According to reports, the Punjab education department has banned dance performances in schools for any and all occasions. Similar bans have been imposed in the past but we had hoped those days were over.
This time, the Punjab Education Department has cited the need to avoid sexualisation of children as a reason to impose the ban. But the reason is not adequate enough to ban all forms of dance, including classes taught at some schools. The message that the responsibility for getting raped lies with the victim is disturbing.
The ban has been linked to the recent cases of sexual assault involving minor girls. Creating this perception in children’s minds that dance is somehow unacceptable or even immoral inflicts a huge damage. It also takes us further away from our past. With its emphasis on ‘modernisation’ projects, the Punjab government should surely have known better.
Although it is sometimes hard to recall, the fact is that our part of the world (the Subcontinent) has had a long relationship with dance and other forms of expression through performance. All through the age of the Mughals – with the architecture from that age scattered across Lahore – dance was patronised by the kings. This led to the development of intricate dance forms such as kathak into a genre of dance now known throughout the world. Sadly, since the days of Gen Ziaul Haq when television channels were prohibited from showing dance performances, only a few people remained familiar with the dance style or with performers like Naheed Siddiqi, who have won international awards of excellence in kathak.
Surely, the effort today as we fight the retrogressive hold of extremism should be to promote our own culture in all its forms and introduce it to our children – in fact, ensure that no child is deprived of a relationship with it. Instead, the Punjab government appears to be doing just the opposite. Alongside classical dance, folk dance in its many variations has also been a part of the tradition carried down to us through history. The dance style is repeatedly performed at weddings, Sufi shrines and other ceremonial occasions and settings.
Our problem with our past is more deeply entrenched. We seem to be turning into a nation which has deliberately snipped the cord linking it to a specific identity and heritage. Today, classical music or even semi-classical music, in the form of ghazals, is less familiar to the local audience. The younger population of this country claims to never even having heard any rendition of an instrumental or classical music. Instead, Bollywood movies or the Western music industry have taken over.
This is an extraordinary loss; an unforgivable one. If we are unable to protect our arts, we can essentially consider ourselves a lost nation, one that has no sense of where it belongs or what has been passed down to it through the generations. Classical singers such as Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, who died of a protracted illness he had too little money to treat, in his last days lamented the fate of the extraordinary form of art bestowed on him and other members of his family by their elders.
Today, many younger members of the Patiala gharana, even though they have trained in classical singing, have been forced to turn to popular music or fusion of various forms simply to make ends meet. Members of their clan have spoken openly about their reluctance to produce this kind of fusion music, but have also spoken of their lack of choice. The Sachal Jazz Ensemble, the brainchild of a UK-based billionaire who loves music, has adopted destitute and abandoned musicians from parts of Lahore, combined their music with jazz and turned them into a now globally famous team of musicians. This is a remarkable effort. But really, we should not feel the need to adapt in order to save our heritage.
Even though listeners of modern popular music way exceed those of classical forms, art forms such as opera, in the West and across the world, have been kept alive through corporate sponsorships. There is also effort made to promote the knowledge of these musical genres in schools and colleges through courses offered in musicology and other similar disciplines. Such projects also run in India, where many classical Pakistani musicians enjoy a massive following, Bangladesh as well as in other countries.
It is not only classical music or dance with which we have cut off our ties, but the art of puppetry too has virtually died out. The Rafi Peer family at its Lahore Puppet Museum has made a valiant effort to save it, but efforts from just one side are not enough. Our folk puppeteers have not received the support they needed to grow and evolve their skills or draw in new audiences to their stage. Compared again to other neighbouring countries, our puppetry now seems almost non-existent. There must now be very few children living in major cities or towns who must have had the chance to watch a traditional puppet performance, once a major form of entertainment everywhere in the country. Their grandparents became familiar with the folklore of their region, no matter where they lived or what background they came from, through the puppeteers who visited homes and set-up makeshift stages around which the children would gather and watch the show.
Tradition, heritage and the arts are important in so many different ways. They help a nation construct its identity and take pride in it. Classical music and dance, as well as other forms of art, show us the depth of the talent that we possess and how much has been given to us in terms of understanding better the beauty of the world around us. It is also true that performing arts can help distract people from ideas that are built around extremism and lead to violence.
For all these reasons, we desperately need to find ways to keep our culture intact. Efforts are made by individual institutions and colleges in both the public and private sector, but these are too limited and too few. We need to consider programmes to introduce our new generations to all that they have inherited, and to build within them an appreciation for these art forms. This is no longer easy as only a few people understand the intricacies of classical dance or music. We have relegated these art forms either to the very sidelines of society or depict them as an evil unwanted in society.
A new generation of singers, who should be replacing ghazal maestros, sitar players, classical singers and other artistes of the past, is not really visible. Even when one emerges, they find too little appreciation in a world that has forgotten how to celebrate their gift. Patronage from either the state or the private-sector has not come in, whereas corporate patronage has instead been directed towards popular music.
We need to rethink our cultural policy and build an understanding that it is essential to promote from the childhood the creativity that comes with dance. This must be done to truly celebrate all that humans are capable of and the manners in which they express their individuality as well as their identity, that comes from a specific culture and region.
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
Email: kamilahyathotmail.com