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40 tribute Distant
destinies Our
own Sesame
40 years on Shatter the silence Four decades after the creation of Bangladesh, the war in 1971 remains an enigma for a majority of Pakistanis. It is time we boldly discuss what happened during that turbulent period in our history By Ammar Ali Jan It is a tragic fact that
we as a nation have never been able to come to terms with momentous events
in our own history. Whether it is military operations in Balochistan, the
overthrow of elected governments, the use of Islam by military dictators
for the most cynical reasons, we have shied away from fully confronting
such episodes in our history. Our response instead has been to either
concoct awkwardly woven narratives about our national past or to refuse
introspection based on the premise that we must ‘forget the past and
focus on the present.’ There is not a more
painful example of the national silence than the civil war in East
Pakistan of 1971. Never before had the Pakistani state declared an entire
population a ‘threat to national security,’ nor had it ever
systematically carried out such a horrendous ‘cleansing’ to purify the
national body. Much ink has been wasted on debating the exact number of
casualties during the conflict. What is important for our purposes is to
acknowledge that our armed forces did go on a killing spree against our
own citizens, who were supposed to enjoy the same rights and privileges
accorded to the citizens of West Pakistan. No matter what the
hyper-nationalist spin doctors want us to believe, no one will ever be
able to justify the physical elimination of students and intellectuals,
excessive bombardment of villages, and the systematic rape of Bengali
women at the hands of the Pakistan military. One is horrified to
recount such dastardly tales, especially since these crimes were being
carried out against a majority population. The only thing more disturbing
was how the war in Bengal was met by a deafening silence in the Western
part of the country and continues to remain sidelined as a peripheral
moment in our country’s history. Soon after the debacle in Dhaka, most
mainstream parties agreed that the country’s top military and civilian
leadership had an importantly role to play in Pakistan’s dismemberment.
Yet, the hegemonic discourses of ‘national security,’
‘reconstruction,’ and ‘looking to the future’ meant that we as a
nation were never able to fully comprehend the action of our state
hundreds of miles away. One may have some degree
of sympathy for having the desire to move on, but not at the expense of
forgetting the past. Viewing the Bengal episode as a geographically
limited phenomenon has veiled how state violence and militarization
pervade our entire society. As scholars of state theory argue, the
violence committed by states in far away lands must at some point return
to haunt those living at the core. An example of such a
surreal moment in our history came when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto launched one
of the most devastating military campaigns in Pakistan’s history to
‘crush the insurgency’ in Balochistan. This decision was taken less
than three years after the humiliation in Dhaka, and was led by General
Tikka Khan, who gained notoriety as the ‘butcher of Bengalis’. Baloch
bodies had become the new sites for state violence in the name of
‘national security’ and ‘sovereignty.’ In an ironic twist of fate,
Bhutto’s government was removed by the military to ‘prevent a
civil-war like situation’ and maintain ‘national cohesion.’ Since then, the coercive
apparatus of the Pakistan state has been deployed to discipline all
dissenting voices in the country. For example, the brutal suppression of
labour unions in the 1980s was carried out in the name of ‘security’
and ‘national development.’ Elections were rigged by powers that be to
ensure that ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational’ people of Pakistan did
not provide thumping majorities to those who allegedly ‘threatened’
the country’s security. Even today, criticisms of our security apparatus
are silenced under the chorus of ‘a conspiracy by external forces.’
The constant anxiety of
our ruling elites, the hyper-militarisation of our society and the
subsequent violence in everyday life is a direct result of our refusal to
rectify our past actions or to make a concerted effort to ensure they are
never repeated. While our history is filled with instances that can
embarrass us, the violence in Bengal stands out as a unique event in our
national history. It represents the extent of violence our state can
commit in order to defend its own power and privilege. All rhetoric of
rule of law, democracy, human rights, respect to women, etcetera, can be
discarded and a horrendous regime of violence can be constituted for the
perpetuation of the status quo. Bengal, then, hovers over our heads as an
example of what can possibly happen to us if we move beyond the framework
set by the Deep State.
