August 14, 2003

Ahmad Fraz Khan reports on the ongoing battle between stage dancers in Lahore and a bureaucracy that is keen to wipe out what it deems as vulgarity

The entertainment industry in Pakistan has always been on the receiving end, mainly from ideological quarters. But of late, it has suffered one of its worst blows even by Pakistani standards. Unfortunately, the pressure this time has come from the most unexpected quarters; the bureaucracy, which seems to have become society’s moral inspector along side other kinds of administration.

For the last one year, commercial theatre, the most popular form of entertainment in Lahore — the hub of live performance in the country after Karachi industry was closed down because of continued violence - has been subjected to varying bureaucratic interpretations of what constitutes “vulgarity and obscenity” on the stage. At present, at least three provincial and district government departments are busy trying to “purify stage performance.”

Dance, which of late became the most dominant form of stage performance and a great crowd-puller, has become their latest victim. This is in spite of the fact that dance on stage is perfectly legal activity, which enjoys cover of Section 18 of the ‘73 Constitution that allows unhindered functioning of all the legal professions. In addition to that, the Lahore High Court, on more than one occasion, has upheld artists’ right to dance and dismissed even appeals against its decisions.

However, the bureaucracy in the Punjab, undeterred by the legality of dance performances, has taken it upon itself to knock both art and artists in line. The Punjab Art Council was first to have a go at the artists last year. It, along with the police, raided most of the city theatres, booked and had many artists arrested on being “obscene and vulgar.” But, the then secretary information intervened after the event and dance was allowed “according to the script requirement.”

They soon realized that creating dance requirements was hardly a matter of addition of a few lines in the script and a frantic research for new tactics was launched. Things went on smoothly for hardly a few weeks before the Punjab Home Department swung into action. Its representative were now sitting in front of the stage and trying to interpret what was “obscene and vulgar” under section 3 of Dramatic Performance Act, 1876 and regulating the stage performance, which hitherto was prerogative of the Punjab Arts Council — a subsidiary of the Information Department.

One can only wonder how the Home Department, with entirely different mandate, could and should get into setting rules of cultural policy. Though its predominant position in the province carried it through, but its power to ban dance was clipped by the Lahore High Court, which lifted the ban on some of the dancers imposed by it and declared the dance a perfectly legal activity.

The district management of Lahore is making the third and current attempt after the failure of the Home Department. In spite of nominating an official team to censor script, and another group, comprising members from the DCO office, Information and the Home Department, monitoring the rehearsals and watching performance throughout the spell, it again saw red.

Alleging that there was dichotomy in what was written in the script and what was shown on the stage, it moved to book two women on obscenity charges, and all theatre halls in the city were told to stop dance performances. They were further asked to either get no-objections certificates (NOCs) from the DCO office — hitherto a prerogative of the Punjab Arts Council — or immediately pull their shutters down. Later, after some negotiations, they were given three months to complete the formalities.

One of the drama producers took the matter to the Lahore High Court, which again stayed the orders of the DCO. Some of theatres were subsequently given the permission to start performance but dance was “deleted” from the script as it could not be banned according to the Court’s ruling. Both parties are now awaiting the return of the Chief Justice of Lahore High Court from leave to settle the matter.

Apart from high moral grounds taken by the bureaucracy to purify the stage performances, the women tell a sordid tale of blackmail and offers. Sobia Jabeen (Khudboo) says that she was offered the “couch” by a senior member of the current bureaucratic set-up of Lahore after he saw one of her performances on stage. She believes her refusal led to her being booked on the obscenity charges.

Other victims charged with obscenity also chimed in with stories of their own. “It is very difficult for girls to keep every one happy in the bureaucracy,” says another artist. “We get such offers almost every night and an individual refusal causes problem for the whole industry. Look at the hypocrisy of the bureaucracy; it is the bureaucrats who take us to all official functions for performances. If they take us for dance, then it is seen as culture and art but if we do it on our own, it is vulgarity. How can one bridge this kind of hypocritical gap in one’s behaviour?” she lamented.

