Photo: NCPUL
Urdu books worth over 12.5 million Indian rupees (approximately 30 million Pakistani rupees) were sold at the 9-day book fair in India.
The National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), a government body working for the promotion of Urdu language in India, organized a 9-day book fair from December 18 to 26 in Malegaon, a town in the northeastern state of Maharashtra. Was The organization has been organizing ‘National Urdu Book Fairs’ in various cities and towns since 2001. The Malegaon Festival was the 24th in a series.
NCPUL says that the Malegaon festival has so far proved to be the most successful of the Urdu book fairs held in India in which a record number of books were sold.
Interestingly, Malegaon has broken its own record in the sale of Urdu books. In 2014, at the first ‘National Urdu Book Fair’ held here, Urdu books worth Rs 87 lakh were sold.
Dr. Aqeel Ahmed, Director, National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language He said that the people of Malegaon love Urdu to the point of insanity. There are more than 100 Urdu medium schools here. Thousands of girls are studying in most of the schools. The future of the region is certainly bright.
He further said that in an area where such a large number of girls are studying, it is obvious that Urdu will be spoken in the area. Be done
Ajmal Saeed, in-charge of Malegaon Urdu Book Fair, told The Independent Urdu that more than 60% of the people who came to the fair to buy Urdu books were women. That will be it.
Dr. Aqeel Ahmed said that it was a sign of the crowd of Urdu book lovers at the festival that every one or one and a half hours a child was lost, announcements were made for it.
He says that the situation before the festival was a bit unpredictable but we did our best for the festival and succeeded in organizing the historic festival, in which books were bought for more than Rs.
He further said that all precautionary measures against corona virus were taken for the festival, a doctor was stationed there, every three hours the entire premises was sanitized and masks were given to those who came without masks.
Dr. Aqeel said that the population of Hindus and Muslims in Malegaon is almost equal, there were numerous books on Hindu religion in the festival, religious books like Ramayana and Mahabharata were sold in large numbers.
Dr. Aqeel says that almost every house in Malegaon has a power loom. Interestingly, the artisans working in these power looms love Urdu very much.
It is worth mentioning here that in India and other countries of the world, Malegaon is known for its explosions rather than friendship with Urdu. Dozens of people were killed in the town in 2006 and 2008. The blasts allegedly involved Hindu extremist groups, many of whose leaders were arrested.
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