Apart from the moral
argument that silence on such crimes committed in our names implicates us
in that process, we should also try to comprehend how these killing fields
are also structuring our own daily lives. As stated earlier, the perpetual
focus on national security has led to a proliferation of secretive
agencies across the country, as well as an increase in religious
militancy, and has played a decisive role in sabotaging the mandate of the
ordinary people. One must also mention that state violence is also rampant
in core regions such as Central Punjab, especially if one happens to be on
the wrong side of the class divide. Four decades after the
creation of Bangladesh, the war in 1971 remains an enigma for a majority
of Pakistanis. It is now time that we boldly discuss what happened during
that turbulent period in our history. This is not an attempt to open a
scholarly debate among historians. This is a plea to understand the nature
of our state at its most vicious instance, and to then raise questions on
the relationship of our state with marginalised nationalities and
oppressed classes. Moreover, it is crucial to examine why the fundamental
nature of our state not only has not changed, but has in fact become more
entrenched with each passing years. Finally, the shattering
of our silence on this event has the potential to also shatter the
discourse of national security that has veiled the cynical abuse of power
by our state and has hindered the possibility of imagining a fundamentally
different relationship between state and society. The whole notion that
systematically wiping out Bengali activists or raping women were the only
options left to the Pakistani state when confronted by the ‘Indian
threat’ seems cruel, insensitive, and flat out ridiculous. In fact, our only
consolation in such times is the belief that those who were at the helm of
affairs were blinded by greed and power, and that perhaps we as ordinary
Pakistanis are capable of knowing better.
Dev Anand who died last
week was one of the triumvirate of the leading men who set Indian cinema
on the path of exponential growth after Independence. In terms of work, he
was able to outlast the other two, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, actively
making films and working long after the youthful years by switching his
role from acting, to scripting to production and direction. He was never
the critic’s favourite yet he kept bouncing back with box office hit
after hit, silencing his high-brow friends in a world where the audience
response is the final arbiter of success and failure. He understood commercial
cinema but wanted to make something more of it. His cross over taste in
music resulted in some of the most famous songs being composed and sung in
his films, some picturised on him as well, and that advantage he did not
surrender till very late. This combination of superb music with some gloss
of popular contemporary issue reflected through character/ theme was the
magic formula he held tightly on to. Initially he was helped
along by his brothers, Chetan Anand who was already making films and then
Vijay Anand who was to join later as script writer and director. Chetan
Anand did take part in the dramatic and literary activities at the
Government College, Lahore, in an age where the radio was about to be
established and the stage was beginning to question the parameters of
commercialism. The blooding of drama and theatre at the hands of Patras,
Taj and Sondhi brought in an enhanced vision to the activities of the
stage. The lack of imminent commercialism made the radio play to prosper
in such a manner as to show an alternative to the successful Parsi plays
of Bombay and Calcutta. So it was not a mere
chance that when the Indian Peoples Theatre Association decided to make a
film it chose Chetan Anand to direct Neecha Nagar. The film included Rafi
Peerzada, another Government College alumnus. The second film under its
banner was K. A. Abbas’s Dharti Ka Lal on the Bengal famine and the
third Kalpana by Uday Shanker. These films were based on a new kind of
realism which treated cinema as an insight into reality rather than a
glamourised escape from it. Balraj Sahni, a
contemporary of Chetan Anand at the college, too, was very active in the
dramatic and literary circles of the college and had read from the same
book. Later he joined Shanti Niketan and then the BBC in London before
returning to Bombay to team up with his former college mates to establish
the missing strand of a more meaningful cinema. Chetan Anand was to
continue with the same approach and in his highly acclaimed career which
was commercially inconsistent, he made
many a landmark films — the most outstanding being Haqeeqat as a
realistic appraisal of war. The film deals with the theme of war in a
totally de-glorified manner and brings out the immense potential of
destruction that it can unleash. The film now a classic with Bombay
industry won many an international kudos for its very strong anti-war
statement. Dev Anand’s Hum Dono
too was about the tragic and absurd fallout of war on human relationships.
