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IF there’s one thing all of us know about our country, it is that the state of Pakistan only gets something done when it wants to. Rules, requirements, directives, all are routinely bypassed as a matter of expedience — until someone powerful gets bugged.
So, for example, there are film censor boards that go through every film to be screened within their jurisdiction for the suitability of scenes for a Pakistani audience (our sensibilities are, after all, so famously easily ruffled). The cuts the censor boards decree must be followed. In reality, however, enforcement of this rule is patchy.
Consider the case of the Bollywood film Gunday, that played in Pakistan last year. The Central Board of Film Censors, which deals with foreign films, required two scenes removed: one focusing on the army during the 1971 Pakistan-India war, the other a sizzling dance number. The two scenes were absent in the version of the film screened in Islamabad. But the version that played in Lahore excluded only the Pakistan Army scene; the dance number remained intact. The latter version is what played across, at the very least, in Punjab.
So when the state went to the extent of banning three films in the recent past, one of which had already been playing in the cinemas for a fortnight, there must have been something in them that really caused a stir in official circles. Something touched a raw nerve.
Three films have been axed by the censors recently.
The first to be axed was the domestically produced feature film Maalik, the certification of screening of which was withdrawn on the basis, among other points of objection, that it showed certain Karachi communities in a “derogatory manner” which could lead to unrest, and that it portrayed the fictitious Sindh chief minister, and the police force, as corrupt.
This movie’s plot follows a well-known trope. A feudal landlord, who abuses his authority, preys on the powerless and is aided and abetted by morally bankrupt law enforcers, etc, rises to a position of high political power and, well, continues to abuse the system. One upright man decides that he can’t take it anymore and raises the muscle to try and fix the system, even if doing so means that he must take the law into his own hands.
Shortly after Maalik was read the riot act, another was to follow: Among the Believers, a 2015 documentary that follows Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, that was due to be screened at the Foundation for Arts, Culture and Education (Face) Film Festival in Islamabad. It was shot after the stand-off between the seminary and the state in 2007, and the camera follows Ghazi as he tours various madressahs around the country, explaining his group’s ideology and purpose.
Certainly, as the censors pointed out, the film contains “dialogues which projects the negative image of Pakistan in the context of ongoing fighting against extremism and terrorism [sic].” Because what it illustrates, very clearly and through providing a counterpoint pinned not just on the progressive discourse in the country but also realities such as extreme poverty, the lack of resources and people’s general helplessness, is that when the state creates a vacuum by not providing welfare and opportunities, that void can be filled by any element, regardless of how mischief-oriented it is.
People, this film underscores, need their children fed and educated (to take just one of the points raised); if there is no governmental support, then to the madressahs they will go, there to be imbued with troublesome ideologies as those running these centres see fit. Having seen the film, I’m not surprised it was banned; it is enough of an indictment on state machinery that is in equal parts inept and uncaring to make even the most carapaced squirm.
The third film to be axed, which was also due to be screened at the Face festival, is Besieged in Quetta, which according to the news reports sheds light on the plight of the city’s Hazara population. The censor board’s letter said that it “promoted ethnicity and sectarianism [sic]”.
I have not seen this film, but I am well aware of the awful situation of the Shia Hazara community; it is under direct attack by the militant/terrorist/sectarian nexus, having suffered blow after blow. Any film telling the story of these hapless people would, I assume, also serve as an indictment on a state that has not only failed miserably to protect them, but has also allegedly played a role in empowering their assailants.
The common thread in these three movies, then, is how they illustrate Pakistan’s decades’ long history of mismanagement, ethical corruption, and insufficiencies. One can say they are unfit for public consumption in Pakistan — or one can say they depict discomfort-creating realities. More power to them, then, if they make those at the helm of political leadership squirm; unpleasant facts cannot, after all, be simply wished away.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2016
