 or 89; nor why a wretched 1 per cent did not like the movie! Yet, our assertive and authoritative discourse lacks not just evidence but also reference. We can be prone to inventing facts and numbers to support arguments that we instinctively consider to be true. Yet, we do not seem to quote sources or even ideas too often - except, of course, the Quran (which so many of us so routinely misquote to mean whatever we want it to mean), the hadith, and messers Iqbal and Jinnah.
The exception, I should add in fairness, is poetry. That we do quote and most often quote properly will full reference. But there, too, the habit of reading poetry seems to be on the way out. One hopes that one is wrong in getting the feeling that the traditions of reading Urdu books - whether they be by Quratulain Haider or by Shafiqur Rahman or by Ishtiaq Ahmad - is also disappearing.
Our resident apologists will soon make the argument that there is too much poverty in Pakistan for people to be able to afford reading. But it is not the poor we are talking about. The rich in Pakistan seem especially loathe to read. Then there will be those who will shout out that reading is itself a Western conspiracy and an imposition of all outside ideas should be resisted. This crowd is best ignored entirely. But there will also be those who will argue that books, and therefore reading, is no longer needed because the internet has now arrived. To them, all I can say is please just read some of the comments on many of our posts and decide for yourself just what good the internet has done to either reading or writing!
By the way, as an aside, some commenters on this blog have suggested that I should stop writing posts and, instead, only write headlines; since too many commenters here obviously never read the full post and comment only on the headline - or, sometimes, just the pictures in the post. I must confess that this irks me too. However, the very fact that some readers would make such a comment proves that there are those who do actually read what we write. And that is enough incentive for us to keep doing so.
But enough of a rant from me. As I noted, I think the above is true in general but not true in particular. It bugs me so much, I think, partly because of my own professional training but also because I sometimes see myself slipping into the same quagmire.
But the real reason for this long rant was to introduce a wonderful op-ed in The News (24 April 2008) by my friend Nadeem-Ul-Haque (formerly and currently of the IMF and in-between of the Pakistan Institute for Development Economics) which highlights the problem and, maybe, its cause much more eloquently than I have been able to. The op-ed is titled “No Libraries, No Books” and laments the state as well as lack of “real” libraries in Pakistan. There are, in fact, many nice libraries in Pakistan, but not too many functional ones.
Passages from Nadeem’s hard-hitting and heart-felt article are worth quoting extensively:
Libraries have been the hallmark of growing and progressive civilisations. Even in Sumer libraries of clay tablet writing have been found. Classical Greece and its love for books and learning gave us civilisation. Even the Persian Empire had libraries in Persepolis when Alexander attacked. Roman emperors too set up libraries to be remembered all over the empire. Then there was the famous library of Alexandria which till the early middle ages held most of human knowledge…. Civilised governments have built these repositories of knowledge as national monuments to show how important learning and knowledge is. These grand buildings and their large holdings will remain through history as testaments to these great civilisations many eons from now. Most serious countries have not only large national libraries but also large networks of local public libraries.
… In our history, we have built lovely official residences such as the President’s House, governors’ houses, the Prime Minister’s House and many other buildings, but no libraries. We have built many polo grounds and golf courses, but no libraries. Lahore, an ancient city of culture, now has more polo grounds than libraries. Lahore even has more offices for the chief minister (four in all) than libraries. Of course, the Chief Minister needs office space more than our children need libraries.
A search for libraries on the internet reveals only university and organisational libraries in Pakistan. When you go to university and organisational libraries, you see what a sorry state these are in. They hardly have a collection and are operated like bureaucracies with severe entry limitations and on a short working day, mostly during office hours.
We have no public libraries, beyond what the British left us. The Quaid-e-Azam Library in the old Company Bagh in Lahore (now Bagh-e-Jinnah) is nothing but a bureaucratic enterprise with severe entry limitations and hardly a serious collection. It even does not boast a website in the year 2008.
Our national library did not even get space on the main Constitution Avenue. It is tucked away behind the prime minister’s office as if we were ashamed of it. As its website puts it, it is in a plot of 500 by 100; a little over an acre is all the government could afford for a library. It took us 46 years to come up with the concept for a national library. Even today the National Library has 130,000 volumes, 555 manuscripts, 45 reels of microfilms, 48,000 microfiche cards, 845 magazines and 135 newspapers. What a testament of our great civilisation! I might add that this collection does not even compare to a reasonable sized public library in a civilised country.