Dev Anand followed his
brother to the Government College and then the film studios of Bombay,
where he met Guru Dutt and formed an association that through more downs
than ups was responsible for introducing a great many new faces and names
to various disciplines of film-making in Bombay. The post-Independence
era saw a sudden boost in film-making as this popular medium increased its
outreach as well as its influence to become the second largest film
industry of the world. As he launched his company Navketan, with a
directorial debut of Guru Dutt, it also spawned talents like S.D. Burman,
Sahir Ludhianvi, Raj Khosla, Jaidev, Jhonny Walker, R.D. Burman, Zeenat
Aman, Tina Munim, Fali Mistry, Ratra and Prabharkar. Dev Anand’s first film
was Hum Aik Hain made against the partition of India and released about
then. But first box office success was Ziddi — and he then went on to
make a number of films on the lives of the working classes which was
actually a transition from the socialistic realism to a new brand of Hindi
commercial cinema under the influence of international directors like
Huston, Capra and Vidor. Some of the most popular films made by Dev Anand
were with his younger brother Vijay Anand, who scripted Taxi Driver and
then went on to direct Tere Ghar Ke Sammne, Kala Bazaar, Guide and Tere
Mere Sapne. Vijay Anand was greatly
responsible for shaping Dev Anand’s film personality of a boy next door
— part lover, part clown and part do-gooder. He thought that filming
should be brought as close as possible to the making of a newspaper. He
satirised and reconstituted generic styles including the deliberately
awkward pastiches invoked by various sources like Carry Grant and Gregory
Peck. His long innings made
him pair with heroines over five decades. His own contemporaries like
Suraiya, Kamni Kaushal, Geeta Bali, Meena Kumari , Madhobala, Nargis. Then
of the 1950s, Nimmi, Vijantimala, Waheeda Rehman, Nutan; and then of the
1960s, Suchitra Sen, Saira Bano, Nanda, Sadhana, Sharmila Tagore, Asha
Parekh. In the 1970s, he paired with Hema Malini, Rakhee, Mumtaz, Zeenat
Aman, Tina Munim, and in the 1980s with Moon Moon Sen. The only time Dev Anand
came to Pakistan was with the official entourage of the Atal Bihari
Vajpayee which crossed the border in a bus from Wagah about 12 years ago.
The visit was marred by violent protests and he was not able to
meet his admirers/fans. But he wished to visit the Government College and
it was granted, an emotional return to his alma mater after a gap of more
than 50 years, albeit made painful by the forced distancing between India
and Pakistan. It must have meant something more to a man who has gone on
to become one of the most popular film heroes of the past 50 years. Balraj Sahni too had
come on the centenary celebrations of the Government College in 1964. Dev Anand did the usual
things — teary-eyed, he touched the bricks and walked through the
corridors, at once living the present and the past, remembering an
incident or a face at every nook, revisiting the years again with the
urgency of the youth. Dev Anand’s homecoming
was thus to pay homage to the institution which taught him how to toddle
on the path that led him to his destination. At the end of a long career
he could look back with satisfaction at the starting point of his journey,
least of all because he had never thought that he would ever have the
opportunity to go back to the Government College in this lifetime. He authored a candid
autobiography, “Romancing with Life” and won the Padma Bhushan,
Dadasaheb Phalke Award and Filmfare’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the
best actor award for Kalapani and best film and best actor award for
Guide.
In one of his verses,
famous Urdu poet Munir Niazi talks about the solitary individual’s
attitude of dissatisfaction, no matter where he lives. Actually he points
out that it is in the nature of man to always remain discontented with his
surroundings. It was this urge for change that evolved into great feats of
civilizations — construction of cities, clearing of forests, converting
clay into pottery and brick, cutting stones and thus erecting incredible
works of engineering such as the pyramids and the Great Wall of China. Apart from adding new
creations, man sought changes in geography, like digging out Panama and
Suez Canals in the last century. These sea passages not only reduced the
travel time for ships, but amended the world map too. Even if one is not
endowed with the gift to erect huge pieces of sculpture, architecture or
alter the layout of the earth, one still seeks to transform his immediate
space. If not in the form of physical inventions, then moral, ethical or
artistic interventions are ways to modify the previous order of things.
Great leaders, artists, writers and intellectuals try to transform their
situations through their words and works. If a person is unable to
actively alter the surroundings, he hopes and struggles to move to another
place. This phenomenon is nothing new, but in recent times the urge to
leave one’s place also means changing one’s identity —both on a
societal and personal level. Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic observes
this tendency in her essay Karaoke Culture: “Today people are more
interested in flight from themselves than discovering their authentic self.
