The Lectures That Needed to Happen: When Naseeruddin Shah’s Voice Refused to Be Silenced

On March 2, an evening of poetry, memory and quiet resistance unfolded in Mumbai as actor and director Naseeruddin Shah presented his lecture-performance built around Preet Nagar—a symbolic landscape where love, creativity and dissent meet in the shared cultural universe of Progressive Urdu literature.

The event was part of “The Lectures That Needed to Happen,” a series initiated by the citizens’ collective Mumbai for Peace to reclaim public space for lectures, discussions and cultural engagements that are cancelled due to arbitrary or undemocratic interference.

For over an hour, Shah held his audience spellbound as he navigated the rich terrain of Urdu poetry through recitation, reflection and dramatic nuance. In his unmistakable voice, he revisited the works of towering literary figures such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mirza Ghalib, Sahir Ludhianvi, Allama Iqbal and Imtiaz Ali Taj.

In Shah’s narration, their poetry emerged not as distant literary heritage but as a living archive of ideas and emotions. The poems spoke of love and longing, injustice and rebellion, hope and collective dreams — reminding listeners of a time when literature played a central role in shaping social thought and human values.

Yet this evening of poetry was also the outcome of a cancellation.

The lecture-performance had originally been scheduled to be held at the University of Mumbai on February 1. At the last minute, the event was abruptly called off without explanation. The cancellation became another instance in a pattern increasingly visible across academic and cultural spaces in India, where lectures, discussions and artistic performances are stalled or withdrawn under opaque pressure.

It was precisely to respond to such moments that Mumbai for Peace created the “Lectures That Needed to Happen” series — ensuring that events prevented from taking place are eventually delivered before the public they were meant for.

In that sense, Shah’s recital was not merely a literary programme. It was also a reaffirmation of the public’s right to listen, debate and reflect.

Nearly 350 people — students, academics, film-makers, lawyers and activists — attended the event, sitting in rapt attention as Shah’s voice moved across generations of Urdu poetry, conjuring a world where language becomes both refuge and resistance.

Mumbai for Peace, a platform formed by concerned Mumbaikars committed to safeguarding the city’s plural character and nurturing communal harmony, has intervened similarly in the past. Earlier, the collective collaborated with other organisations to host the memorial lecture for the late Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, to be delivered by Prem Xalxo, after that programme too was cancelled under pressure.

Seen in this larger context, the evening with Naseeruddin Shah was more than a recital of great poetry. It became a quiet assertion that literature cannot be easily silenced and that public spaces of thought and imagination, once closed, can still be reopened by collective resolve.

For a little over an hour in Mumbai, poetry reclaimed its place in the public sphere — and the lecture that was not allowed to happen, finally did.