The final day of Hindu College’s annual cultural fest ‘Mecca’ wrapped up with a Panel Discussion on the topic ‘Religion and Society’ and a speaker session with renowned lyricist and scriptwriter Shri. Javed Akhtar.
The panel discussion began at 3pm and was headed by eminent scholars such as Professor Romila Thapar, author of the popular classic A History of India, Professor Kunal Chakraborti who teaches at the Center of Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr. Ish Mishra, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Professor P.K Vijayan from the Department of English, Hindu College. After the felicitation of the guests Dr. Ish Mishra began the discussion with his talk on religion, how it is an effective social instrument and its many interpretations. Concluding with a few lines by famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib he had the audience engaged with his wit and humour.
Next to take the podium was Professor P.K Vijayan who spoke on his paper on religion and communal violence following which Professor Kunal Chakraborti spoke on Hinduism and what makes it unique compared to other religions. Professor Romila Thapar concluded the discussion with her talk on Secularism and Religion. She spoke about the Indian version of secularism and meaning of secularising our society. The session ended with a question round from the audience.
The speaker session began at around 5pm. The Principal of Hindu College Anju Srivastava and Convener P.K Sinha felicitated the star of the evening Shri Javed Akhtar. The topic of discussion was ‘Mind Your Language’. In a few words he explained how in our everyday speech, we use words which are borrowed from a number of languages like Persian, Italian, Turkish and Gujarati among others.
He explained how the standard of aesthetics of vernacular languages are coming down and the vocabulary of languages including the English language is shrinking. He also went on to explain how slurs used in foul language are generally anti women because of a general perspective that if a women participates in sexual activity then she is humiliated. Speaking with profound knowledge and witty humour he had the audience listening attentively to his every word. The two hour long session ended with a volley of questions from the audience.
Image Credits: Ahay Makhija for DU Beat
Comments are closed.