Daily Times

Sir: It is undoubtedly true that “books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything”. Unfortunately in our society the tendency and proclivity of reading is gradually dying and this lamentable situation is not only drastically affecting the idiosyncrasies and notions of people but of the society as a whole.

It is patently believed that “readers are leaders”. Most of the developed nations would not be what they are today without spread of literacy and predilection of reading in the common people. As literacy grew, people began to ask questions and not just accept whatever they were told. This resulted in many important revolutions that developed the modern world as it is today.

Lamentably, we find that our society is still indulged in fallacious, preposterous and orthodox traditions and that is the reason we are facing frequent cases of honour killing, infanticide, curse of dowry and downfall of our moral values and collectively we have become intolerant, parochial, bigoted, and apathetic nation. The better kind of books we read, the better and more refined our thoughts and activities become and the more our horizons are widened.

Different factors contributed to the decline in reading culture and there are several reasons behind this regrettable situation as many people believe that dwindling culture of reading is caused by the growing influence of electronic and social media as the people are fully inclined towards modern tools and they have forsaken the pleasures of reading. Another perspective argues that the new digital revolution with its TV, cinema and digital media platform resulted in the downfall of reading culture but there is evidence to believe that despite it, people in western countries have not forsaken reading.

Personally, I believe that the root causes lies in our education system as we never bothered to reevaluate and reform our education policy as per international standard. In our school, colleges and universities our teaching strategies are completely exam-oriented and ultimately we are producing cramming machines. In our academic institutions, reading culture is only limited to course books and regrettably our teachers don’t incite and kindle students’ vision, imagination and ideas. It is also a harsh reality that we never put sincere effort to support and flourish creativity, originality and inventiveness.

It is the high time to realise the gravity of situation, if we want to bring reformation, positive innovations and healthy revolution in our societies then there is dire need to revive dying culture of reading.

It is not only the job of Government but civil society and every individual has to collaborate in this crusade. In this regard, a proper and planned electronic and print media campaign is extremely needed to create awareness in people about the importance and impact of reading. Moreover, there should be special programs or reports about new books of different genres. Furthermore, in our schools and colleges, penchant of reading should be encouraged and supported by initiating different recurrent literature and books festivals, workshops, providing digital libraries and also by launching monthly, biannual and annual school magazines so that students get a platform to write and express their ideas.

While this is also indisputably true that the onus rests on the parents themselves to provide them reading environment and home libraries because all other efforts will be futile unless reading is not fostered and sustained in childhood.

Our local government authorities should provide library or reading room in different communities and individually we can also promote book reading by forming book clubs because a flourishing reading culture not only reflects a positive and healthy society but it is also the most effective platform and weapon to eliminate the dark clouds of ignorance, illiteracy

IMRAN ALI PHULL

Karachi