In Pakistan I witnessed our bureaucracy and the Planning Commission in this game called “who can spend our development money the fastest on pet projects?” I saw many strange projects like megabuck universities contracted to unknown consortiums, bureaucracies setting up mango-pulp and football-making plants, textile cities, garments cities, and so many others. I asked and wondered why we cannot have projects for community libraries. Why can we not dedicate, say, about Rs50 million for a library in the top 20 cities of our country per year. That is only a billion a year. Not a large sum of money when you think of the vanity projects, VIP trips and the sums required to maintain our VIPs.
But then I was reminded of who demands books in Pakistan? When I go to my rich friends’ houses, I see no books. A million-dollar household with a hundred-thousand-dollar sports car outside has no books. Rich people who spend thousands of dollars on a dinner do not even spend 100 dollars annually on books. None of our political manifestoes even mention libraries. So perhaps the government is right. There is no demand for libraries in our country.
What Nadeem-ul-Haque is saying here is worth thinking about. But before anyone can think about this - or anything else - they will first have to read. And therein lies the challenge. The demand for libraries, after all, comes from the desire to read.
Great piece! But then only the converted will read it! That’s the real pity.Nadeem ul Haque has hit upon the serious disconnect in the value system of our society at home and abroad.
There was a time when some of us growing up in Pakistan soaked up every book that we came across to make up for our distance from the rest of the world. A friend of mine recalls reading every single book in the Rawalpindi Club Library over the summer holidays. A one-room library though it was, it was still a major challenge. He is now the author of some 29 books himself and monographs himself.
When General Musharraf’s book came out I spent two weeks in Pakistan and during my travel heard any number of commentaries on the book. Each time I asked whichever group I was sitting with “Who has read the book?” The answers were astounding. Most had not read it and relied on word of mouth or newspapers articles to talk about it with great authority. Regardless of the intrinsic quality of that book, it was an important piece of work, since it was the first hand account of the head of state and government and gave a useful insight into his thinking. The most amazing thing for me was that in my two weeks of informal surveys, I encountered only four persons who had actually read the book.
I write this with some trepidation as I prepare to set out on a book tour of Pakistan and India in May for my own book on the Pakistan army. No prize for guessing where people are more likely to buy and actually read the book.
What can we do to change things for our children? I recall how my wife and I used to take our three girls every month to the local bookstore in Alexandria VA and gave them the run of the place to select the books they wanted. Each was allowed four books every month. We’d collect all their choices in a corner of the bookstore and sift through them to bring them down to the four books they were allowed. They argued for each book and wanted to go home with more than four books. But we stuck to our rules. This bred in them the value of books and reading. Each grew up with a personal library and each reads now. Even as adults they ask for books as gifts.
What if all parents, who can afford it, adopted this approach in Pakistan? We might help produce a generation that would read and produce more books.
Why not also open traveling free libraries for the countryside? As US AID ponders how best to use its money in Pakistan for the future, it might adopt this approach. But allow NGOs not the government to run these libraries.
Why not open a donation system to build up the National Library and the Jinnah Library? Any number of us would donate collections for that cause. The only thing I would demand in return is security of the collections and free and open access to the stocks. As a start, this would mean shifting the National Library to a more visible and accessible location.
I suggested this approach for the Jinnah House that we had proposed in Washington DC at the site of our former embassy. But there were no takers, even though I and my friend, whom I referred to above, offered to donate our personal libraries to set the ball rolling with some 500o volumes. The government had other more prosaic uses in mind.
@ “Do Pakistanis read” ? well, perhaps not at all, the
stuff imposed on them, monotonous, one-sided manuels,
perpetual ” negationist fixed, Politics oriented ideas.
Non of the twelve books attracts any ” litrature lover “.
NO, unfortunately the others are reading and speaking
on ” behalf ” of Pakistanis, even in their homes.
Sour paradox, Media,TV Channels have become
barometers, temperature is very very low !!!!
An interesting article l well researched. I recently read a quotation “The one who DOES not read books is no better than a person who CANNOT read books”.
I also remember my father in good old days when he encouraged me into reading even trash in the beginning by saying that once one develops the habit of reading anything, in fact is in the making of reading serious books.
adil:
good one:)
and we are ….allegedly… people of the Book…
After traveling all around and seeing beautiful man made cities still i feel myself belonged to Lahore.I used to go to Jinnah library during my earlier years to study and prepare for medical professional examinations.I always liked the atmosphere and was masmerised with this beautiful building.It was difficult at that time to get its membership.I do always feel sorry for myself why i did’t read other non-medical books.Now i wish but again there is no time.
