At Kumaon Literary Festival, artistes talk about Kashmir sans conflict

Our Correspondent

Srinagar October 20

To improve people-to-people connections, a group of artists and writers gathered along the banks of Dal lake to attend the two-day Kumaon Literary Festival (KLF), India’s travelling literary festival.

The participants, predominantly Kashmiri Pandits, talked about literature and cinema highlighting many aspects of the art and culture of Kashmir.

“India has been a global hub for arts and culture for centuries. The festival brings together brilliant and unique minds from various genres of the creative world,” said Asha Batra, co-founder of the KLF.

“We look forward to taking art and literature lovers in Kashmir on a creative journey. We have a very impressive line-up of speakers this year along with some interesting book launches and discussions,” Batra said.

Batra says the idea behind holding the festival is aimed to change the optics of the narrative that is predominant in Kashmir.

“Literature, art and culture are an important part of Kashmir. From ancient times, it has been a beautiful place where people have done creative cultural work. For some years, it got derailed but the time has come that we should have a holistic approach with culture as an important aspect of it to connect people,” Batra said.

Batra said youth should stop talking about politics and instead talks about development and education.

“People should forget the past 30 years of conflict and talk about another side of Kashmir. There are some good stories about Kashmir tourism, culture and art,” she said. Each year, the festival promotes literature and cinema with numerous innovative initiatives. The Kashmir edition of the festival, which concluded today, was held in association with KYARI, Kashmir’s Yumberzal Applied Research Institute, and Indian Cinema Heritage Foundation.

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