“We perform live in front of hundreds of people. Are they not Muslims and do they not have a sense of vulgarity and obscenity,” claims another dancer.

“Our performance is public which can be scrutinized against those private mujras arranged by high-ups of this country. Why should a public performance, which is open to societal pressures, be banned like that against the law of the land? The way bureaucracy has gone after a few girls speaks volumes about the reasons they hunt,” she claimed.

“When the government itself was teaching dance at its much trumpeted Alhamrah Academy of Performing Arts, how can the move to restrict dance at the stage,” asks Arshad Chaudhry, a drama producer and one of the litigants with the DCO Lahore. “It is allowed in films, private parties and every other conceivable place, so why has the stage become an exception?” he asked. “All songs, which have been objected to being vulgar are part of films and cleared by the censor board. Why do they become too obscene to be performed?”

“It is tragic to note that an act, which was passed in 1876 is still the ruling law for artists,” laments Iqbal Rizvi, a producer from Lahore. “The government, instead of updating it, has allowed bureaucracy to interpret it subjectively and unleash its whimsical preferences onto the stage. Life has changed a lot, and so should the laws governing it. It is unimaginable how the bureaucracy can intervene with impunity in such a legally clear genre of art,” he said.

But the group opposing the dance performance says that it was not against it as such, but rather they worried that its side effects are a disaster for stage performance. “There is nothing wrong with dance if kept within certain limits,” says Nasim Vicky, a well known artist. “People come in drunk and behave like mujra-watchers. In the same state, they stop respecting artists and new waves of indecency hits the performance. Abusing and name calling by the audience have become norms in many theatre halls, and it will worsen if allowed uninterrupted.”

According to Asif Iqbal, another person opposed to stage dances, those producers who started inviting unknown dancers on the stage in order to oblige them and save money created the problem. “The women performers did indulge in obscenity and vulgarity. Now the trouble is that if dances are allowed, no one would be able to check these producers and girls and the whole community would pay the price. Who is going to respect us if we are held on vulgarity charges every other day,” he asked?

Tracing the history of the dispute, a well known artist, who refused to be named, said that the whole trouble started when drama became personalized and monotonous with the advent of a new breed of comedians in the late eighties. A handful of actors dominated the scene well into the 90s on the strength of their wit and spontaneity. They kicked the scriptwriter and director out because they did not need them.

Slowly, in absence of any written script, drama became monotonous because all those witty remarks and jokes were repeated ad nauseam. “As people started deserting the stage, they fell back on vulgar and street jokes, which saved them from repetition of dialogue but resulted in a new era of vulgarity on stage” he said.

People stopped coming with families and the audience was reduced to a certain class of people that soon got bored with those jokes and demanded something new. Dance fit in perfectly as it catered to the new demand.

“Naturally, a few girls, known for their dance skills, started dominating the stage and all those who had ruled the stage for the last one decade were marginalized. The old school could not afford this, both financially and personally. They harnessed their conspiratorial skills and moved their sources in the bureaucracy. Dance was their natural target. These girls came into their own for the first time in commercial theatre’s 30-year history, and because of immense popularity and newly-found financial strength, started refusing bureaucratic demands and made themselves a ready target.” He concluded: “The rest is history.”

“If one scratches the surface, he is bound to realize that underlying issues behind the whole dispute are economic or personal,” says advocate Nadeem Kausar. “There is no illegality involved because the law is absolutely clear. Those opposing dance are doing it because they fear a loss of income and reputation or failure of the stage managers to regulate dresses and gestures of a few artists. No one has every objected to dances of known artists because they do not indulge in any extra activities on the stage.

“Those in the bureaucracy should try to regulate dance, not kill it for whatever reason because they strangulate dance, for moral or personal reasons, is not for the bureaucracy to do, but a policy matter belonging to the government. This is only form of cheap entertainment available to common man and stopping it could cause further social problems then solve them,” he said.

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