So for libraries are concerned there were many in Lahore including Dayal Sing,Punjab Uni. old campus and Public etc.But i think numbers have not gone up.Population has increased and also the illetracy.Those nations which drift away from education also go down.Lahore used to be called city of colleges and gardens.There are more colleges now but are they truly serving the purpose?Reading starts from childhood which lacks in our culture and main reason is inseurity regarding our future careers.We do need to open our minds.
In 2006, I made a comment on Karachi metroblog:
Since there is 0% chance of availability of pirated books so I guess that only 0.x % people will pay attention.
What I guess that particular 2% population of Karachi who have both plenty of time and money would visit the venue, out of them 1% will be those who would actually buy books and rest of them would be those who would be visiting the venue first time or just to give company to their pals so that they can show off to their other buddies that they visited a “book fair”.
A city where a common man earn less than a book price per day,corruption rate is high and literacy rate is low can’t guarantee for success of such necessary event.
Therefore majority[98% of learned class] of karachiites who love to read books but can’t afford earns no benefit from such exhibitions and best source of learning for them is to buy pirated books. This is why local installs[e.g Jumbo Fair] are more useful and successful than such events. If one’s pocket can afford pirated copies of stuff by Karen Armstrong,Chomsky and Sydney Sheldon[a kinda western Asmat Chughtai] then why would he bother himself to spend extra bucks? This is why i see tht ‘Jumbo Fair’ has been running successfully for last 2/3 years in different part of the cities and since now they are in Hyderi for last 6 months, I daily see lots of people visit the Tamboo[Tent] and buy books in very lower rates. The english version of the Mush’s book is around PKR1250 while the urdu version is available in 200 or something. When I asked Shamusddin the reason behind such a big difference in rates, he innocently replied that urdu version didn’t contain the things which were published in orignal english version because majority of this country could read and understand urdu rather english :-)
BTW, there was a trend in early 90s[pre-Internet era] when the girls who could read and understand english were in love with Sydney Sheldon’s novels while urdu readers were in love with “Shuwaa-Behno ka Apna Mahnama”. I am not sure what’s the current
trend now. All I know I have read both kind of stuff and got bored after a short period of time and switched back to Ibn-e-safi’s Imran Series.
p.s: What are the timings of this event?
Good pitch. Lack of reading habit has been generated by the overall degeneration of the society. We are talking about the rich and who can read of course as you have focused in the article. Our culture has degenerated in the sense that people only tend to do things that have tangible and/or monetary returns. Reading outside the curriculum does not even bring an appreciation or applause in Pakistani society. You see a lot of private institutes sprouting throughout the country. But what they teach and encourage the students to read is for passing and scoring high in th exams and then focus on landing a lucrative management etc. job with a well-paying company. When that becomes the ultimate goal in a society, then the culture and passion for reading on wide range of issues goes out of the window. People simply do not see the positive aspects and have not been introduced to the positive aspects of being well-read.
I also believe that the media has also failed our society on this account. Media in countries where people read voraciously encourages intellectual discourse which in turn requires background reading and understanding of the issues. For instance, VOA TV is constantly debating the issues that matter. Media is Pakistan, perhaps owing to its newfound sense of liberation has gone haywire. They hardly focus on the issues that require indepth reading. If you look at the most of the content of our TV channels as well as radio and print media, you will find that a large part of their time and space is dedicated to petty political tussles, crimes and then to soften the tone, glamor. We hardly even focus on the health issues and issues of cleanliness and intellectual growth. These are absolutely non issues to our media that reaches the entire society. Perhaps, the government needs to step in to rectify this.
Finally, and most importantly, Pakistan as nation has only deteriorated since its independence from the British. There may be some superficial achievements in the economy but our social fabric has very clearly deteriorated. When I look at the dramas and media productions of 1970s and even those that came out during the repressive era of General Zia, I find the intellectual level and quality to be of much higher than what is being churned out by the country’s media today. I am sure a vast number of readers will agree on this. We have become a country with crumbling social fabric, held together I do not know by what (This would make an interesting mooting point). Of course, reading, which is a sign of strong culture, goes out of the window in this mayhem and consistent deterioration. A country that tops the list of Failed States, reiterated by Noam Chomsky in his recent interview with a Pakistani TV channel remind us that what we are facing is an overall degradation and deterioration as a society and lack of reading culture is simply a part of this overall slide.
Love the piece and very important topic.
Enjoyed the article you quote from Nadeem Ul Haq. Specially this part:
“Lahore, an ancient city of culture, now has more polo grounds than libraries. Lahore even has more offices for the chief minister (four in all) than libraries. Of course, the Chief Minister needs office space more than our children need libraries.”