New Delhi, Feb. 20: The lone Pakistani poet to make it to the Jashn-e-Rekhta festival here last weekend left the three-day celebration of Urdu midway after finding she had been invited only as a guest and not as a participant.

"I was told 'We are inviting you' and since there was a mushaira, I assumed they wanted me to come and recite my poems. That's how free flowing such festivals are, or are supposed to be," Kishwar Naheed, 77, told The Telegraph from the Wagah border shortly before she was to cross over to the Pakistani side on foot.

Into its third edition, this is the first time that the Jashn-e-Rekhta, which hosts mushairas, qawwalis and discussions on how Urdu has influenced different walks of life, has lacked Pakistani participation in any of the events.

Some see in this an instance of self-censorship to avoid trouble of the sort that has recently beset Bollywood films starring Pakistani actors.

"We took a considered decision in the light of the prevailing atmosphere in the country to not have any Pakistani participation. But, since the purpose of this festival is to promote togetherness and bonding, we thought of inviting a few Pakistanis as guests," said Sanjiv Saraf, the founder of Rekhta Foundation.

Naheed, the Bulandshahr-born former director-general of the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, protested to the organisers on Saturday, the second day of the festival, after finding she had not been included as a participant in any of the sessions.

"When I asked them why my name was not on the programme, I was told that I had been invited only as a guest. Sanjiv Saraf said, 'You are our valued guest; our aapa (elder sister)'," she said.

Naheed is fondly referred to as "Kishwar aapa" by those who know her well. She then asked the Rekhta Foundation to arrange for her return ahead of schedule. Earlier, the feminist Urdu poet had been scheduled to fly out on Wednesday.

Saraf maintained that Naheed, like the other nine Pakistanis invited to this year's festival, had been told that they would only be guests this time, not participants.

"This festival is about bringing people together and we did not want that to be taken away by some incident. We did not even apply for the permission that is required from the government whenever a Pakistani is invited as a participant at any event," Saraf said.

He said all those invited as guests from Pakistan had twice been told verbally they would be here only as guests. Naheed alone accepted while the others, including folklorist and Urdu thesaurus editor Musharraf Ali Farooqi and Oxford University Press managing editor Ameena Saiyid, stayed away.