An incessant series of raids by the Punjab government on popular theatres has rendered the future of hundreds of artistes uncertain and bleak.
The local administration has accused theatre managers of spreading vulgarity and obscenity through suggestive dances by female performers wearing indecent outfits. “Such performances inflame the public’s passions,” say the authorities.
Recently, the government booked dozens of artists, mostly female entertainers, for alleged bawdy humour and “dancing in a provocative manner.” They were later released after judiciary’s intervention.
“These theatres were discreetly working as brothels. We apprehended a few girls in a highly objectionable state and closed down the theatres under the Drama Act. We have not done anything unlawful,” claims the District Coordination Officer, Khalid Sultan.
According to Sultan, the girls were performing a lewd dance clad in undergarments. But the theatre community hotly contradicts Sultan’s claims. “No girl was dancing in underwear. None of us indulge in immoral acts. The officials are misusing their powers because we have refused to fulfil their immoral demands,” declares Khushbu Khan, an actress who was booked under the criminal law.
Khushbu goes on to level an even more serious charge. “An influential official, Zahid Aziz, tried to rape me. Since I resisted and foiled his efforts, he is vindictive. That’s the story behind the raids. It is an attempt to leave us unemployed,” she declares.
Renowned stage-cum-TV actor Khalid Abbas Dar points at a murky angle to the sordid drama. “Theatres are raided and closed down when we refuse to provide private entertainment to government officials. The influential officials want exclusive entertainment every night at their home,” he alleges.
“As long as we keep on arranging it for them, we remain safe,” Dar adds.
The Executive Coordination Officer Zahid Aziz dismisses such accusations as “a pack of lies,” maintaining that they were concocted to defame him. He alleges that the arrested artistes are hoping to evade legal proceedings, by dragging in his name.
“Closing down theatres in the name of obscenity makes no sense. The law has yet to establish a measured definition of ‘obscenity.’ (Besides), dance is allowed in films. It is also allowed in red light areas where women dancers pay a license fee,” protests a theatre producer Arshad Ali.
Ali has the support of theatre-goers. “The dances shown on private TV channels are more provocative than the ones performed in theatres. Even some of the songs aired on state-sponsored PTV are more vulgar than those seen in theatres,” says stage buff, Yousaf Kamal.
Kamal has a point. Not all theatre groups stage C-grade plays made on shoe-string budgets. The majority cater to families and attract decent audiences. There are theatres that show bawdy plays, replete with double entendres, but they operate on the fringes.
Many of the plays revolve around social evils such as dowry, prostitution, injustice against women, feudalism, law and order and so on.
Hawwa ki beti; Moonday Sharartee; and Shartia Mitthay are some of the hit productions of Lahore theatres. Their videos are sold in the thousands, and still fly off the shelves.
Theatre-goers say it is Lahore’s liberal heritage that has made it Pakistan’s cultural capital. One cannot talk about the ancient city’s culture without including the theatre, sex workers and the film industry.
This isn’t the first raid under General Pervez Musharraf’s supposedly progressive regime. Last year, some theatres were closed down for allegedly presenting provocative dances. The artistes and management had to approach the courts for relief.
The word ‘obscenity’ has become a conundrum in Pakistan. For certain officials at the education department, some of the great works of English literature taught at Punjab University (country’s leading educational institution) are vulgar. They have singled out several texts, including Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels as containing offensive sexual connotations that were deemed “vulgar”. The use of word “rape” in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock has been labelled as obscene. The Punjab University has scrapped them from the syllabus.
“Rape of the Lock for heaven’s sake, is a comic epic and the rape in it is a mock-heroic expression for cutting of a belle’s lock (of hair) by a bean. I wish the university teacher had gone through the poem just once to realize that it is the best account of the psycho-sexual (vulgar?) complexes of the elite of Pope’s England. If Pope’s work is not safe from their the narrow-minded bureaucrats, how could the theatre artists escape their shenanigans?” questioned Amir Mustafa, a citizen.
The Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice recently ruled in three petitions against a ban on stage dances that there was no law that could impose a ban on performing dances on stage.
Chief Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain while disposing of the petitions sent his ruling to the district coordination officer (DCO) for his reconsideration of the matter in light of the law. “No order or notification by any government functionary could hold grounds unless it is supported by the law and the government should refrain from eliminating opportunities for public entertainment,” the court observed. The court said obscenity case against the Lahore Theatre was filed at the instigation of the SHO of concerned police station because his request for free passes wasn’t granted by the theatre management.
The LHC observed there was a need to make laws that could define obscene and cognizable offences. “Until such laws are framed, courts would continue to set aside these orders issued time to time by various government functionaries,” the court observed.
On the other hand, Aziz is adamant not to allow dance recitals in theatres. Defying the LHC ruling flagrantly, Aziz has denied giving Nargis permission to perform four dances in a new drama scheduled to be staged on Eidul Fitr.
An incessant series of raids by the Punjab government on popular theatres has rendered the future of hundreds of artistes uncertain and bleak.
