Copyright TAKE on art Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Published in TAKE Fiction (July - December 2017) fction.

Iftikhar Dadi The Smuggler: A Mural by Sadequain Copyright TAKE on art Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Published in TAKE Fiction (July - December 2017)

fiction

The story goes that smuggles commodities; esp. I did not have the Sadequain (1930 – 1987), one who makes a trade or opportunity to go through living in Karachi, was practice of smuggling.” the labyrinthine Excise exhausted and in poor Its frst usage in the OED, and Customs regulations health. He was offered a from a 1661 proclamation, of the British colonial stay at a government rest vividly captures its outlaw era, the manner in which house at Gadani in 1958, aura: “A sort of leud (sic.) these were inherited by As an artist, Iftikhar Dadi so that he could recover. people called Smuckellors, the independent nation- collaborates with Elizabeth Dadi. Their practice investigates popular media’s Gadani is located in the never heard of before states in South Asia from construction of memory, borders, and the late disordered times, the mid-20th century, identity in contemporary globalisation, province of Balochistan and the productive capacities of on the Arabian Sea, a who make it their trade... and how economic urban informalities. Exhibitions include Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil; few kilometers west of to steal and defraud liberalisation from the Asia-Pacifc Triennial, Brisbane, Karachi. It must have felt His Majesty of His 1990s onwards has Australia; Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool; Centre Georges Pompidou, quite remote from the city Customs.” This early transformed these via Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Whitechapel Gallery, London; back then. The western modern European origin regimes of globalisation. Dhaka Art Summit; and the Offce coastline of Pakistan has of ‘smuggler’ underscores Nor have I looked into of Contemporary Art Norway, Oslo. Iftikhar Dadi is an associate professor long been infamous for how regulation according journalistic accounts of in Cornell University’s Department of History of Art. Research interests underdevelopment and to modern normative the vast phenomenon of include modern and contemporary art, for unregulated trade laws rendered this activity smuggling. A thorough and popular culture, with emphasis on South and West Asia. He is the activities with West Asia. as being inextricably study of this issue is clearly author of Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia (2010) and the associated with disorder past due. edited monograph Anwar Jalal Shemza For many decades, part of and fraud. (2015). Dadi serves on the advisory the beach that is walking Nevertheless, the spectral boards of Bio-Scope: South Asian Screen Studies, and the Hong Kong distance from the rest fgure of the ‘smuggler’ ● based organization Asia Art Archive. He is the director of The Institute for house has been a major has been alive and well Comparative Modernities at Cornell site for shipbreaking. in fction and cinema University. Trade across the Indian Oil pollution stains and Ocean has been ongoing — from the Hossain detritus from this activity since antiquity, and has Miya character in Manik impact the coastline far of course dramatically Bandopadhyay’s novel beyond the shipbreaking transformed during Padma Nadir Majhi (1936), area. The VASL Artists’ the past two centuries. to the flms of Amitabh Collective held two Smuggling constitutes Bachchan’s ‘angry young workshops at the rest the pharmakon of legalised man’ period such as house in 2001 and 2006. trade, being both its Deewar (1975) whose The rest house, which poison as well as its mythos was inspired has been renovated over remedy. Drugs have long by the life of Bombay- the years, bears no trace been associated with based smuggler Haji of Sadequain’s prior smuggling outward from Mastan (1926-1994). This residence. South Asia, from the era mediatised smuggler- of the Opium trade to the fgure offers access to ● rise of heroin exports from new life worlds, forbidden the Afghan borderlands pleasures, and heightened Smuggler. The word a century later. But sensory delights. conjures up visions of smuggling into South Asia During the nationalist illicit desire, of a shadowy extended to desirable world peopled with eras of the mid-to later- foreign commodities 20th century, when newly characters, who are both — that might be illegal part of everyday society, independent nations were (according to state law), serious about encouraging and function beyond its but are perfectly licit (in rules and morality. import-substitution and terms of widespread social local production, the drab Left side image: The Oxford English acceptability), as Willem locally-made commodities Sadequain, Smuggler, mural, van Schendel and Itty 1958, at Gadani Rest House. Dictionary (online) defnes stood little chance against Photo credit: Sultan Ahmed Abraham have noted. Naqvi the term as “one who the allure of the imported.

TAKE ON INDIA 027 Issue 2, Volume 3, July-December, 2017 Copyright TAKE on art Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Published in TAKE Fiction (July - December 2017)

fiction

Sadequain, Smuggler, mural, 1958, at Gadani Rest House. Photo credit: Sultan Ahmed Naqvi

Bhupen Khakhar’s The present location of an angle that departs present and the future is witty story, Phoren Soap, The Smuggler is unknown from state ideology and premised, perhaps, on new vividly evokes this ethos. even to those ‘elders’ with affrms the potential for modalities of exchange In Karachi, the khepiya, whom one usually consults human achievement and smuggling across our usually a small-player, regarding such matters. unconstrained by congealed institutional has long served as an And of course, there is no bourgeois morality. and mental borders. agent who made available offcial archive that can The Gadani period was ‘phoren soap,’ electronics, be relied upon. On my crucially formative for and other commodities. request, these photographs Sadequain’s later career, These are traders were kindly provided as he forged his mature connected with the formal by members of the pictorial vocabulary from and informal markets of Sadequain family, Sultan his encounter with the the city, as well as with Ahmed Naqvi and Sibtain cactus forms growing the resilient networks of Naqvi. They probably around this site, and which hawala currency exchanges date back to when the I have analysed in my scattered across the world. mural was unveiled in book Modernism and the Art 1958. The dark curtain of Muslim South Asia (2010). Some of these networks that runs across its have been alleged to length might have been link the larger and more installed for the unveiling ● powerful underworlds ceremony, or perhaps used of Pakistan and India to cover up the mural Sadequain’s mural has through extensive from time to time. disappeared from popular fnancial, property, and consciousness — as if smuggling relationships What would excise and smuggled out of history negotiated in Dubai. And customs offcials have itself — metonymic the proliferation of formal made of the work? The of the wider state of and informal media photographs do not offer our consciousness, of industries in South Asia enough detail to glean the fractured and truncated has amplifed parasitic mural’s iconic or narrative relationships to history exchanges between meaning. Sadequain, and memory. Pakistan and India, a singular fgure, was which Ravi Sundaram never a spokesman for South Asia traded goods has discussed in Pirate the state, even though and ideas incessantly with Modernity: Delhi’s Media he received signifcant Africa, West Asia, and Urbanism (2010). support from government Southeast Asia over the institutions. Indeed, much longue durée. A reanimation of these relations for the ● of his work develops at

TAKE ON INDIA 028 Issue 2, Volume 3, July-December, 2017