Pakistani popular music: A call to reform in the public sphere

ABSTRACT

Pakistani popular music has a long trajectory of protest which has denounced the oppressive tendencies of democratic governments as well as military dictatorships. Exploring the idea of popular music as a viable discourse for sociopolitical reform, this paper analyzes the music of three Pakistani bands: Junoon, Beygairat brigade and Ali Gul Pir. Building upon Habermas’s idea of public sphere and its transformative potential, this paper posits that Junoon, Beygairat brigade and Ali Gul Pir use self-fashioning, visual dialectics and media presence to promote consciousness raising. In doing so, these Pakistani bands are recreating the public sphere by propagating an ‘expressive culture’, which allows common people to judge what they have heard, and to participate in the process of making meaning. This paper then establishes the critical significance of Pakistani popular music in creating an ‘expressive culture’ and advocating sociopolitical justice, economic equity and gender equality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Non-English words have been italicized, except when used in direct quotes or names.

2. Beygairat brigade can be translated in English as the ‘dishonorable brigade.’ It becomes a subversive title that offers a powerful denunciation of the idea of gairat or honor in Pakistani society and the insidious ways in which the term is employed against women and minorities. Deeply entrenched in the vernacular of a misogynistic and militaristic society, the idea of gairat has become debatable. While the notion of gairat has multiple meanings and the term is essentially gender neutral, in Pakistan, it has become the exclusive domain of powerful men. Leading satirist and journalist, Nadeem Farooq Paracha argues that the guardians of gairat have mixed fanatical religiosity, jingoistic nationalism, and journalistic sensationalism with the concept of honor to hijack the Pakistani nation. Through the parodic act of self-naming themselves Beygairat brigade, the band not only lambasts the powerful men in Pakistani society but also criticize the society for its ideological confusion and rampant corruption.

3. The popularity of these musical acts is based on their successful amalgamation of mass appeal and social criticism. These musicians have challenged the status quo by broaching issues like religious extremism, corruption, violence, censorship, abuse of power and lack of accountability in the Pakistani context, subsequently initiating critical conversations in the public and virtual spaces.

4. We will provide the English translations of the song titles only once. Through the rest of the article, the songs will be referred to by their Urdu names.

5. For more information see, Maqsood Ahmad Shaheen, ‘Use of social networks and information seeking behavior of students during political crises in Pakistan: A case study,’ The International Information and Library Review 40, 2008. 142–147.

6. Habermas argues that the public sphere is defined by different forms of social capital, which can be described as interactions amongst people and their subsequent inclination to value reciprocity, trust, and cooperation. Social capital is most needed when societies are facing conflict and uncertainty. For further details see Jürgen Habermas, ‘Further reflections on the Public Sphere,’ in Craig Calhoun ed. Habermas and the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992), 421–461.

7. In Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, Junoon means passion or obsession. The name was chosen to reflect the band’s objective of using music to confront the repressive political, social, and economic realities of the Zia and Bhutto governments. In short, the members of Junoon saw themselves as ‘musical guerillas’ (Levine 15).

8. Refer to video link in the works cited section.

9. In filmmaking, a montage is an editing technique in which shots are juxtaposed in an often fast-paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of information in a relatively short period (Andre Bazin 7).

10. According to a report by Sustainable Development Policy Institute 58.7 million people in Pakistan are living in multidimensional poverty with 46 percent of rural population and 18 percent of urban households falling below the poverty line. http://tribune.com.pk/story/675805/sdpi-report-58-7m-pakistanis-living-below-poverty-line/.

11. Robert D (Bullard) argues that environmental racism posits that the poor are disproportionately exposed to unsafe and toxic environments (3).

12. The translation is our own.

13. In December 1996, the song as well as the video of ‘Ehtesaab’ (accountability) was banned by PTV on the pretext that it might destabilize a country already on the brink of elections.

14. The band has been banned, their phones tapped, their homes searched by the police and they have received death threats. The Benazir Bhutto-led government in 1990 completely banished them from the state airwaves. The boys held on, with a conviction largely derived from their musical creativity, and from the love the Junoon is (the fans) had for them (Salil Subedi).

15. A subgenre of punk music, Muslim Punk comprised mainly of young Muslim artists who reject the traditionalist definitions of Islam. Muslim Punk was originally inspired by the idea of Taqwacore conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores.

For more information see, Michael Muhammad Knight, The Taqwacores (NY: Autonomedia), 2004.

16. Refer to Beygairat brigade’s video link provided in works cited.

17. Abdul Majeed argues that ‘gairat is an Urdu word that usually means honor or pride. There is no universal definition of gairat; it roughly means the sense of belonging.’ If a person goes against certain norms he/she loses this sense of belonging and is considered to have defiled honor thus becoming dishonorable. The band’s name Beygairat brigade humorously engages with this idea to critique what Nadeem Farooq Paracha calls Pakistan’s ‘gairat brigade’, a set of powerful politicians, military dictators, preachers, and journalists who exploit the notion of gairat. According to Paracha, these influential people control, surveillance, and discipline the masses by ‘treating them as children whom they can mould into becoming the ideal ghairatmand Pakistani.’ In the light of this discussion, it becomes clears that the name Beygairat brigade is a vehement critique of such powerful individuals, an idea which is in sync with the philosophy of the song ‘aalu anday’.

