By TCN News,
Aligarh: The spirit of Urdu literature has essentially been secular. Since its very beginning it has promoted the cause of national integration. Whether through poetry or through fiction Urdu has brought all communities together”, said Professor Saghir Afrahim in an extension lecture organized by Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Urdu Arbi-Farsi University, Lucknow.
The lecture was followed by a one-day national seminar on the concept of national integration in Indian literature. Whereas Professor Afrahiem dwelt on Urdu literature, another distinguished teacher from the Department of English of Aligarh University, Dr Mohammad Asim Siddiqui talked about the concept of national integration with reference to Indian English fiction.
Dr Siddiqui elaborated on the hijacking of the concept of nationalism by vested interests in India. He was of the view that Indian English fiction often presents a strong critique of the concept of nationalism. Nationalism in its popular form often appears to repeat the mistakes of colonialism. He suggested that teachers of language and literature should use their training to teach students the cultural text as today more than ever before we are bombarded by texts of all kinds. Learning to read texts of different kinds is an important skill for students.
The seminar was attended, among others, by Mahfouz Kidwai, a minister in UP government, the governor of Chhattisgarh, and many distinguished professors of Urdu, Hindi and English from different universities of India.