In the Pakistani society, writers and performing artists are not given the attention, support, recognition and honour that their counterparts get in other societies. I had long been conscious of this and, as a publisher, it had saddened me. Was Pakistan a nation without intellect? Did it have no expression of its native genius? Did it have little to offer to the thriving and ever-expanding world of letters? I felt that, if we wanted to be respected by the world for our intellectual output, we had to raise the profile of our authors and give them a place in the sun. To ensure financial independence of authors, their original and not pirated books should sell, royalties should be paid honestly and they should be given credible, prestigious and paid awards. Thus, I wanted to organise events that would connect authors with their readers, provide opportunities to talk about their work, interact with their readers and, above all, for their books to be promoted, sold, read, reviewed and discussed. I attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2009 and was delighted to see Indian authors being treated like celebrities and the long queues of people buying and getting books signed. I wanted the same for our authors and decided to organise a literature festival in Karachi.

With strong support from Asif Farrukhi and the full backing of the British Council, I launched the first literature festival in Pakistan, the Karachi Literature Festival in 2010, the Islamabad Literature Festival in 2013 and the Adab Festival in 2019.

Asif’s and my vision had four aspects: firstly, our festivals should be free, open, inclusive and fully accessible to the public in order to connect and enrich communities across class and geography; secondly, they should become models and a movement across Pakistan that would inspire and encourage others to have their own festivals; thirdly, they should be interactive so that the audience becomes a part of the discussion and debate rather than passively listening to lectures and, above all, they should change mindsets and divert people’s thoughts and fears from the extremism, discord and violence prevalent in those days and present a real and positive image of Pakistan.

We ensured that there were no barriers to entry nor any VIP seating or privilege. Thanks to our sponsors, entry was free and open to all. There were no sofas or reserved signs in the front rows. Seating was on a first-come, first-served basis. When Nasreen Jalil, the then deputy mayor of Karachi, arrived she found the place packed and no seat available. She sat on the grass and attended the session. Dr Farooq Sattar was seated in the back. I got a message from a high-profile politician that he was coming with an entourage and that I should arrange special seating on sofas in the front row and receive and escort them. The politician’s team arrived and demanded sofas be placed in the front row. I resisted and, fortunately, the VIP didn’t come.

Through our festivals, we wanted to deliver the message that independent writers are the conscience of a nation. The fact that they can be critical of decaying values and institutions and ideological posturing is a sign of life, growth and hope for our society.

Asif Farrukhi and I received countless requests to hold literary festivals in other cities. We were delighted as we wanted our festival to act as a catalyst for a nationwide movement of literature festivals. We asked them to own and organise their own. We had created a model that was open source and they were free to replicate or change it in any way. We were, of course, ready to give advice and technical support. We were thrilled when we saw a thousand flowers bloom and festivals of all kinds, cultural, music, theatre, dance, art and literature, held across the country in every format, duration and size; and, during Covid, online.

We made our sessions interactive with Q and A to enable the audience to share their thoughts and challenge and grill the speakers. Mohsin Hamid told me how pleased he was with the audience engagement and the barrage of questions thrown at him.

Our focus was on a strong impact on society which we achieved by attracting an enormous, diverse and engaged audience, by their full and open participation and our curated sessions which included a vast variety of authors writing on a range of subjects and in many languages. We provided a platform for young, emerging talent in writing, the performing arts and comedy.

This year, in order to sustain and grow literary and cultural festivals and develop a sustainable talent pipeline of festival producers, Adab Festival collaborated with the Bradford Literature Festival and the British Council to spread the movement of literature festivals by organising a digital talent development project of engaging with and developing women talent in the creative sector across Pakistan and Bradford to create, organise and deliver literature festivals. This was groundbreaking international collaboration as it was the first time that a Pakistani and a British literature festival had worked together to produce a festival.

Above all, through our festivals, we wanted to deliver the message that independent writers are the conscience of a nation. The fact that they can be critical of decaying values and institutions and ideological posturing is a sign of life, growth and hope for our society. The author, artist, dramatist, poet, performer have a great contribution to make to our society. A nation proud of its valour deserves an intelligentsia which can survive and flourish without compromising its intellectual stand. The muse in Pakistan needs to be exalted, revered, rewarded and venerated; that is why we organise literature festivals.

The writer is the founder and director of Adab Festival; founder of the Karachi and Islamabad Literature Festivals; and managing director of Lightstone Publishers