The self has become boring, and belongs to a different culture. The
possibilities of transformation, teleportation, and metamorphosis hold far
more promise than digging in the dirt of the self”. Perhaps the desperation
to change one’s nationality (and identity) has never been as pronounced
as it is today. This process of transformation is taking place on two
different — though not separate — levels. The desire to reside in
another country, find a lucrative job and a secure home is that of the
traveller who is happy to shun his cultural baggage while transporting his
actual baggage to, in most cases, a Western city. Only when it is not
possible does the transformation takes place in the world of ideas and
imagination. Yet one can not
differentiate the two kinds of journeys because both are interrelated;
often one precedes the other or they both commence simultaneously. Before
planning his voyage, the man’s mind is already set on faraway lands. The
actual movement is a continuation of the process completed in the mind.
Bani Abidi probes that connection of concrete and concept through her
works in her solo exhibition ‘Section Yellow’ at the Grey Noise
Gallery Lahore. In her inkjet prints and video installation, the artist
maps how the ordinary citizens of a country are longing for travelling to
other regions. The visuals of empty chairs at a waiting lounge, queues for
submitting visa applications, props (such as neckties, attestation of
documents) to complete visa application formulate the narrative. The
desperation and desolation on the faces of visa candidates are evident in
her video installation ‘Distance From Here’. The whole scenario
is captured so effectively that all the characters, who have performed in
the video as prospective immigrants, seem incredibly convincing in their
roles. Abidi uses ordinary
items to describe great desire and disappointments. A mundane object, the
plastic sleeve or file cover acquires great weight (both in physical and
conceptual terms) when one is waiting his turn in the queue at the visa
office. Especially with the new wave of security panic, no one is allowed
to take anything except his documents in these files and covers. So these
pieces of stationary become most crucial while one is in the middle of
making one’s dream true. More so because these contain one’s fate and
great fortune, to be unfolded in front of a hostile and unfriendly foreign
visa officer. Abidi has portrayed
these as substantial objects, seen from side — a view so uncommon that
one hardly reads them as file covers. A range of these file covers of
different makes and dimensions is shown in a series of inkjet prints,
which suggests how the artistic potential can be found in familiar and
common things. In fact, the aspect of
locating aesthetics and meanings out of ordinary items is a recurrent
motif in Abidi’s work (being shown from Nov 26, 2011-Jan 13, 2012). In
another body of work, she has created a range of intercom pieces normally
installed in our houses. The juxtaposition of this functional product in
different designs alludes to the sense (or lack) of security in our
surroundings, in which man is safe only when confined to his home. Interestingly, if seen
together, both the intercom devices and works about travelling abroad are
interconnected — man having to talk to machines to enter a house or a
new country. Both the queues of visa applications and the combination of
intercom devices become symbols and signify a Kafkaesque condition —
when a man strives to leave his destiny but encounters a web of
complications, which discourages and tires him. The work of Bani Abidi,
with its formal subtleties is a testimony of our times since it conveys
the experience of a majority through art. Only her own situation as a
perpetual mover between India and Pakistan and seeker of travel permission
is a minor detail.
There is hardly any
youth in Pakistan that does not remember Sesame Street aired on the
state-owned PTV years ago. Now, many years later,
there’s good news for all Sesame Street fans between ages four and nine
— a new, Urdu-language version of the show, Sim Sim Hamara returns every
Saturday on PTV Home. This humourous and educational programme will be
presented by the Rafi Peer Theater Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with
USAID and Sesame Workshop, New York. This 72 episode series,
aims to combine aesthetic traditions of the rural and urban Pakistan. Set
in a make-belief mohallah (neighbourhood), with a shady banyan tree in the
centre, is where the characters of the show gather for a daily chitchat.