18. The translation is our own.

19. Taseer, who considered the blasphemy laws as a form of religious persecution, was murdered in broad daylight by his then body guard, Mumtaz Qadri. Religious zealots declared Qadri a national hero worthy of praise for his courage and piety. The issue garnered international media attention and was hotly debated in Pakistan, but the laws remain in place to this day.

20. Nazila Ghanea-Hercock argues that the Ahmadiyya have a radically different prophetology from other Sunni Muslims regarding its interpretation of the idea of the finality of prophethood. However, Hercock argues that the ‘theological differences cannot be singled out as the only factor leading to the systematic and continuing oppression of the Ahmaddiya community.’ She argues that the manipulation of these theological differences by the doctrinal forces for gaining the masses’ support and vote was evident in the politics of the post-independence state of Pakistan, resulting in the Pakistani government yielding to the demands of religious groups to declare the Ahmaddiyya a non-Muslim minority, resulting in what Hercock describes as the ‘state-sponsored and state-tolerated persecution’ of the group (97).

21. The pithy short placards sum up the tussle that exists between powerful leaders like Nawaz Shareef and military commanders like Kayani, the fundamentalist elements that haunt burgeoning political parties like PTI, the deadly combination of Islam and military that existed during General Zia’s regime, and the notorious relationship that exists between Pakistan and the United States.

22. Near the end of the video, Saeed holds a placard that reads, in English, ‘This video is sponsored by Zionists.’ The placard satirizes the tendency of the Pakistani nation to perpetually (and at times factitiously) blame Israel, India, U.S, and other western powers for all the local and global challenges that Pakistan is faced with, thereby reducing Pakistan to the status of a perpetual victim. The yahoodi sazish [Zionist conspiracy] has therefore become a populist phrase in Pakistan fueling conspiracy theories, political controversies, historical myths, and collective paranoia. At times, the reference to Zionist conspiracy is humorously employed in progressive circles to denote that the blame has been shifted to an invisible ‘foreign power’ and in the process Pakistani individuals and institutions have absolved themselves of their responsibility.

23. Amy Gutman and Dennis Thompson contend that Habermas’s concept of deliberative democracy can be defined as a form of government in which free and equal citizens (and their representatives), justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future (141).

24. Refer to Ali Gul Pir’s video link in works cited.

25. The wadera and feudal system have critical implications for the social, political, and economic dimensions of Pakistani society as reflected in the following views: On the one hand, economists like S. Akbar Zaidi assert that feudalism is a politically expedient term used by critics that reduces the scrutiny to the complex production processes, labor organizations and non-economic factors responsible for Pakistan’s multitudinous problems. However, in contrast, columnist and Defence Secretary Ayesha Siddiqua strongly argues that Pakistan remains ‘feudal’ because high symbolic value is ascribed to land and the military and upper classes remain eager to acquire land holdings as well as adopt feudal attitudes (Siddiqua in Anas 65) Moreover, a look at provincial and national assemblies shows that they remain populated and heavily influenced by large land holders. Another perspective defines Pakistan as ‘feudal’, not in the European historical sense, but in the sense that powerful persons appear to dominate and overwhelm institutions, which happens time and again in both urban and rural settings. Ishrat Husain argues that the feudal norms have spilled over to bureaucratic and industrial sectors, reinforcing an ‘elitist growth model’ in which most benefits from ‘development’ accrue to a narrow group (Husain in Anas 62). Anas Malik, Political Survival in Pakistan: Beyond Ideology. New York: Routledge, 2010.

26. In an interview, Ali Gul Pir says, ‘That’s been the message of my music to Pakistan: learn to laugh at yourself and maybe, if we do, one day we will change.’ ‘Tete-a-tete with the man behind wadera ka beta.’ Express Tribune. June 18^th, 2012. http://tribune.com.pk/story/395420/tete-a-tete-with-the-man-behind-waderai-ka-beta/.

27. Although not addressing the role of expressive culture and entertainment in any elaborate manner, Habermas does offer, in his later revisions, a framework more sensitized to communicative forms and modes other than just verbal and argumentative. In Between Facts and Norms (369), he argues that: ‘From the perspective of democratic theory, the public sphere must, in addition, amplify the pressure of problems, that is, not only detect and identify problems but also convincingly and influentially thematise them, furnish them with possible solutions, and dramatize them.’

28. O Neill argues that it is Habermas’s view that it is only in the act of entering such discourse [rational public debate] as free and equal agents unconstrained by inequities of power and class, are citizens able to realize the principles of justice, autonomy, and truth (90).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saba Pirzadeh

Saba Pirzadeh is Assistant Professor of English and Environmental Literature at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). She obtained her PhD in English from Purdue University on Fulbright fellowship in 2016. Her research and teaching interests include ecocriticism, militarism, contemporary postcolonial literature, popular culture, and gender studies. Her work has been published in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment; South Asian Review, and Parergon.

Tehmina Pirzada

Tehmina Pirzada is an Assistant Professor of English at the Lahore School of Economics. She completed her Ph.D. in English from Purdue University on a Fulbright fellowship in 2017. Her research focuses on depictions of Muslim girlhood in South Asian fictional, cinematic and popular narratives. Her work has been published in the Journal of Girlhood Studies, South Asian Review and Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (Taylor and Francis).