Our nation is on a mission to wipe out everything remotely related to art – especially dissenting art - in the name of vulgarity and replace it with something way more crass and inhuman instead
A stroll down the Lahore’s Abbot Road, lined by cinema houses, will reveal what vulgarity is. Vladimir Nabakov put it like this: nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity. Maybe this intellectual elitism was itself vulgar.
Vulgarity is subjective.
What might seem vulgar to one person or culture might be perfectly fine for another. But most – certainly not all – would agree that there is a difference between nudity in a Renaissance painting or sculpture and the one on the centerfold of a Playboy magazine that you can buy with your morning doughnuts. Blurring the line between the two and the inability to distinguish between them is the sign of an untrained mind. Perhaps Nabokov’s elitism was not vulgar. Perhaps.
Of course, one can check the holy book of the Queen’s English. The Oxford dictionary describes vulgarity as “lacking sophistication or good taste, making explicit and offensive reference to sex or bodily functions, coarse and characteristic of or belonging to ordinary people.”
But is Pakistan’s problem such vulgarity? I do not think so. Indeed our problem is art – rather, its paucity. In our quest to rid our society of so-called vulgarity, we have taken away the creative license of most and issued a writ of censorship. This has given rise to a huge underground market, which thrives on everything the censorship intended to ban.
The line between art and vulgarity has been blurred. The little art left is perceived as vulgar. The crass, semi-cooked, hasty productions readily accepted as art. Art is never a staple diet of the masses. No standing ovations are in store for poets and painters – unless of course they are in consonance with the “national ideology”. Yet, our nation is on a mission to wipe out everything remotely related to art – especially dissenting art - in the name of vulgarity and replace it with something way more crass and inhuman instead. Just like the music, theater, films and dances we see in the Hall Road CDs.
Suppression of art gained speed during the Zia years. Not only did Zia-ul-Haq introduce legislation for morality, he also promoted a certain image of women as the only one being “acceptable” and “modest”. Depiction of living objects was removed, especially the naked ones. The sari was discouraged. Instead the Mughal portraits, miniatures, calligraphy and scenes were encouraged. Women anchors and models were covered. Headscarf was preferable but a tightly knot dupatta was also permissible. Obviously this kind of censorship didn’t work in the visual arts, where understanding the human body is a significant part of an artist’s growth.
Hence, everything that could resonate as art has been removed. Lollywood productions have been reduced to half a dozen for the last ten years. The count could vary but is far from substantial. The new actors we are introducing, the theater, other than Ajoka, Rafi Peer and Nehrik-e-Niswan is very dismal. There are no music or dance institutes because the performing arts have been linked with prostitution and thus vulgarity. Once you label an art form as taboo, it shouldn’t be surprising that the art form is eventually choked.
The few musicians we have earn most of their living from concerts and recording abroad. Indeed, many new generations of various musical gharanas like Shafqat Ali Khan of Shamcharasi Gharana teaches music at Harvard; Rahat Fateh Ali has almost moved to Bollywood. Similarly, sons of Patiala gharana have gone into pop music and again in India because apparently much of the Pakistani pop music is busy singing naats. The fact that these musicians lack an audience or the machinery required to promote their work in their own homeland is unfortunate.
And then there is this other kind of theater that is now readily available on DVDs. The nudity of women is less alarming than the rather crass humor, which is often casteist, sexist and promotes violence. And perhaps this is why the word vulgar has its roots in the Latin word for the public or the common people.
Oscar Wilde, over a century ago, said: ‘death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away’. Well, in some parts of the world things haven’t moved on much from his times.
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Ammara Ahmad is one of the editors of Viewpoint, she tweets at @AmmaraTiger |