It’s a beautiful ground for children to play in. “We won this programme
through international bidding in 2010. It is an educational project funded
by USAID and supported by the Pakistan government,” Faizan Peerzada, who
heads the project, tells The News on Sunday adding, “Similar educational
projects are being run in India and Afghanistan”. This four-year, USD20
million project was awarded to RPTW last year as part of the Kerry-Lugar
aid to Pakistan. “Having a strong background in puppetry, we decided to
bid for this project that encourages joyful learning among children of
early age.” An RPTW initiative,
Pakistan’s Children Television, producing Sim Sim Hamara, focuses on
sending out basic education message through television series, radio, and
an extensive community outreach programme — that is designed to support
Pakistan government’s national education policy. The Sim Sim community is
home to Rani, Elmo, Munna, Baji, Bailly, and Haseen-o-Jameel. They are the
lead characters of the programme. Rani, a six-year-old girl, possesses a
passion for natural science and reading, and is always eager to discover
new things. Munna, a five-year-old boy with larger-than-life ambitions,
has many dreams, and loves to sing and dance. Baji, an epitome of a
traditional Pakistani woman, is passionate about healthy diet. Bailly, an
eight-year-old donkey, aspires to become a singer. Elmo is a lovable
three-year-old monster with a questioning mind. And Haseen-o-Jameel, a
forever young non-traditional alligator, is simply there to amuse
children. Phase one of the
programme consists of 27-minutes-long 72 episodes. The second phase will
comprise 13 episodes in regional languages along with some live shows and
radio programmes. The RPTW has set up a purpose-built studio, sound
system, animation department and a puppet-making department. “The programme is
derived through nationwide consultation, seminar and workshops involving
provincial education departments with the purpose of joyful learning and
preparing and inspiring children to go to school in their formative
years,” Peerzada says. He adds Pakistan needs
such programmes based on cultural diversity. Fifty-year-old Peerzada,
who has created 3,000 puppets in his career and is a painter by passion,
further discloses that the structure of Sim Sim Hamara is like Sesame
Street but there is more live action in it. “We want to make it a
memorable programme. We don’t want to just produce programmes for four
years but to make the experience similar to that of Sesame Street — that
has lived with the Americans now for generations. We want to make it
successful and sustainable and add new dimensions and ideas to
children’s programmes in Pakistan.” There are more than 200
people involved in the project, including scriptwriters and translators.
“It’ll help in capacity-building of human resource for starting such
projects and programmes in future.” Mentioning children
programmes like Kalian, Ainak Wala Jin and Putli Kahani that focused more
on adults than children, he says, “We have not paid attention to our
children. Projects such as Sim Sim Hamara should have been initiated 15 to
20 years ago.” Through fun and play,
the series is expected to touch on issues of gender equality, diversity,
self-esteem and self-worth and emergency preparedness. It’ll cover
language and literacy; mathematics, science, and cognition — and health,
hygiene, nutrition; family and social relationships. Art and culture will
be important ingredients of the show as well. RPTW has been involved
in television and radio programming, puppetry, theater, and the arts with
schools and communities across Pakistan for around 35 years. It
established a museum of puppetry in 2004 and at average 100,000 school
children visit it annually. It has organised around two dozen
international performing arts festivals since 1992. While its partner group
Sesame Workshop is a non-profit organisation of writers, artists,
educators, researchers, producers, and psychologists, its programmes and
initiatives reach children and their caregivers in 150 countries and
delivered through multimedia platforms with the best known Sesame Street. |
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It
is often argued by governments that one should not level accusations
against the state during turbulent periods. The war in Bengal was one such
moment where citizens (of West Pakistan only) were expected to provide
unquestioned loyalty towards the state. Yet, since the separation of
Bengal, we have constantly lived in such a state of exception. Instead of
delving into the reasons of the defeat, our state became obsessed with
finding new techniques of managing populations and of extending the
undeclared state of emergency to all spheres of our national life. The
militarisation of our daily lives, with increasing checkpoints, the
proliferation of secret agencies, and other such sophisticated regimes of
surveillance, indicate how Bengal remains etched as a demon in the
unconscious of our state, one it aims to fight without any serious
introspection on its own role in exacerbating the crisis.
The
idea that a new Bengal is not possible due to the presence of a ‘free
media and judiciary’ or a vibrant civil society seems particularly
absurd at a time when an undeclared war is being waged against the Baloch
youth while hundreds of families across Pakistan are waiting for their
loved ones who went ‘missing.’ One must also actively fight the idea
that Bengal, Balochistan or Pukhtunkwha represented peripheral regions and
do not play a direct role in our daily lives. 
