THESE days Karachi’s cinema houses are in a quandary. Ever since the tensions between India and Pakistan escalated on the border things are as unfavorable on the cultural front as they are in other fields between the two countries. But the city’s cinema owners and film exhibitors have always been known to speak their mind, though the nature of their requirements and demands have varied.

Fifty years back, exhibitors and importers of foreign films in Karachi were not happy with the Film Censor Board. In the beginning of 1967, the board came up with a censor policy with which the importers disagreed. They tried to convince the policymakers that it would hurt the entertainment sector but it cut no ice with them. On Jan 9, 11 cinema houses in the city that screened Hollywood movies remained closed in protest against what they called ‘rigid and unrealistic policy of the Film Censor Board and shortage of foreign films’. The importers and exhibitors of foreign films had been demanding to set up a regional censor board in Karachi for the imported motion pictures. Their argument was: lately the censor board had become so strict that it allowed ‘nothing for the entertainment of public’ to be screened. Well, we do have a regional board now and we all know about its performance.

Other entertainment industries in the city were also in a spot of bother at the time. On Jan 14, it was revealed that in Karachi the radio industry utilised 40 per cent of its total installed capacity of restrictive and inadequate import licences for raw materials, spare parts and other equipment.

Speaking of industries, on Jan 11 the Institute of Development Economics published a report in this newspaper saying 85.7 per cent of large-scale industries and commercial establishments in the city owed their existence to immigrants, mostly from India, who made 92 per cent of the city’s total entrepreneurs. In small-scale enterprises, the share of the migrant community from India was 70.8 per cent. Among the managerial groups, they had a presence of 81.5 per cent. People from other countries accounted for 14.8 per cent. Of the 27 firms only one had a manager from upcountry. Occupational mobility was found to be greater among the immigrants mainly due to Pakistan’s coming into being, and profit motives and better wages were the main economic factors.

This was the kind of precise analysis in those days that kept the city on its toes. Here’s another example from an entirely different sphere of life. Can anyone imagine that in the 1960s even how to carry poultry was considered as part of the citizens’ education? On Jan 10, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) through a campaign advised the public not to carry poultry head-down or hanging off the cycle bars. Not just that, the superintendent of the society warned that offenders were liable to be prosecuted under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

So, any laxity to do with food was not tolerated by those who ran the city. That week, the authorities also came down hard on those who had increased the price of vanaspati ghee. On Jan 11, a meeting was held among the city deputy commissioner, deputy director of food and members of the Pakistan Vanaspati Manufacturers Association at which it was decided that ration shops would supply ghee at the fixed rate of Rs22 for a 10lb tin. Ah, the good old sasta zamana!

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2017