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A poetry and story reading session featuring actor Naseeruddin Shah, which was co-organised by the Urdu Department of Mumbai University and scheduled for February 1, was called off, with Shah later saying that he was informed at the last minute that he had effectively been disinvited.
Initial statements from the head of the university’s Urdu Department suggested that Shah himself had withdrawn from the programme, though this account later changed, with the official indicating that the co-organisers, the Bazm-e-Ahbab Foundation, may have been responsible for cancelling the event, according to reports.
A representative of the Bazm-e-Ahbab Foundation declined to comment on the cancellation when contacted, Scroll.in reported.
The event, titled Preet Nagar, was to be held on the Kalina campus as part of celebrations marking the Urdu language, and was expected to include readings from the works of poets such as Sahir Ludhianvi and Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Shah said he was informed late on the night of January 31 that the programme had been cancelled, adding that he received an email from Ghazal Sheikh, who had been coordinating with him on behalf of the organisers.
In a column published in The Indian Express, Shah alleged that the university neither offered an explanation nor issued an apology for the cancellation. He said a university official had told him that he was perceived as having made statements against the country, a claim he rejected, insisting that he had never done so.
In the article, Shah wrote that the incident made him feel that the country had changed from the one he grew up loving, and alleged that an atmosphere of surveillance and ideological policing was being created.
Abdullah Imtiaz, the head of the Urdu Department, initially told the Mumbai Mirror that the cancellation was Shah’s decision and not that of the university, and claimed that misinformation was being spread online by a reporter from Malegaon who, he said, had minimal engagement with the event. However, after Shah reportedly spoke to him over the phone, Imtiaz later said that coordination with the actor had been handled by the co-organisers and that they might have decided to cancel the session.
When approached by Scroll, a representative of the Bazm-e-Ahbab Foundation declined to explain why Shah’s session was cancelled, saying that the focus should remain on the many other events that went ahead as part of the festival rather than on the one that did not.